Recent gifts draw seminary closer to completing
$3 million goal

The Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest is close to its goal of raising $3 million for the renovation of Rather House, its legendary campus building, into an administrative center.

“Recent gifts have placed the seminary within $375,000 of our goal,” said Nancy Springer-Baldwin, vice president of development in mid-August. “The Austin Community Foundation contributed $125,000 and the Powell Foundation of Houston donated $50,000 to the project. Ground was broken in mid-May. We are also grateful for wide support from seminary graduates and other friends of the Seminary of the Southwest,” she said.

Once renovation is complete, the Rather home will be renamed the Scott Field Bailey Center at Rather House in honor of the late Bishop Bailey whose relationship with the seminary spanned five decades.

Record-breaking rain in Austin from late May through early August slowed construction progress and pushed back the completion date to May 2008. Before daily rain began to fall, the building’s interior was cleaned out, the south side porches were taken down and ground cleared for a one-story addition on Rather House’s east lawn.

Construction work can be followed on the Rather House Anew webpage.

The recent gifts complement a one million dollar anonymous gift and a $500,000 grant from the Episcopal Foundation of Texas made earlier this year. More than 172 donors have helped underwrite the renovation project. Gifts may be given by credit card or made payable to ETSS and sent to the Development Office, Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest, P.O. Box 2247, Austin, Texas 78768. The office phone is 512.439.0397.

Once the center of community life at the seminary before the Weeks Center opened in 1994, Rather House was built by the C.T. Rather family of Gonzales , Texas , when daughters Ethel and Alma enrolled at the nearby University of Texas in 1911. The daughters each married university professors after graduation and continued to live in Rather House for decades. They donated the five acres around their home so the Seminary of the Southwest could be built in the early 1950s. Rather House remained their home until the last family member died and the seminary assumed care of the house.