This is the last of ten posts on the 2026 rehabilitation of the Barton Springs Pool Bathhouse. Here’s what sits at the center of all of them. This post is a summary of my findings, based on extensive public information requests and on having used the women's dressing area before it was altered and its 1946 features destroyed.
In 2018, the designer, architect Laurie Limbacher, framed two choices for the Rotunda entrance area and the adjoining basket room: condition only the staff and aquatics offices moving into the basket room, and leave the Rotunda entrance area unconditioned, as it had been in the past — or keep the lifeguard and lifesaving offices in their existing, crowded spot in the women’s dressing area, and open up the basket room and Rotunda for Barton Springs Conservancy’s (BSC) donor-funded exhibits and an educational classroom.
Limbacher’s contract, executed in January–February 2018, made the project’s scope contingent on a separate effort to relocate the Sheffield Education Center and Splash! exhibit out of the Bathhouse. That relocation never happened.
What got built was neither of the two original choices. The lifeguard and lifesaving offices never moved — they stayed in the women’s dressing area and are air-conditioned. The basket room was split between staff/storage and the educational classroom. And the Rotunda entrance area itself got HVAC too, for the exhibits. The result: more air-conditioned square footage than either choice called for, and more space carved out for exhibits and education instead of relocating those functions out of the bathhouse entirely.
What never happened was the women’s dressing area’s restoration to its 1946 footprint — the one feature every version of the plan had promised to the swimming public. This post documents how that happened, and who pushed for it.
Picture the alternative: Deep Eddy Pool's bathhouse, where visitors pass through an open, unconditioned Rotunda the way they did here in 1946 — rather than a museum of exhibits requiring HVAC around the clock.
My Conclusion
Barton Springs Conservancy helped private philanthropists make real, valuable cash donations to the Bathhouse Rehab Project. But there's no dollar figure for the additional cost BSC's influence imposed on the final design. BSC took a big risk to push final design choices — an air-conditioned Rotunda with museum-like electronic exhibits and a classroom — that don't align with the interests of the swimming public. Most significant for me: For all future generations of women, the experience of showering adjacent to an open-air grass-filled courtyard is gone forever, as are the sunny dressing stalls that supported winter swimming.
Yes, the completion of the Bathhouse Rehab has been delayed for over a year. But the effects of poor design decisions will last... forever.
(My complete library of primary documents is available: here.)
The Public's Baseline Expectations: 2018
When Laurie Limbacher accepted the contract in early 2018, she stated that the Rotunda would be unconditioned space, except for new staff offices located in the 1946 women's basket area. Moving staff functions into the Rotunda would let the 1967 walls in the women's dressing area come down, returning the footprint to its 1946 volume. No one questioned that the showers and stalls were unique, historically valuable features. [source]
Excerpts from Limbacher's Jan. 2018 proposal letter [source]:
- The Bathhouse Rehabilitation project is to be designed in full, and implemented in phased construction, with the specific construction phase scopes, budgets and schedules contingent upon funding and ongoing fundraising by the Barton Springs Conservancy, and also contingent upon the resolution of a separate effort to relocate the Sheffield Education Center and Splash! exhibit out of the bathhouse.
- From the Zilker Park Bathhouse Zone Feasibility Study, we understand that the bulk of the bathhouse will be an unconditioned, open-air structure. The only areas under consideration for air-conditioning are the Aquatics offices, proposed for the future renovation of the original women's basket room area.
- Rehabilitation of the historic Rotunda and dressing areas, including rehabilitation of historic materials and components.
The City’s 2016 funding agreement with Barton Springs Conservancy made the same expectation part of the project’s contract terms: the agreement called for “removing encroachments and opening the floor plan of the women’s dressing area, creating a Visitor’s Center, and upgrading the bathhouse with due respect for its architectural beauty and historic importance.” [excerpt] [full agreement]
In 2016-2017, BSC had explicitly fundraised anticipating a new Visitor and Education Center entirely outside of the Bathhouse. [source]
By Oct. 2018 — after community engagement with Stakeholders including Barton Springs Conservancy (BSC) — that vision was radically altered: the exhibits and classroom would remain in the Rotunda, be expanded, and require HVAC. The women's dressing area would be unchanged in footprint and radically changed with loss of important historic design features: the 1946-design of showers and stalls.
The Rotunda’s Design Was Passive Cooling, Not Air Conditioning
The Bathhouse’s architectural style was Streamline Moderne, an offshoot of Art Deco that emphasized horizontal lines and smooth, aerodynamic curves. The architect, Dan Driscoll [source], designed both the Deep Eddy and Barton Springs bathhouses to be low-slung and aligned to the contour of the land, fitting beneath the surrounding large trees, oriented north-south, with an open breezeway that drew water-cooled air passively through the entire building. The low-slung form was meant to blend into the natural surroundings — an approach later popularized in houses like Taliesin and Fallingwater, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright with horizontal lines, broad roofs, and open floor plans. These features were not only aesthetic; they took advantage of tree shade and cooled air and water.
The wisdom of passive cooling is now a lost design feature at the Bathhouse Rotunda.
A Timeline Guided My Analysis
The pivot point was summer 2018. By submitting public information requests, I created a timeline of studies, contracts, and community engagement. I learned that the Parks Department, Barton Springs Conservancy, and architect Laurie Limbacher had agreed on basic principles by Jan. 2018: the Rotunda would not be air conditioned, the vacated 1946 women's basket room would become staff offices and storage, and the women's dressing area would be "opened up" to restore its 1946 footprint and character. All parties had access to the 2016 Feasibility Report, which recommended that the historic character of the bathhouse — including the women's unique showers and dressing stalls — be preserved and "rehabilitated." [source]
The City’s Aug. 14, 2018 “Values” document for the project put the same expectation in the public’s words: among the stated values was to “Enjoy the two-story, naturally-ventilated volumes” of the Rotunda — contemporaneous confirmation that an unconditioned Rotunda was explicitly what the public was told it would get. [source]
Community Engagement Created a Pivot Point: Education and Privacy
The City's summary of community engagement can be found here: [source]
From the April 3, 2018 Kickoff Meeting (reported in the August 14, 2018 presentation):
(above) The Kick-Off Meeting noted this anonymous preference: "Keep education uses in the Rotunda -- not Aquatics. SPLASH! needs modernization." The need to search for an off-site location was not mentioned. The Rotunda's possible "educational uses" were seen as a competition for space with "Aquatics" (offices and needed storage). The final design shows a crowded combination of both uses. [source] with the lifeguard/manager offices unchanged. [source]
Evidence shows that Mike Cannatti, president of BSC, strongly preferred that the lifeguard offices not be relocated out of the women's dressing area. "The lifeguard shack needs to stay in the current space...." [source]
On Aug. 14, 2018, PARD’s “What We Heard”:
[source] Only "congestion in the women's restroom" had anything to do with restoring the women’s dressing area; the other two explained that the Rotunda would be used for education and exhibits -- and not the full complement of manager and lifeguard staff offices.
The Aug. 14, 2018 values emphasized two "values" that were destined to collide: An unconditioned open-air Rotunda would prove to be in conflict with "education for all." However, "privacy options for women" was not a value.
Though not a Value, the August 14, 2018 scope included "privacy options for women".
On two dates — Oct. 18, 2018 and Oct. 30, 2018 — three concepts for the women's dressing area were presented to the public and stakeholders. [source]
Surveys were conducted: 33 total people responded to the surveys. The highest ranked concept for the women's dressing area was Concept Plan 3, the design with the least privacy options for women:
.
Oct. 2018 — eight months after Limbacher's proposal for an "unconditioned Rotunda" was accepted and included in the executed contract — the designs showed: (1) An HVAC-conditioned Rotunda dedicated to electronic high-tech exhibits and a classroom. (2) No restoration of the 1946 footprint of the women's dressing area. (3) However, "women's privacy options" still allowed women to shower with views of the courtyard. All three 2018 women's concepts were superior to Limbacher's "preferred design" finally presented -- without further opportunity for public comment -- in Oct. 2019, one year later.
Women swimmers not only lost the restored, expanded dressing area they had been promised: They lost the "privacy war" and are now forced to shower behind a stone wall without view of the courtyard. The new 2019 "privacy solution" was neither a value expressed by the public nor a design concept previewed by the public. The "privacy solution" took the women swimmers by total surprise when Limbacher's 2019 preferred plan was finally made public: Oct. 2023, four years later.
Who Failed to Protect the Historic Design?
Neither Laurie Limbacher (architect, and a commissioner at the Texas Historical Commission) nor Kim McKnight (the Parks Department's director of Historic Preservation) acted to protect the design features of the women's dressing area. Both knew better.
As I said in 2024: the State of Texas Hotel Occupancy Tax — public funding — put over $14M in "historic preservation funds" toward destroying the historic design of the women's dressing area. An aesthetic that women and families had enjoyed for over 75 years was erased, without apology or explanation. My 2024 analysis on YouTube:
I suggest that the public direct their questions about the lost historic elements of the Bathhouse to CoA employee Kim McKnight, contact: Kim.McKnight@austintexas.gov
How Did This Happen?
I'm not alone in recognizing this failure of community engagement. The voice of "the many" was demoted — sometimes ignored outright even when it was the statistically larger preference, as with the preference for Concept #3 of the women's dressing area [source]— while Stakeholders, including the donors funding BSC, were given outsized influence. BSC -- with their $3.834M in final donations -- was given access to the process and influenced significant design choices, where the public was not. From the April 2018 Kickoff Meeting where the BSC's desire for education and a renewed SPLASH! exhibit were expressed, to an Oct. 11, 2018 PARD meeting where BSC was given a preview of the designs prior to other Stakeholders [source], BSC's preferences were solicited by PARD. By Nov. 20, 2018, BSC had selected their "preferred design". [source]
At the final Community Meeting #4 on Oct. 30, 2019 at the Zilker Botanical Garden, resident Eileen Kella pressed PARD on the engagement process itself: how many people had attended the earlier meetings, how representative that group was, why only about 21 people were being shown the proposed design, and why questions weren’t being taken from the whole crowd. Attendees were told a follow-up public meeting would be held Dec. 5, 2019. It never happened. [source] The final design wasn’t made public again until the City’s Oct. 24, 2023 presentation — four years later. [source] [2023 presentation] The Limbacher 2019 "preferred" bathhouse design had effectively been kept secret for four years. Construction/demolition began in March 2024, just five months after the public had been shown the design.
Here is how Laurie Limbacher's Jan. 2018 scope was altered after the 2018 community engagement with Stakeholders:
- The Sheffield Education Center and Splash! exhibit would not be relocated.
- The Rotunda became a museum-like exhibit area full of electronic displays, computers, and projection screens — adding expense, and HVAC, to the final project.
- The women's dressing area would remain crowded (1,000 SF smaller than the men's dressing area) with block walls for "total privacy" while showering, destroying the aesthetic experience.
- Historic design features of the women's dressing area — showers and sunny/warm winter dressing stalls — were demolished and those designs are now lost to posterity.
A survey of the general public had been conducted from April through July 2018, with 1,082 respondents. None of the above outcomes were statistically supported by the broad community survey. [source1] [source2]
My conclusion: BSC paid to play. The general public — represented by 1,082 respondents — did not. BSC was given access and influence that radically modified the final design of the Bathhouse. The general public, however, are the taxpayers who contributed about $18M to the project's total cost of about $22M.
Note: The BSC "final donor list" (below) includes unverified "in-kind donations" as well as true cash contributions. BSC was allowed, by PARD contract, to add any names they wanted — at any funding level — as self-reported "in-kind" donations. [source]
I suggest that the public direct their questions about the exhibits/classroom and HVAC-conditioned Rotunda to BSC, contact: president@bartonspringsconservancy.org
What's Next?
I think the designers took a big risk. By departing from the Rotunda's historic function — an open-air, naturally ventilated space with staff functions inside it — and installing a museum-quality electronic exhibit area, the new logistics could create problems. The pool can draw over 11,000 visitors on a single day. Temperatures can top 100 degrees. HVAC can break down. Storage is needed for BSC volunteers' wheelbarrows and Watershed Protection Department equipment, and weekend trash must be stored away from rodents. Hours are long, with many winter hours after sunset with dressing areas in the dark. The electronic exhibits are expensive and need constant monitoring while open.
- Operational cost: Two new FTE employees are needed as "exhibit interpreters." [source] PARD asked for 8 new FTE positions for the pool and bathhouse in FY26 and ALL were NOT FUNDED. [source]
- The men's dressing area has an occupant load of 82 people; the women's dressing area allows 20 fewer people at 62 maximum [source]
- As recently as March 2026, BSC's volunteer wheelbarrows and rakes were being stored in an emergency exit corridor. [source 1] [source 2]
- Rotunda enter-exit doors hold an occupancy = 1, possibly slowing passage time. [source]
- People will be unhappy if the entry system leaves them outdoors in the heat too long.
- Summer HVAC temperatures will struggle if the Rotunda's entry and exit doors stay open constantly.
- If the HVAC fails, there are no operable windows.
- The women's showers may be prone to mold, since light and airflow are more restricted than in the 1946 design.
- The women's showers may feel unsafe, with no sight-lines to the dressing area's entry corridor or the courtyard.
- Emergency egress could get confusing with gendered exit corridors — families could be separated trying to get from the pool through the Bathhouse exits in an emergency. [source]
- Family restrooms have a history of being used to conceal drug use. The Bathhouse now has five of them. Can staff keep them clean and safe?
The Full Series
This is the tenth and final post in this series. In the order they were written and published:
- Introducing the 2026 Barton Springs Pool Bathhouse Rehab Project
- The Design Options Shown to the Public
- What the Visitor Encounters Entering the New Rotunda
- Questions: Has the Current Limbacher Design Met the Scope of Services?
- Two Concerns of Barton Springs Conservancy: Staffing and Storage
- Possible Operational Issues: Occupancy Limits and Air Conditioning
- Missed Opportunities: Women's Dressing Area Not Restored to Historic Design
- Missed Opportunities: Exhibits and Education Center Did Not Get a New Building Off-Site of the Bathhouse
- In 2026, At Least 9 Months Past Due: Difficulties With the Exhibits at the Barton Springs Pool Bathhouse
