Image: Google Maps / James Rambin
Let’s make one thing clear from the get-go: “Sex Party Tree House” is an extremely funny combination of words, regardless of the context. Since coming across this phrase in a 1963 edition of the Austin American-Statesman, I’ll catch myself repeating it in my head, brain clapping like a trained seal, until all semantic meaning fades away — Sex Party Tree House, Sex Party Tree House, Sex Party Tree House.
So, what is it? On the night of July 26, 1963, Austin police officers executed a raid at a vacant city-owned lot on the shores of Waller Creek just north of West 55th 1/2 Street, inside the neighborhood now known as North Loop, where a “teenage drinking party” was taking place. The venue for this rager was a three-room shanty built on stilts, seemingly hidden on the empty land by surrounding trees. Though that’s definitely stretching the definition of a “tree house,” news coverage ran with it anyway:
An article in the Austin Statesman discussing the 1963 bust at the North Loop tree house. This article says it was located on West 55th Street, but some others name West 55th 1/2 Street — it’s pretty obviously the latter if you look at a map, but aren’t those half blocks kind of confusing? Image: Austin History Center
One case of iced beer, nude pictures, and obscene literature? Even though it predates the “Dazed and Confused” era by more than a decade, this sounds like a pretty decent party by 1963 standards. The location of the teen hideout itself makes perfect sense — at the time, the land at the southeastern corner of Lamar Boulevard and West Koenig Lane was occupied by the Chief Drive-In, and the tree house was only a short walk across Guadalupe Street from the theater’s eastern corner:
An aerial photo of the area circa 1966, with the tree house site and former Chief Drive-In labeled. Guadalupe Street is the curved road running between these two landmarks. Image: North Loop Neighborhood Association
Despite the obvious convenience, neighbor complaints and the inherent risk of packing a rickety shack on stilts with necking teenagers prevailed, and the tree house was quickly slated for demolition — “My Generation” was two years away, but this is a pretty clear-cut case of putting kids down just because they got around.
The fate of the fort, another untimely casualty of The Man, was revealed on August 17. In a front-page article with the lurid headline “Sex Party ‘Tree House’ Demolished,” we are blessed with what’s got to be one of the greatest opening sentences in the 148-year history of the Austin American-Statesman:
“A North Austin tree house described as the breeding ground for teenage sex parties, beer busts, and sundry crimes was demolished Saturday by ax-swinging city police.”
It’s in this article we find the only known picture of the tree house — photographed midway through its destruction, police-wielded ax artfully included in the foreground:
A 1963 Austin Statesman photo of the half-demolished tree house. Image: Austin History Center
The three room shanty on stilts, built at the rear of city-owned vacant lots in the 400 Block of West 55 1/2 Street, had been a hangout for a gang of Northside boys and girls that police said “numbers 50 or more.”
“We had a very unwholesome situation here and we have done something about it,” Detective Lieutenant Joe Perry said.
Perry, who supervised a demolition crew from the city parks department, said police investigation into the activities of boys and girls congregating at the tree house showed it was being used as “a hideout for runaways, a place to hide stolen goods, a teenage beer garden and a place for boys and girls to meet.”
— The Austin Statesman, August 17, 1963
Since we know the structure was somewhere on the lot at 400 West 55th 1/2 Street, the three power lines running across the top of the Statesman photo could give us a clue regarding its perspective. Unfortunately, the power lines in this area aren’t quite the same now as they were in the 1960s — aerial photos from 1966 show another set of lines directly south of West Koenig Lane, running parallel to the ones set a little further back, which are still there today.
We’ve marked both routes, since they’re kinda hard to see:
Image: North Loop Neighborhood Association / James Rambin
There are at least three spots where you could take a photo of a tree house and get power lines in the background like we see in the Statesman photo — and at two of those spots, you could take a photo from either direction and end up with this result. That means we can’t narrow down the exact location of the building, but a visit to the site today gives us a few reasonable candidates.
A view of the city-owned land from West Koenig Lane. Photo by James Rambin.
Above is a view from West Koenig Lane looking south-ish towards Waller Creek — you can sorta see its outline on the left there. Is this the same tree and power lines from the Statesman photo? It’s had more than 50 years to grow, so I wouldn’t rule it out.
Remember, the articles said the tree house was built “at the rear” of the city-owned lot, and the flat spot on the bottom right of the photo below is as rear as you can get from West 55th 1/2 Street — you can actually see a tiny bit of that street’s bridge over the creek in the center of this picture, if you’d like a little perspective. We’re still looking south here, and the big tree in the above photo is the same one on the right side of the photo below:
Looking south down Waller Creek towards West 55th 1/2 Street at the tree house property. Photo by James Rambin.
The only downside of this picturesque spot is that it’s incredibly visible from West Koenig Lane, which doesn’t seem right for clandestine teen parties. Another possible location might be on the more secluded eastern side of the creek, an area I couldn’t even photograph due to how overgrown it is at the moment.
To complicate things further, it looks like there’s a winch attached to the tree house in the Statesman photo, meaning it might not actually be at its original location in the picture — you’d probably access this site from the Koenig side if you wanted to drag something big off the lot.
Sadly, with all this conflicting info we’ll have to leave the precise location up in the air for now. But it was here, somewhere, and if you’re an aspiring archaeologist you could probably find some 1960s-style “Church Key” beer cans if you dug down.
A 1966 aerial photo of the vacant city-owned lot at 400 West 55th 1/2 Street, with a few notes on location added. Image: North Loop Neighborhood Association / James Rambin
I’ve tried for months to get in touch with various police officers and detectives named in news coverage of the event to learn more about this odd wrinkle of North Loop’s history, but no one’s biting yet. If you were a teenager busting beers in Austin during the heyday of the tree house, you’re likely in your 70s at this point, meaning the statute of limitations has long run out on your antics and you can tell me all about it.
On July 26, 1963, the night of the shack’s final party, the number one song in the nation was “Surf City” by California rock duo Jan and Dean (but actually written by Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys). If you kicked it at Austin’s hottest teenage hangout back then, this might jog your memory — either way, the tale of North Loop’s sex party tree house is a nice reminder that even 56 years ago, the kids were pretty alright.
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