Perspectives
My Visit
I first visited the Littlefield House in fall 2015. The house is surrounded by a low stone wall and a well-kept lawn. In the front is a massive tree as large as the mansion behind it. The dark, earthy tones of the exterior contrasted with all of the lightly colored Spanish Rennaissance and modern style buildings around it, letting you know that the house is from a different era all together, The towers added a sense of mystery and I was spell-bound. I was allowed to look inside and photograph the lavishly decorated first floor. The rooms were appropriately sized for the furniture, as if they were made with eachother in mind. At first, it seemed a dark, cavernous space until my guide opened up the shutters on the almost floor to cieling windows. Immediately, the gilded moulding sparkled and the rich textiles came to life. The rooms seemed too formal for everyday life, but the bright colors felt inviting and not as imposing as one would imagine a stately manor would.
From the Other Side with Charlie Henry
I sat down with Charie Henry, an Aerospace Engineering sophomore at the University of Texas, to find out the student perspective of the house. Charlie often passes the Littlefield House on his way to and from campus. "It's creepy," he said, It's so out of place for the university. I often wonder about the history of the building and why it's still there." Charlie also explained that he thought the landscaping complimented the house's aesthetic nicely, "The tree in front, combined with those towers, give you the feeling that Mr. Littlefield was really proud of keeping a nice house and that he was really rich." He went on to say that the house almost gives him "the feeling that somebody's watching you."
Haunted House
Much of the mystery surrounding the Littlefield House is the common knowledge amongst students and Austin residents that the ghost of Alice Tillar Littlefield haunts the home. One video highlighting the supposed haunted nature of the house also allows the viewer with a greater sense of what it is like to be inside the home of Major Littlefield. The video provides a nice perspective how how intricate the interior is, such as the staircase and wainscoating, and how the sitting room is decorated, highlingting the social purpose of the room as orginally inteded as as it is used today as an event space.
From the Alcalde
This article was written to highlight the home and life of George Washington Littlefield in relation to the University of Texas at Austin. In it, the article highlights how the building is set up and what some of the uses were. It was interesting to learn theat the Littlefield's home was the center of many family weddings in the gold and white formal drawing rooms. Such spacious rooms show how the house was intended to be a space for social society. The house itself is set up in a traditional "Texan" manner with a central hallway and two large rooms on either side. This set up of the ground floor is ideal for parties and easily getting from different parts of the house to others, and it is clear to see why the university still utilizes the unique event space to this day. The article also illustrates how the upstairs bedrooms would have been laid out, since the upstairs has since been wholly repurposed. The article explains that the rooms would have branched off of a central hallway much like the ground floor with a single bathroom and three seperate entrances to it in order to accommodate a family of the Littlefield's size at the time. The buildings many university uses has also shaped it as well. The article tells that after the house was left to the university, it was used as the Ausin and University Centennial office, the Department of Music, and the Navy ROTC on campus. It further explains that the upstairs was used as a shooting range and machine guns decorated the lawn. These uses have expanded the flexibility of the old home, which seems to constantly fighting the changing times. Its Victorian downstairs is in stark contrast to the office space upstairs, both allowing the space to change with necessity but also be used for the same intentions that the Littlefields built the home for originally.
From the Victor Mourning Blog
This blog focuses on how the Littlefield House feels within the setting of modern day. It comments how the building is out of time and its rich colors evoke a "dark, haunting nature" that can also be found in the band's music. The blog also comments on how the house seems disheveld, which I disagree with. The house is extremely well kept and regularly repaired. I would argue that this feeling of dishelevedment stems from the feeling that the house has been ripped from another time, or perhaps that the house is not symmetrical. True, the architecture is not very timeless, nor are the other buildings nearby very simmilar, but I think the house has a more stately, distant nature that comes from the rich hues of the exterior, the balance between the two different characters of the towers and the intricate details throughut the home.