Sweet Homestead

4301 Broadway street

This home was built near the headwaters of the San Antonio River by James R. Sweet, a city alderman whose purchase of the headwaters land effectively gave him control of the city’s water supply and triggered a long-term controversy. The raised one-story cottage with Greek Revival symmetry and detailing was purchased along with the headwaters land by George W. Brackenridge, who in 1886 added a high Victorian three-story wing that included a dining room with walls covered by tooled elephant hide. Brackenridge, who became San Antonio’s leading philanthropist, sold his estate in 1897 to the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, who used the home as their mother-house until constructing their own immediately to the east. Brackenridge Villa now houses offices and meeting rooms for the adjoining campus of the University of the Incarnate Word.

‘San Antonio Architecture, Traditions and Visions’, AIA San Antonio, 2007