Volunteers pitch in to fix East Side home

Half a century after her husband papered their house in yellow aluminum siding against her wishes, Josie Trevino watched Saturday as dozens of volunteers with the city’s Office of Historic Preservation painted the walls the color of the sky on a sunny day.

“She said she always wanted blue,” said Francis Muzquiz, one of Trevino’s five daughters.

Trevino, 95, has lived in the same house in the 800 block of Dawson on the East Side since Muzquiz’s uncle bought it for $700 in the 1950s.

Built around 1895, the house is an example of the Folk Victorian style of architecture popular at the time. In the front is a small porch that holds fond memories for Muzquiz and her four sisters, all but one of whom remain in San Antonio.

“Sometimes we’d just sit out here at night and just talk and play,” Muzquiz said.

Despite the house’s age, Muzquiz said, it is still sound. That said, 125-plus years of existence can’t help but leave a mark on even the sturdiest of structures. The fascia needed patching, the window screens needed to be replaced and the porch columns needed to be boxed in, among other issues.

Trevino’s daughters had reached out to the city for permission to install a wheelchair ramp for their mother. The permission was needed because the home is in the Dignowity Hill Historic District. They were put in touch with senior historic preservation specialist Edward Hall, who signed off on adding the ramp.

But Hall, who had noticed the home’s declining condition, arranged for the Office of Historic Preservation and its Rehabber Club, working with the Students Together Achieving Revitalization Project, to perform repairs and maintenance at no cost.

“We have a nonprofit that we partner with, the Power of Preservation Foundation, that helps with some of the purchasing for supplies and paint,” said Cory Edwards, a deputy historic preservation officer with the city. “But city staff, we’re the ones kind of organizing and leading and getting the volunteer registration together and making sure everyone’s safe and fed and has what they need to work today.”

Some 36 volunteers convened on the property about 8 a.m. Saturday — neighbors and college students working with the city’s Rehabber Club contractors and historic preservation professionals. While some knew Trevino personally or had a passion for architecture, construction or preservation, others attended simply because they wanted to show support for the San Antonio community in some way, shape or form.

Speaking in Spanish as her son David, 13, translated, and her other son, Emmanuel, 16, balanced on the top rung of a ladder a few feet away, Benita Garcia, 43, said her family “liked to serve.”

“Helping, you learn,” she said.

The volunteers had finished painting the walls about three hours after they began. Once they were done with the walls, they took a break and invited Trevino, who’d gone inside, to take a look at their handiwork, knowing how important the color was to her.

“It was the first time she came out of the house,” Muzquiz said. “She was like, ‘Oh, wow.’ ”

Kaylee Greenlee Beal / Contributor Josie Trevino, 95, emerges from her Dignowity Hill home Saturday with the assistance of three of her daughters to see the improvements made to the house by volunteers organized by the city’s Office of Historic Preservation.