Radar love at the Hangar Hotel

We adore Fredericksburg, Texas, with its charming shops and art galleries, outstanding restaurants, wineries, and historic attractions, from its German heritage spotlighted at the Pioneer Museum Complex to the National Museum of the Pacific War. 

But here’s one reason that makes us take flight — the Hangar Hotel.

The hotel resembles a true plane hangar (above left), mainly because it’s located at the Gillespie County Airport. But it only mimics a World War II-era building, because inside there’s a delightful boutique hotel. You’ll find 1940s music playing when you enter the lobby, decorated with period posters, antique luggage, and nods to Hill Country war heroes. Rooms contain period art pieces as well, including rotary phones, subway tiled bathrooms — and our favorite — comfy armchairs constructed from old leather bomber jackets. And at night, electric candles burn in the window in remembrance of those fighting far away.

The hotel’s only minutes from downtown Fredericksburg, but do visit the charming Airport Diner that resembles a train car and the Officer’s Club with its leather chairs, fireplace, grand piano and bar, the perfect spot for a late-night cocktail or conversing with friends.

Naturally, you can fly in, park your plane and enjoy a weekend away. We didn’t have the luxury of a private plane, but we loved every minute spent at the Hangar Hotel.

Lubbock dream house made of 110 tons of steel

It’s one thing to hear about the incredible Robert Richard Bruno house, a Lubbock home made out of 110 tons of scrap metal. It’s quite another to turn a corner and have the 2,200-square-foot unique architectural structure come into view.

The three-story house overlooking Ransom Canyon was the lifelong project of Bruno, a Texas Tech College of Architecture professor. He began the home in 1974 and worked on it until his death in 2008 but he never saw it completed. He lived there for only seven months.

The house still needs 30 percent more work to be complete but it's unclear if this will happen. His daughter, Christina Bruno, owns the house but it’s Henry F. Martinez — who worked with Bruno for 22 years and took over Bruno’s company, P and R Surge Systems — that opens the house for tours, much as Bruno had when he was living. Martinez loves showing off the house and does so for architecture students, travel writers like me and for photo shoots. The uniquely styled house has been on record covers and in Vogue magazine, among others.

“He (Bruno) would always allow people to come in here to look at the house, even when he was here,” Martinez said. “And I’m trying to do the same.”

We visited this week with temperatures hitting 100, and a house made of all that steel gets pretty stifling inside. Once Martinez opened the front door and a small living room window that faces the lake, a breeze brought some relief. The Steel House with its curves and round windows resembles a hobbit enclave, but above ground as if on legs. There are twists and turns inside, stairs heading up and down the three levels, and stained glass for colorful accents. Once through the front door and down the entrance hall if you will, visitors emerge into the living room that jets over the canyon and offers a gorgeous view of Lake Ransom Canyon. On one side of the hallway is a small kitchen, the other the master bedroom with full bath and some of Bruno's furniture and items. Stairs lead down to a dark level where Bruno wanted to create his office while upstairs is a lounge area, complete with a stage area ready for performances.

Most of the house is accessible. Some steps are off limits due to safety issues. Several walls and floors are unfinished and many rooms appear as if construction just began. The bones are in place but the interior begs for completion. Tours aren’t air conditioned because of the infrequency of people visiting and the cost involved, but the house does have central air and heating and a working plumbing system.

Want to learn more? Dallas Morning News did a wonderful article on the house.

Stairs and stained glass

Living Room

Living room view of Lake Ransom Canyon

Robert Bruno in the photograph

Weird, Wacky and Wild South is written by travel and food writer Chere Dastugue Coen. She couldn't resist sitting in the living room window and snapping a selfie.

Nacogdoches 'On Cloud Wine' this weekend

Nacogdoches, Texas, that small town with a big funny name, is hosting a weekend of pre-Valentine’s Day fun. Called “On Cloud Wine,” the weekend containing a spirits tour will be Feb. 9-11 and consist of visiting three of the town’s libation locations.

The weekend begins with a “Wine, Whiskey and Brew Tour” hosted by the Nacogdoches Convention and Visitors Bureau on Friday evening, Feb. 9, and will include Fredonia Brewery, Naca Valley Vineyard and the Front Porch Distillery for tours and tastings at each. Rumor has it that tour bus karaoke is involved.

A little about the town's spirits. Naca Valley Vineyard, about nine miles outside of town, is owned by Wanda and Buzz Mouton, who opened the winery in 2017 on land once owned by Wanda's grandfather. The wine contains 100 percent Texas grapes and the labels reflect the Lone Star origins.

"We try to use Texas themes and history as much as possible," said Wanda Mouton.

There's Southern Belle dry white, Brick Street Red sweet table wine and Berry Blue For You blueberry wine, a homage to the town's annual Blueberry Festival, in addition to many others.

The Bradford Family of Front Porch Distillery

The Front Porch Distillery is owned and operated by the Branford family, producing artisan craft rum, vodka and moonshine and providing tastings of all in their fun tasting room on U.S. Hwy. 59 with the 1932 Ford truck out front and rocking chairs on the porch. Be sure and sample the flavored rums and pepper vodka that's perfect for Bloody Marys.

On Saturday, there’s the sixth annual Wine Swirl from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., a wine and food pairing event that showcases Texas wineries and local and regional food trucks along the historic brick streets of downtown Nacogdoches. Attendees will be able to purchases glasses and bottles and drink them on the street while shopping. 

For those wanting to stay the weekend, an accommodation package has been created. The Fredonia Hotel and Convention Center, a historic 1950’s property that recently reopened after a renovation, is the official Wine Swirl host hotel. Call (936) 564-1234 to book your stay.

Additional information about the weekend and tickets for both the Wine, Whiskey and Brew Tour and the Wine Swirl is available online at www.VisitNacogdoches.org/wine-swirl.

Wanda Mouton of Naca Valley 

Weird, Wacky and Wild South is written by award-winning travel and food writer Chere Dastugue Coen, who loves every kind of  Southern spirit. 

Hail Fredonia: Marx Brothers began in Nacogdoches

Anyone who has ever watched a Marx Brothers movie knows that the family of comedians were also classical musicians. Harpo (far right), who got his name from the instrument he mastered, could also play several other instruments. Chico (middle) performed on the piano, Groucho (left) sang and performed on the guitar and Zeppo was a vocalist. Like most acts of their time, the brothers got their start in vaudeville, sometimes performing with their mother Minnie, Uncle Albert Schönberg (stage name Al Shean), Aunt Hannah and brother Gummo.

  

How they got into comedy dates back to an evening in 1912 at the Opera House in Nacogdoches, Texas.

 

Old Opera House in Nacogdoches, Texas

The troupe was performing when a runaway mule caused a ruckus on the street outside the opera house. The audience, distracted by the noise like modern drivers viewing an accident, ran outside to see. Groucho didn’t appreciate losing his audience to a mule so he began making jokes about the town, saying things like “Nacogdoches is full of roaches” and “the jack-ass is the finest flower of Tex-ass.”  To his surprise, the audience thought the snide remarks were funny. And that’s how the brothers added ridiculous comedy to their routines.

“They got their comedy act started here,” said Mike Bay, Visitor Services Coordinator at the Nacogdoches Visitor Center across the street.

You might also remember the fictional government of Freedonia in the Marx Brothers film, “Duck Soup.” Nacogdoches was the site of the Fredonia uprising in 1826, when residents rebelled against Mexico and briefly created the Republic of Fredonia.  

 

"Duck Soup"

According to “Film Guide to Duck Soup (1933)” by Erin Glossl of the State University of New York-Fredonia, the film was a box office disaster when it was released in 1933. Glossl gives two reasons for its failure:

“One was that it was the beginning of the depression and not many people had money to spend on the movies,” he writes. “The other was that film was a satire and sometimes went over the heads of the audience. When the movie was revived in the 1970s, it became a classic because of its spoof on war and the government. Benito Mussolini, the dictator of Italy took the film as a personal insult and banned it from the country. The Brothers greeted this news happily. But, foreign countries weren't the only ones that were upset by the film. In Fredonia, New York, Mayor Harry B. Hickey protested the movie. He claimed that the movie was giving the real Fredonia a bad name. The Marx Brothers said to the mayor that he should change the town's name.”

Today, the Nacogdoches Opera House is the Cole Art Center, part of the Stephen F. Austin State University School of Art.

Cheré Dastugue Coen is a food and travel writer living in South Louisiana who is the author of several Louisiana romances under the pen name of Cherie Claire and the author of “Forest Hill, Louisiana: A Bloom Town History,” “Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana” and “Exploring Cajun Country” and co-author of “Magic’s in the Bag: Creating Spellbinding Gris Gris Bags and Sachets.” Write her at cherecoen@gmail.com.