Decorated with palatial panache

by Kay McKay Myers
photography by Al Rendon

Remember Watty Piper’s little book,The Little Engine That Could? It is a 60-year-old moralistic tale used to teach youngsters optimism and determination, and critics have labeled it a metaphor
for the American dream. The little steam engine met a challenge to redefine itself and meet a seemingly
insurmountable task — to accomplish a feat only a great big steam engine could.

In San Antonio we’ve found “the little house that could” languishing on a street in Olmos Park. Its owner, attorney Art Augustine, saw the potential in the diminutive, circa 1930s, two-bedroom, one bath cottage and envisioned a palatial little dwelling. Transforming the house would not be a simple task, but to the rescue
was interior designer Charles Forster, ASID, vice president of Orville Carr Associates Inc.

The home’s exterior is Texas flagstone, a treatment seen in abundance on homes large and small in the area. This made for a good structural foundation; however, the house’s flat little façade needed some depth, and thus commenced the addition of an entrance that pulled the façade forward and lent much needed definition to the home. Gaslights flank the porch, hearkening to a bygone era.

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