Texas Governor's Mansion

About this audio guide

This guide to the Texas Governor's Mansion in Austin turns on a two thousand eight arson attack that nobody was ever charged for, and the wildly mismatched price tags on either end of the building's story. It follows Abner Cook, the nineteenth-century master carpenter who built the house from his own brickyard and sawmill, and the restoration crew who had to work around his surviving craftsmanship a century and a half later. Listen for how much of what he built turned out to still be standing under the char.