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The Hill Country Arts Foundation sits on a point of land between the Guadalupe River and Johnson Creek.
That setting has shaped the foundation for decades, and last year, it also put the campus directly in the path of the July 4 flood.
Sarah Tacey is the executive director of the Hill Country Arts Foundation.
“We are between Kerrville and Hunt on Highway 39. One side of us is the Guadalupe River, and on another side is Johnson Creek, which is why we are called The Point, because we are the point where the two bodies of water converge,” Tacey said.
Hill Country Arts Foundation
That location has always made flooding part of the foundation’s reality. But this was different.
“We have been around since 1959. We were opened as a nonprofit performing and visual arts facility, and we've continued that mission for 67 years,” she said.
The campus features a 520-seat outdoor theater, an indoor black box theater and pottery studios. Several buildings were heavily damaged in the flood.
“Our indoor theater and our offices and the ceramic studio are just going to have to go,” Tacey said. “We didn't build them. They were here when we got here, and they haven't had water in them for 67 years.”
Many locals have deep ties to the Hill Country Arts Foundation, formed over decades of drama camps, stage productions and other arts instruction.
“People who were coming here as kids now bring their grandchildren, so we're very generational. We're very proud of that,” she said.
The 520-seat outdoor theater suffered damage, but a feature of its design helped save the main structure.
“It did what it was supposed to in an extreme flood like this, which is the walls blew out, but that's what it was built to do, so that the water didn't take the whole structure with it,” Tacey said.
Stonehenge II, another HCAF landmark, has given the foundation an alternate place to stage performances.
“We have a Stonehenge and we build a stage in the middle of it, and put seating in there and do Shakespeare and other productions now, because why wouldn't you if you have a Stonehenge,” Tacey said.
For the rebuild, HCAF has selected an architect.“We are working with Lake Flato Architects in San Antonio, and we're getting really close to a final layout of our campus,” she said.
Those plans will help guide a capital campaign to raise money for the rebuilding effort. Tacey is optimistic the foundation can preserve what generations have loved about The Point while creating a campus better prepared for the future.
“Don't forget us. We are coming back.”For a place built around making art and bringing people together, its next production is the campus itself.
