The Starr Kealhofer Garage was built in 1928. Located at 910 Lavaca Street in downtown Austin, the building was in a prime location for office development and was part of an adaptive reuse project by Eugene George for an insurance and real estate company.

Although structurally sound, the building was in an advanced state of deterioration in 1978 at the time of its rehabilitation. The project brief, included in the Walter Eugene George, Jr. collection, summarized it thus:

“Responding to the popular Mediterranean style of the Twenties when it was built, the first floor of the building functioned for half a century vending automotive fuels and oils, servicing vehicles by minor repairs in association with grease pits, wash racks, and tire repair spaces. The second floor consisted entirely of an open, L-shaped loft space for the storage of tires. … The solution for the first floor included enclosing the former fuel vending area to form an open plan clerical space. Flanking this space on three sides were offices either established from the fuel vending area (north), the accessory sales and storage areas (south), or within the former minor repairs, oil changing/grease rack area (west)...

Two stairways were constructed to penetrate the former loft warehouse area---one upward through the former carwash area, the other via the former accessories office. The second floor loft area was subdivided into additional clerical and management spaces…. During the process of renovation, architectural details from the initial building period were refurbished or reconstructed---including metal ceilings, exterior and interior openings, and an exterior turret which had been removed.”

George expressed his philosophy about projects such as this one in a paper written in the same year: “There’s more to the problem than cleaning up the junk, clearing the weeds. Revitalization under any circumstances must respond to traditional accomplishments, at the same time encourage new growth within the historic pattern. We are well along in our second century of urban life. Let us grow, but let us reinforce ourselves by stabilizing Austin’s qualities: unique, individual, and different from other places.”

George’s rehabilitation of the Starr Kealhofer Garage won a 1979 Building Award from the Heritage Society of Austin.