CONNECT WITH MOTHER NATURE

Hill Country nature preserve steps up conservancy efforts with new wildlife plans

The 11-acre park opened to the public in 2022.

Photo courtesy of Twistleaf.

A Hill Country park is getting some new features and wildlife this year. The Horseshoe Bay Nature Park, located 60 miles northwest of Austin (about three-and-a-half hours from Dallas), will be expanding its conservancy this year through the use of new signage, bee populations, and owls.

The 11-acre park was doomed to become a high-density development by investors until the local community gathered to create HSB Park Inc., a nonprofit organization that would save the land instead. The park opened to the public last year and has since evolved from its fragile state to a place where residents can get closer to nature.

In its first year of operation, the park planted $1,500 worth of Texas wildflower seeds, such as Indian blanket, sleepy daisy, standing cypress, and more. The park also received a $17,571 grant from the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) and Pedernales Electric Cooperative (PEC) to install 15 interpretive signs with QR codes around the park.

Since its opening, naturalists were able to identify over 235 species of plants and wildlife in the area, which would have never been possible without the local community’s dedication to conservation. Bird watchers identified several native Texas birds such as herons, orchard orioles, bluebirds, and northern cardinals.

Horseshoe Bay Nature Park’s plans for 2023 are to install new signage educating visitors about the park’s wildlife geology, water conservation, and plants along a half-mile walking trail.

They also plan to introduce honey bees throughout the region and work towards attracting screech owls to two constructed owl boxes.

More information about the park can be found on their website.

nature parks hill country wildlife conservancy horseshoe bay nature park

Uptown News

Euro-style Hotel St. Germain in Uptown Dallas closed after 33 years

Google Maps / Flashback Dallas

Hotel St. Germain

A darling boutique hotel in Uptown Dallas that was Dallas' first B&B has closed: Hotel St. Germain, which occupied a turn-of-the-century home at 2516 Maple St., closed its doors and auctioned off its furnishings in an estate sale that took place November 8-10.

A friend of the family that owned the hotel confirmed that it had been closed for nearly a year, and that the property was recently sold to an undisclosed buyer who intends to maintain its lodging status.

It's in a prime location, since Maple Avenue is currently going through a major turnover from bumpy little street to the home of big projects like Maple Terrace, the 22-story residential tower at 3003 Maple Ave.

Hotel St. Germain was opened in 1991 by businesswoman and former New Orleans resident Claire Heymann, the granddaughter of a Paris antiques dealer, who did exactly what preservationists dream about: She took a crumbling old home built in 1900 and transformed it, giving it a stunning makeover and filling it with fine art and antiques: one-of-a-kind sleigh beds, spindly antique desks, amber wall sconces, vintage bathroom fittings, and sparkling crystal chandeliers.

The property had only seven rooms, each unique, and was Dallas' first bed-and-breakfast inn. It also had a quirky in-house restaurant featuring acclaimed chefs of the day such as William Guthrie.

It's disappointing to have missed the sale with its assortment of leaded glass windows, vintage sinks, chandeliers, and French antique furniture.

Flashback Dallas shares a history of the structure, and food writer Mark Stuertz (who co-authored Fork Fight!, the memoir by Pei Wei co-founder Mark Brezinski) wrote a great review of the restaurant in 1997, recounting its colorful past.

"Heymann discovered the property in the late '80s, then a foreclosed, boarded-up hovel facing a wrecking ball, while scouring the area between McKinney and Turtle Creek for an old house worthy of conversion into a small, stylish hotel similar to those she had visited on numerous jaunts to San Francisco," he wrote.

Heymann named it for the St. Germain area of Paris, and filled it with elegant furnishings, many from her antiques dealer mother. Stuertz called the result "an odd mix of romance, quaintness, European-style finery, and antique-collector busyness," "stuffed with fabrics fussily pleated, puddled, lashed and tasseled, as well as handsome furnishings seasoned with art deco accents and shabby chic touches."

The closure was due in part to the fact that Heymann has been suffering from Alzheimer's Disease and is in a nursing home.

Gary Bellomy, who worked at the hotel, posted an elegy on Facebook, calling her "one of the most complicated and brilliant women I have known."

"Hotel St. Germain, her mad, brilliant brainstorm joins the ranks of Dallas’ unique history," he said. "Many of you will mourn. It is unlikely we will ever see this level of French sophistication in this spot we call home."

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