The Remarkable Reinvention of Hyde Park’s Historic Baker School
How a 1911 schoolhouse became a thriving creative and community hub in Austin
The Baker School in Hyde Park resembles something out of a vintage coming-of-age film; its yellow-brick walls, surrounded by wildflower bushes, contribute to its natural schoolhouse charm. But while lockers still line its hallways, few, if any, children are present. Instead, you will find everything from a photography studio to a public relations firm to a hunting apparel company inside the century-old school building.
Opened in 1911, the Baker School was an elementary school, a middle school and a high school before the Austin Independent School District began using it for administrative offices. During an auction in 2017, every bidder proposed tearing down the historical building, except for the founders of Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Tim and Karrie League. Seven years later, the building houses nearly 30 diverse businesses and organizations, including an espresso bar.
An emphasis on preservation
“Tim and Karrie League have always been preservationists,” says Richard Weiss, the lead architect on the project and founder of Weiss Architecture. “It would have been much easier to tear down the building…but we wanted to celebrate the history of the building and figure out a way to adaptively reuse it.”
During its long life, the building played a key role in the surrounding community. Between 1911 and 1995, thousands of students circled its hallways. The building also acted as a polling center and a filming location for several shows and films, including “Friday Night Lights.” The Leagues recognized this significant history and acquired the property — despite being low bidders.
The restoration process
But before businesses could move into the space, the Leagues and Weiss had a year and a half of renovations before them. Weiss said the extensive renovations were “less adding on and more removing decades of bad decisions.” After a grueling process of peeling back layer upon layer, they were able to preserve and replicate most of the original material of the building. In the five years since those initial renovations, they also replaced the roof and transformed weedy lawns into lush gardens, the boiler room into a coffee shop and the old sound stage into the Rosette, a hip performance venue.
During the renovation process, the Leagues discovered old yearbooks and got to connect with past students. Now, several photos from the yearbooks have been enlarged for display along the building’s hallways — an homage to the school’s extensive history.
Austin’s new collaborative workspace for creatives
Just like the yearbook photos, every object and photo lining the hallways tells a story – from vintage movie posters to film props, and the Leagues are giving the building a chance to tell new ones. With several offices rented out to the likes of a print-making studio, an archival video company, architects, interior designers, graphic designers and a public relations firm tightly connected to the film industry, it’s become a center for creatives. It’s also home to nonprofit organizations, such as the Women League of Voters, a nonpartisan, grassroots organization working to protect and expand voting rights; Travis Audubon, which promotes nature conservation through birding; and Austin Classical Guitar, which uses classical guitar education to bring positive change to communities across the nation.
Despite the flourishing business community, Karrie hopes that the property can become a hub for community gatherings. In 2021, Brian Knowles opened an espresso bar, Terrible Love, in an old boiler room adjacent to the main building. What started as a one-man show is now a thriving cafe with multiple employees and regulars — a picture of the neighborhood hot spot that the Leagues envisioned. Knowles soon hopes to open a wine bar in what used to be the band hall to appeal to the later crowd.
“It’s fun to be able to roll into work in the morning, get your coffee, and at the end of the day, instead of going home, you can catch a show at Austin Classical Guitar…and then you can go get some wine,” Karrie says. “I love that concept.”
Looking ahead
In 2023, the Baker School was added to the National Register of Historic Places — an action that would protect the building even if the Leagues no longer owned it.
“The Baker School lived so many lives, and the fact that it’s going to continue to do that is great for all of us,” Weiss says. “It’s continued to be a center of community for the neighborhood and Austin at large. To me, it’s the model of best practices for an old building like that — to get a new life.”
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