Continental Club claims an award

AUSTIN (KXAN) - In 1987, Steve Wertheimer was running his Ski Shores Waterfront Cafe on Lake Austin. The "oil bust" was in full swing then and the local economy was as Wertheimer puts it, "in the toilet." So, when the owners of a rundown South Austin music venue asked if he would be interested in buying them out, he hesitated. Still, he decided to check it out. He opened the front door to the Continental Club on South Congress Avenue and let his eyes adjust to the blackness, not just darkness, actual blackness.

"You couldn't see, you know, a foot in front of you," Wertheimer said. "Everything was painted black from the black carpet to the walls, to the ceiling. The roof was caving in. It was, you know, this building was in great, great disrepair."

There was already a history here, however. The building went up in 1947. Historical records said it housed a garage, an electric company and a Laundromat before becoming, in 1955, the Continental Club, a private supper club, specializing in swing music. Wertheimer was intrigued and decided to bite the proverbial bullet.

He launched a clean up and restoration process and along the way, uncovered four fading murals on the walls. "They were all brown and white, as opposed to being colorized because of all the smoke that had been here for so many years," he said. Wertheimer had the murals restored and over twenty years later, they're still there.

"They're actually murals on the stone," he said. "They look like they're framed pictures that are hanging up there, but they're actually painted on the stone walls with just the wood nailed around the things."

So if he were to get rid of them, he'd have to destroy them. "I can't do that," he said.

Wertheimer, though, is saving more than the murals. The building itself lies in a once rundown but now trendy retail neighborhood. Property values are rising and the area is susceptible to high-dollar development projects that have begun to sprout up south of the Colorado River. Its owner could have sold out and as he puts it, "retired to Hawaii." Instead, Wertheimer applied for and received an historic landmark designation from the City of Austin. In exchange for some tax breaks, he ceded control of the building to a list of restrictions and annual inspections, designed to preserve it. That was just fine with him.

Now at its annual preservation awards luncheon, the Austin Heritage Society this Friday will give its "Merit Award for Maintaining an Austin Cultural Landmark" to Wertheimer and his club. He's grateful and he's already making plans to keep the place alive long after he retires.

"Now I have a two-and-a-half year-old that's kind of seeing the workings of this place and loves coming down to what she refers to as the 'Nental Club.' And hopefully, you know, one day maybe she’ll get interested in this business and will keep this thing going."

Lulu is the child's name. She showed up with her father at the club for an interview. She's onstage now, hiding behind a curtain. "Ladies and gentlemen," Dad announces, "put your hands together. Live from Austin, Texas, and the Continental Club, it's Lulu!" His daughter jumps from behind the curtain, picking at a small plastic guitar in her tiny hands. She struts around the stage a bit and then looks over her shoulder at Wertheimer. "One more time," she says, returning to her hiding spot behind the curtain. One gets the feeling there will be many, many "one more" times at the "Nental Club."