Welcome to Suburban2Urban, a journal of the revelations, challenges, and triumphs of the journey a couple experiences transforming themselves from longtime suburbanites to urban dwellers.
Along the way we move from owning the “house of our dreams” in Cordillera Ranch, outside of Boerne, to purchasing a small, historic house in the diverse historical district of Lavaca.
I am going to take you through our motivations for this major life change and our strive for a simpler life with less driving and clutter. Of course, to get to this simpler life is not quite so, well, simple.
A big part of the story entails the experience of renovating this historic house with no central air conditioning, no heat and badly in need of modernizing. To accomplish this is no simple feat, as you will see, particularly in this neighborhood. Boerne it isn’t.
I will save all of that, though, for future posts.
For now, let me tell you a little about this old house.
Named the Bippert-Jud House, it is registered as a San Antonio Exceptional Landmark. The house is a one-story stone settlement saltbox with a metal roof. The original house was about 1,000 square feet and when we bought it had a poorly constructed 500 square foot circa 1970s addition. Think disco, think polyester, think really bad.
Bippert-Jud was built on land previously owned by Sam Maverick. Maverick’s widow sold the land for $600 to Fritz Bippert in 1871. The house was built by Fritz in 1872 and he later sold it to Peter Jud in 1892. Peter’s son, Frank, bought it from him in 1904. During the late ‘50s the house was sold and turned into two rentals. Two brave, urban pioneers purchased the place in 1993 and returned it to a single family residence. Then, in February 2008 we became the sixth owner of the 137-year-old house.
Since the story has begun, I will take you back and forth in future posts from where we have been to where we are now. I hope you will ask questions and make comments along the way, and I would be happy to answer them.
It has been a fun, fascinating, and at times frustrating journey. I hope you will enjoy reading about it.
