BART TRUXILLO, 1942-2017 
In 2006, the former brewery structure now hosting the Magnolia Ballroom was the first building in Houston to get protected landmark status — and was not the last, probably thanks in part to the life work of its restorer. Bart Truxillo bought the then-vacant building on the edge of Market Square in the late sixties, not too long before buying and restoring the crumbling Queen Anne Mansfield house in the Heights; both structures are now on the National Register of Historic Places. Truxillo later helped found what’s today known as Preservation Houston, and start the organization’s Good Brick Awards during the demolition-rich years of Houston’s first oil boom, as Lisa Gray notes today in the Chronicle; after years of work restoring historic buildings around town and serving a bunch of other history-minded groups, he died yesterday at age 74. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Magnolia Ballroom building on Franklin St.: Brewery Tap HTX
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This is very sad news. Bart was a Heights legend and did so much for Houston. He was an iconoclast who stood up for preservation against a raging tide of fast oil money and the real estate developers who would scramble to ride the wave of each oil boom by knocking down anything in their way.
There is an ancient Hebrew legend of the 36 Lamed Vovniks. They are 36 “humble just men” who keep the world from destruction through their good deeds. They do not know that they are one of the 36 and no one knows who they are. The moral to the legend is that we should all act like we are one of the 36 because we will never know if we are one. Even though we are not supposed to know who they are, I am very sure Bart was one of the 36 lamed Vovniks.
Bart was the guardian of the Heights, spreading his goodwill, friendship and good works in the very most gentle and purposeful manner. We are so blessed to have been in the bright aura of this truly generous spirit, and great man.