Historic Preservation Board Stops Family Removing KKK Supporter's Initial From Front of their House

Kristy Kay Money and Rolf Jacob Sraubhaar are now suing the city of San Marcos, Texas, saying they're being forced to keep a Klan-linked symbol on the front of their house is a physical taking.

A San Marcos, Texas, couple would like to remove a reference to a Ku Klux Klan supporter from the front of their home, but the local historic preservation board has said no dice.

The reference in question is a large metal "Z" bolted to a wrought iron Juliette balcony on the front of Kristy Kay Money and Rolf Jacob Sraubhaar's house in San Marcos' Burleson Historic District.

That "Z" is the initial of the home's owner and builder, Frank Zimmerman, a prominent local businessman and owner of the city's downtown historic theater who served as San Marcos mayor from 1949 to 1951.

Zimmerman also has ties to the Ku Klux Klan. His theater hosted Ku Klux Klan days and screenings of Birth of a Nation.

Given this legacy, Money and Sraubhaar decided they wanted to remove the balcony and its large "Z" from the front of their home.

But because their home is in a historic district, although not a historic structure itself, the couple needed to get the sign-off of San Marcos' Historic Preservation Commission to alter its façade. In May 2023 the commission voted unanimously to deny their application to remove the balcony from the front of the house.

In response, Money and Sraubhaar sued San Marcos in federal court, arguing that the city's refusal to let them remove the balcony and initial is an uncompensated physical taking in violation of the Fifth and 14th Amendments and an unconstitutional exercise of police powers under the Texas Constitution.

"It's an occupation of property for a public benefit. It's for an alleged public purpose, in this case, the people on the design review board want to look at it. So, we think that's a taking," says Chance Weldon, a lawyer with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which is representing the couple.

In response, San Marcos filed a motion to dismiss the case, primarily arguing that Money and Sraubhaar should first have to appeal their case to the city's Zoning Board of Adjustment before taking their case to court.

The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas Austin Division is currently considering the case.

"We think it's wholly un-American that if you want to change something to the aesthetic of your property, you have to get sign-off from a board of unelected bureaucrats based on what they think looks right," Weldon tells Reason.

Comments

[Friendly Fascist]

boo hoo someone's not allowed to virtue signal about some tenuous link to a defunct organization and i'm supposed to be sad or something

lol whatever

[Friendly Fascist]

i mean honestly can we talk about just how weak this "Klan-linked" assertion is

[Don't look at me!]

I Zee what you did there.

[SQRLSY One]

For structural reasons, shitloads of barn doors and lawn-fence-doors do this “ZEE” thing… It is kinda bullshit. BUT, property rights for the win!!! In a sane, individual-freedom-loving world, at least…

PS, I see secret hysterical symbols in your crooked teeth!!! You may NOT have your teeth fixed, in the name of hysterical preservation!!!!

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Looks like completely ordinary door/gate construction to me. Keeps the thing from sagging. Clearly the owners are playing the race card to help their case. Obviously they shouldn't have to have permission to change a fucking door on their own fucking house. But there are plenty places they could move to that don't require it albeit without that intoxicating elite aroma. But for Reason to play along with this bullshit is just embarrassing.

[SQRLSY One]

"Just the facts, Ma'am"!!!

If Treason.cum reported (factually) that "A man bit a dog", with supporting links, MENTAL-GEARS-STRIPPED GRIMY-AND-RUDE (and other libertarian-rag haters) would be here asking, "WHY does Treason.cum lust SOOOO badly, after getting all of us humans AND Lizard People to BITE INNOCENT POOPY-PUPPY-DOGS TO DEATH?!?!?"

[Isaac Bartram]

The "Z" in the photo, otherwise known as diagonal bracing, essential for the structural stability of the door, is not the actual "Z" that is the subject of the legal action in question.

From TFA: "The reference in question is a large metal "Z" bolted to a wrought iron Juliette balcony on the front of Kristy Kay Money and Rolf Jacob Sraubhaar's house in San Marcos' Burleson Historic District."

[Mother's Lament]

Also from the article:

"That "Z" is the initial of the home's owner and builder, Frank Zimmerman, a prominent local businessman"

It's the guy's initial. Not a Klan symbol. Hence the bullshit "Klan-linked" bit in the header.

Unless they signed some sort of agreement at purchase, these two should be allowed to do whatever they want with their balcony.

But nevertheless, fuck them, and fuck Britschigi for this abuse of the race card.

[Friendly Fascist]

But for Reason to play along with this bullshit is just embarrassing.

they do it because they love anti-White shit just like all of the other Beltwaytizens

[Incunabulum]

The accompanying photo, like many of Reason's pics, is unrelated to the story.

Its not a pic of the offending 'Z'. Its a stock image of a gate.

[MasterThief]

My cheap ass gate on my privacy fence has the same bracing. Fuck them for this bullshit unrelated to the patio they want to modify. Fuck Britches for pushing the same lie and while supporting property rights also outright ignores contract law because he has a woke angle to focus on

[markm23]

The picture in the article is NOT the structure in question. The article says the "Z" and the balcony are metal, and the picture is clearly wooden bracing of a wooden structure.

[Dan S.]

Nevertheless, it's their property and not even considered an actual historic structure, just in a "historic district". So what is the board preserving? Still, for now, couldn't they just remove the "Z" and leave the balcony otherwise intact?

[SQRLSY One]

boo hoo, SOME modern-day Marxists have ZERO respect for property rights! If I OWN the property and pay taxes on it, it should be MY property, regardless of TWAT the Marxists have to say!!! Move to North Korea, PLEASE!!! They LOVE Marxists over there!

[mad.casual]

lol whatever

Did you see the Volkswagen Superbowl commercial? Where they started with the history of the VW Bug *after* WWII and, even then, edited the bug into a bunch of scenes and even changed some of the background scenery in the actual legitimate parts of the footage, right?

Somehow, this feels relatively less significant.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Maybe it's just their fucking property and none of the government's business.

[Friendly Fascist]

then they should argue that instead of appealing to implicit antiWhiteness

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Maybe the government courts won't let them. How ignorant are you?

[Mother's Lament]

It's not a Klan symbol, it's the initial of a guy who was in the Klan, like half the people in the south in the twenties. Most of the older stuff in San Marcos was probably owned by Klansman at one point or another.

They should be allowed to remove the balcony, but fuck them for pulling a race stunt like this.

[MWAocdoc]

I don't think it's a race stunt. Their motive for removing the balcony or even just the "Z" is irrelevant to having the RIGHT to do so. I couldn't find anywhere in the story where anyone was alleging that the board should make an exception because of the offensiveness of the balcony itself.

[Dan S.]

Opposing the Klan is not "implicit antiWhiteness". Are you suggesting that it is? If so, all I can say is that the kind of aggressive "Whiteness" you seem to have in mind should be opposed, and that most white people do in fact oppose it.

[Zeb]

That's not the problem. People should be able to do what they want with their own property, even if you think their motivations are silly. They should be allowed to remove it whether it was a klansman or the greatest benefactor to humanity ever who put it there.

[JesseAz]

Marxists seek to destroy history, not libertarians. If the contract required keeping it, they are bound by contract.

[SQRLSY One]

Old real estate sales contracts forbade EVER selling a property to black people, in perpetuity!!! Should THOSE contracts be enforced also?

[Friendly Fascist]

inshallah, yes.

[Isaac Bartram]

AFAICT, there is no contract here. Historic districts can never truly be voluntary except by unanimous vote, which is never required. Historic districts are usually instigated by the kinds of self-righteous busybodies that seem to infest the kinds of neighborhoods a few houses of significant historical or notable architectural interest. There is rarely any kind of unanimous consent for these entirely subjective criteria so it is simply the noisiest crowd that gets its way.

Thus the "Historic Preservation Board" often a private non-profit dominated by the formerly referenced self-righteous busybodies uses quasi-gevernmental powers granted by various state governments.

[MasterThief]

All of the times I've been involved with such properties there has been a mandatory contract that leaves such changes subject to the discretion of a board or some such. It makes doing work on them a pain in the ass. The people who populate those boards usually are busybody assholes. The answer is to not buy a place like that because it is made known up front that there will be severe limitations on what you can do with it

[TJJ2000]

Expected as much.
That tends to be how the government rolls. Just ‘claims’ it in some Nazi-BS legislation and then when things get sticky they’ll pretend their self-imposed claim came with contract or some invisible ink the buyer couldn’t read.

Heck. That’s exactly how the ‘Feds’ STOLD the West (almost 3/4 of the nation). Actually worse there though as they claimed to just be ‘helping’ to manage the land and then just up and decided to make claim to it all.

[Incunabulum]

There is no contract here.

They bought a house that isn't actually controlled by the historic preservation society. But the society stepped in anyway and forbid them from removing it.

[JesseAz]

Ahh the assumptions. As stated above the titles on these usually include a deference to projects and property in historical districts. It is in fact part if the contract and acceptance of terms when buying the property.

[Incunabulum]

Unless, as seems to be the case here, the historic district steps in to try to claim more authority than they have over a house that they didn't have control over.

[BYODB]

Which, in fairness, does happen and it sometimes does require a court to step in.

It's happened to my parents specifically as their home was built circa 1895 but is NOT a designated historic structure. There is nothing they ever signed that stipulates it's a historic structure, but that doesn't stop the local historic board from trying to pull shenanigans every decade or so.

Of course, from the article there is no mention of any of that so I suspect the author is wholly ignorant of the topic.

[Zeb]

There's no libertarian principle that says you can't or shouldn't destroy history. One of the things I find appealing about libertarianism as a political philosophy is that it doesn't try to have an answer to everything or provide universal guidance on what people should do.
That said, obviously I do think history should be preserved within reason. But that doesn't mean making the whole world into a museum and insisting on preserving everything.

[Dillinger]

burn it to the ground and see what happens

[Don't look at me!]

I took the door on a boat trip, it fell overboard and sank!

[Rev Arthur L kuckland]

The only thing left after the fire would be the iron z

[mad.casual]

"We think it's wholly un-American that if you want to change something to the aesthetic of your property, you have to get sign-off from a board of unelected bureaucrats based on what they think looks right," Weldon tells Reason.

Not that I disagree with their position, but how do you get to be an adult literally saying "I think we can fight city hall." in this day and age? Maybe this is the first time someone's contested a historic district in this court circuit in this part of Texas, but I'm skeptical.

Take a picture of the two of behind the Z with the husband wearing a black cape, mask, and Cordovan hat and the wife in a low-cut bodice, hang it over the mantel, tell everyone "'Z' stands for Zorro" and call it a day.

[Liberty_Belle]

Rip it down and report it stolen.

Wtf is a board of busybodies telling you what to do with YOUR property in the first place ? Petition to have them dissolved based on lack of standing.

[Mother's Lament]

They want to change the balcony, the guy's initial is just an excuse. If the "Z" disappears they lose their argument.

[Vernon Depner]

They will lose. No way will the courts disempower millions of entrenched busybodies all over the country in the Zoning and Planning industry.

[Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)]

This is fucking hilarious.

It's like if you woke up after passing out at a frat party and found that someone had drawn a dick on your forehead, instead of just putting on a hat and slinking away, you run around outside announcing to complete strangers that you have a dick drawn on your forehead while pointing at it.

Removing the Z won't change the fact that they bought a house built by a Klansman.

[MrMxyzptlk]

Where were these assholes when Confederate statues were being torn down?

[Friendly Fascist]

probably pulling on the ropes

[Jerry B.]

"Sometimes a Z is just a Z."

[Yuno Hoo]

refusal to let them remove the balcony and initial is an uncompensated physical taking

I don't understand the "physical taking" claim. Wouldn't they have better luck with a 1A stratagem?

[Incunabulum]

I would think it would at least open up to compensation by preservation societies - right now a city can declare your property 'historic' and you then have to bear all the costs with no compensation.

If they want to force the Z to remain, the city can at least pay the homeowners to leave it there.

[MasterThief]

I don’t think the Z has any significance here. It probably doesn't even relate to the guy who probably wasn't a kkk/nazi type. They want to change something the historic society said they couldn't so they're grasping at straws to make a case. They're free to do so, but it's a dick move and it's deceptive to report it this way

[Longtobefree]

A persistent and dynamic social media campaign, combined with personal picketing of every future meeting of the Klan supporting board should do the trick.
Expose those racists for who they really are!

[AT]

I'll die laughing if they have a Vote Democrat campaign sign anywhere in their lawn.

[Longtobefree]

To be historic, it would have to be a Dewy, Truman, or Thurmond sign.

[MasterThief]

So the KKK affiliation is weak to begin with and they're just trying to use it as a woke wedge to alter the aesthetics of a "historic" building.
I'm certainly of the opinion that you are free to do whatever you want with a property you own. Unfortunately, these "historic" properties tend to come packaged with legal clauses that prevents a vast array of modifications subject to an external board. Don't sign the contract or buy the property if you don't want to abide by it. If there was no such contract then do what you want and tell them to pound sand (but good luck getting building permits)

[Zeb]

In the case of these historic preservation things, I'm not convinced that most of these contracts came about legitimately. I say good for people who decide to challenge it, even if their odds of success aren't great and their arguments aren't all very strong. Someone has to push back on this shit.

[Minadin]

I've spent the last 6 weeks trying to convince the historic preservationist and the elected historic preservation board* of a small town in Colorado to allow us to turn an existing window into a new door into the building. This involves only removing the existing window and the brick below it and replacing it with a door.

Architecturally, structurally, very easy. Regulation-wise? Well, the regulations are mostly guidelines and it's all about how it 'feels'. After 6 rounds of back-and-forth, the staff preservationist is finally ready to recommend our project to the elected board as 'appropriate'. Provided we're successful in getting the town council (not the HP board) to approve at least one variance.

My fees to the owner of this unfortunately situated building for just getting through the historic preservation process will vastly eclipse the fees for doing the actual construction documents. If he had been a block south or a block north, or even two blocks west, it wouldn't have been an issue at all.

*(note: apparently to be on the board you have to have personally experienced at least half of this town's existence)

[Nazi-Chipping Warlock]

Sounds like you ought to just shoot all those busybody assholes in the head. You'll end up in prison, but your neighbors will thank you.

[Crackers Boy]

"But because their home is in a historic district, although not a historic structure itself, the couple needed to get the sign-off of San Marcos' Historic Preservation Commission to alter its façade. "

They knew it when they bought it. Too bad. Next case.

TM
(NEVER voluntarily move into a neighborhood with an HOA, or one controlled by a "board", other than a city council or county commission.)

[JohannesDinkle]

I have a home, part of which was built in 1867. It is not on the National Register, but the local historic society says it could and should be, so they tried to control what we did to the home as if it were. They lost.

[JohannesDinkle]

Two things:
I have a barn door that is strengthened with a big wooden Z. No one here has ever heard of Zimmerman. Perhaps the big Z is a coincidence.
So, people can tear down statues they do not own without consequence, but they can't remove something they own?

[Gaear Grimsrud]

As usual with Reason's knee jerk reporting there isn't enough information here to draw a conclusion. Did this commission exist prior to their purchase of the property? If so are the restrictions noted on the title? Did they purchase title insurance? Were they made aware of the restrictions by the title company and realtors involved if any? There are obviously people who think it's pretty cool to brag about their historic property. An exclusive club. How many people on the planet have a name starting with the letter Z? As others have noted half the town was built by KKK members. Virtue signal much? The house is probably loaded with KKK DNA. Based on the logic presented aren't they bound by conviction to burn the mother down? Isn't the history of the house including the political affiliations of the builder the thing that makes it historical? So many questions. But here's Reason fighting ancient white supremacy no matter how tenuous the link.

[BYODB]

I’m of two minds about this.

Firstly, I tend to absolutely agree that a board of jackasses should have very little if any say about what I do with my property.

Secondly, buying property in a ‘historic district’ is a fools errand since you should already be aware that those properties have extra stipulations above and beyond what a ‘normal’ property would entail.

Buy a historic home from, say, 1850 and you’re going to get extra super scrutiny on literally anything you want to do to that property.

I’m originally from a small town in the vicinity of San Marcos, and I can tell you there are rather a lot of of Victorian style homes with historical plaques in that area specifically and the zoning boards can and will slap you with anything they can. Their realtor is probably the person they should be suing. Even though I basically agree with their position, the government does not writ large.

[VinniUSMC]

HOAs are super cool, cause private something or other. Historic preservation is linked to local government, how dare you slavers?! /sarc

Did the owners agree to this BS when they bought the house? If yes, too bad.

[Zeb]

HOAs suck, but at least they've generally got a solid contractual footing. Historic district stuff doesn't generally compensate property owners for the loss of use of their properties that it entails as far as I know, which makes it questionable as a valid part of a contract.

[Azathoth!!]

When you move into a historic district there are usually rules you are told about before you buy.

In our area we have restrictions on paint colors and points about the appearance of the facade.

We knew this going in, and were okay with it, being something of architectural preservationists ourselves.

The weasel wording of the Reason 'writers' makes it plain that these people also knew the historic district restrictions going in and agreed to them.

[Think It Through]

It's Straubhaar. https://faculty.txst.edu/profile/2018539

[markm23]

First off, shame on the author or the editors for posting a misleading picture of a _wooden_ door with wooden Z-bracing in an article about an _iron_ balcony with a metal "Z". So don't assume the "Z" is structural - it could be in spite of the claim that it's the builder's initial, but the article does not say, and I did not see a link to find out more about this, or about the historical district, what it legally can control, and if there is any history of extending its powers. (I know that around my home town in Michigan you'll find plenty of Z-braces, and they it's more likely that they were home built than made by Zimmerman Construction or any construction company.)

Second, it sure sounds like the "Z" initial is just an excuse for a couple that wants to remove the balcony. If it's about the "Z", remove just that if non-structural, or add another crosspiece and convert it to a barred-X if it is structural.

That's assuming the balcony is sound. Perhaps the couple wants to remove it entirely because it is becoming dangerous and repairs would cost too much? (This is about the only reason I'd remove a balcony, but tastes differ.) Unless government pays the repair costs, it should have a very, very good reason for interfering in such decisions, and IMHO keeping a non-historical house looking a little more like a neighboring historical house isn't a good reason.

[Mark U]

The picture in this article is not a picture of the Juliet balcony in question. It is just a stock photo. Here's a link to a more informative article with an actual picture of the Juliet Balcony. https://www.texaspolicy.com/texas-couple-sues-over-symbol-linked-to-ku-klux-klan/

[markm23]

Thanks. So the Z is not structural but plainly an initial, although it covers a hole that looks big enough to fall through. Anyone skilled at welding wrought iron could easily remove the Z and weld something else to block the hole - a cross, an X or S, or two or three vertical or horizontal bars.

According to this, and disagreeing with the original post, they don't want to remove the balcony, but only the Z. And _that_ initial is what the preservationists insist on preserving. That sounds to me like a long stretch, especially on _this_ house because according to this link, the current owners actually applied for a historical marker and were denied.

[Fetterman's Hump]

Klan symbol discovered. Minorities and Gen Z hardest hit!