Millbrook (Roy-Hardin House)
Austin, Travis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Millbrook (Roy-Hardin House) William Carroll "Cal" Roy (1851-1916) and Annie (Stanley) Roy (1851-1925) bought this Bouldin mill site in 1894 from Powhatan Bouldin, heir of James E. Bouldin (1796-1876), the original owner. It was converted into a home, and here the Roys reared children Robert E. "Rob," Addie M., Jessie, Adele and Inca. The family sold the home in 1939 to Ernest Randolph Hardin (1902-1987) and his wife, Maurine (Underwood) (1900-1946). The Hardins, both drama professors, eclectically restored the rubblestone house with architectural antiques such as a floor from Austin's Driskill Hotel and decorative ironwork. In the 1940s, they added a weathervane marked "Millbrook" to the carriage house; this gave the property its name. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1967
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1894 Cal and Annie Roy bought this former Bouldin mill site and converted the rubblestone building into a family home, raising five children here. In 1939 they sold it to drama professors Ernest and Maurine Hardin, who restored the house eclectically with architectural salvage—including a floor from Austin's Driskill Hotel and decorative ironwork. A "Millbrook" weathervane they added to the carriage house in the 1940s gave the property its name.
Why it matters
It traces the arc from Austin's early milling frontier to a 20th-century preservationist's home, showing how old industrial sites were reimagined and saved by later generations.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · William Carroll "Cal" Roy
- · Annie Stanley Roy
- · Ernest Randolph Hardin
- · Maurine Underwood Hardin
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Robert S. Stanley House
Austin, TX
Robert S. Stanley, a Travis County-born African-American stonemason, built this Austin home for his wife Francis and their children in 1895, and later raised a stone store building on West Mary Street that his second wife Jennie ran as a general store. His skill shows in the house's rusticated limestone construction, two-foot-thick half-basement walls, and longleaf pine framing—craftsmanship sturdy enough to keep the home in his family for over a century. Stanley rests at Austin's Evergreen Cemetery.
Walter Tips House
Austin, TX
This two-story Victorian was built in 1876 for prosperous hardware merchant Walter Tips, a German immigrant and Confederate veteran who later served in the Texas Senate. Remodeled to its present look in 1909, it was long home to another Austin businessman, Theo P. Meyer. Originally standing near the historic Bremond Block, the house was slated for demolition in 1975 until Franklin Savings Association rescued and relocated it here for restoration.
Andrew Jackson Zilker
Austin, TX
Andrew Jackson Zilker arrived in Austin penniless in 1876 and rose to become a businessman and bank director in the booming capital of a young state. Shaped by watching laborers toil along the Ohio River, he championed "practical" education, and when he sold 366 acres including Barton Springs to the city, he steered the payments to the local schools. His gifts of parkland became Zilker Park, still Austin's most beloved green space.
Michael Butler and Butler Brick Company
Austin, TX
Michael Butler left Limerick, Ireland, in 1866, learned bricklaying in New York, and by 1873 had settled in Austin, where his riverside brickyards would operate until 1958. Using mule-powered machines to press Colorado River clay into molds, Butler's plant supplied most of Austin's brick buildings between 1873 and 1900—and some three million bricks that support the interior of the Texas Capitol. His family later deeded 91 acres of the old brickyards to the city, land now honored as Butler Park.