Old Baldy sold, will remain open to public
Dalton Sweat
Editor
Old Baldy has officially sold, and the new owners say that it will stay open to the public and may one day become a public park.
Andrew Weber, a lawyer in Austin who lives in Wimberley, bought the property for more than $150,000.
“It needs to be place that our grandkids can go and your grandkids go,” Weber said. “It’s a feature and a piece of Wimberley that was always there. It’s like Blue Hole and the Blanco River. It’s just part of Wimberley.”
When Weber saw the news reports that Old Baldy had been closed to the public, for the brief time that it was closed, and that the property was up for sale, his first thought was purchasing the property.
“I said something to my wife like ‘if it isn’t a million dollars, we should just buy it and keep it open,’” Weber said. “We clicked on the link, and it was like $150,000.”
“We thought, let’s do this, and we’ll figure it all out later. We thought we could find a way, with the community’s help and similar to (how Blue Hole was donated), and we’ll figure out how to raise the money over the next few months.”
An anonymous local donor offer a “big loan,” and with what Weber called a “leap of faith,” they and other local residents put in a bid on the property.
Their bid was not the one chosen, however. It wasn’t until July 4 that the original bid chosen by City Gate Church, who put the property up for sale, fell through. The Webers increased their bid a bit, and it was enough to land the property.
They then created a new organization called the Save Old Baldy Foundation, which is currently in the process of obtaining a non-profit designation from the Internal Revenue Service. Save Old Baldy is now the owner of the property.
The organization is looking for donations raise $170,000, and it is looking to the community for support.
“(We) are optimistic that (we) can raise the funds needed to make Old Baldy a public facility forever for all our kids and grandkids,” a press release from Weber said.
The Save Old Baldy Foundation must raise the money to do so, then they must find the proper way to make the property public for good.
“The Foundation has had initial discussions with the city of Wimberley about what it might take to transfer ownership of the mountain to the city for use as a park or to find some other way to keep and preserve Old Baldy as one of Wimberley’s jewels,” the release said.
“If you've ever climbed Old Baldy, or seen it and its twin sister as you approached the Wimberley Valley and want to make sure our kids and grandkids can do the same, we hope you will help Save Old Baldy by making a donation to ensure Old Baldy's future as a community resource.”
Currently, www.saveoldbaldy.org is in the process of being set up to take donations. For the time being, donations can be mailed to Save Old Baldy Foundation at P.O. Box 2537 in Wimberley, and an account has been set up at Blanco National Bank.
Besides Weber, many other locals have been named Board of Directors for the new organization including Linda Allen, local writer and restaurant owner; Brent Pulley, local attorney, Vice Chairman of the Wimberley Chamber of Commerce and former Woodcreek City Council member Jean McMeans; Linda Lang and Lin Weber, retired educators and Master Naturalists; Jane Little, Master Naturalist and former Woodcreek City Council member; Susan Nenney, Master Naturalist; Jim Shultz, local psychiatrist and Weber.
