On Austin’s West Campus, a rented house called ‘The Lodge’ turns music into community

Off Pearl Street in Austin’s West Campus neighborhood, a rented house known to students as “The Lodge” has become a daily gathering spot for music, food and community outreach, run out of the home of five University of Texas roommates who are all musicians.

The house belongs to Anna Buendia, a 21-year-old senior public relations major and Texas native who has written and performed music since she was 16. She and her four roommates have opened their home to fellow students for free jam sessions, rehearsals, writing sessions and even ticketed performances, under a program Buendia created called “Meet Me Here.”

“It’s Austin, so music’s everywhere,” Buendia said. “It’s a densely art-rich city to be in, and just finding a microculture within it has been so wonderful.”

A living room built for making music

The living room at The Lodge holds 20 guitars, two drum sets and a sound system, according to Buendia, and it rarely sits quiet.

“Our whole living room is perfect for a rehearsal space, and so daily, there’s rehearsals happening,” Buendia said. “Even when there’s not rehearsals happening, there’s music being made. Like yesterday, I had a small moment of bliss. I was just walking down my stairs, and I could hear my roommate upstairs recording a song, and two of my roommates downstairs, each learning and writing songs, like separate from each other, and it was just like, wow, like it’s really awesome to see that.”

The house also hosts more formal “Meet Me Here” tapings, which Buendia described as full productions.

“We bring a whole production crew, and the living room turns into a set, and we have an intimate audience of 25 to 30 people upstairs on our second-floor balcony. And we do a live taping of a local band, and it’s a very intimate event. Normally, ticket purchasers get a piece of physical media, and we try to keep the tickets as cheap as possible.”

Buendia said the artists retain rights to all the audio and video from those sessions, and the production crew works for free out of a passion for the space and the musicians it highlights.

Sunday jams grow into a block party

What began as a casual gathering has grown into something larger. “I started grilling hot dogs outside my house on Sundays, and putting my instruments outside with my roommates, and we would just do like free hot dogs, come jam with us. And it became like a consistent Sunday thing,” Buendia said.

The Sunday event now partners with a mutual aid group called the Student Solidarity Network, which Buendia said helps organize neighbors who cook a different menu every other week for 100 to 200 people, and brings help to set up equipment and a stage outdoors. The gatherings also include clothing drives, with donated items set out on free racks for anyone who stops by.

“It’s a biweekly block party,” Buendia said. “Anyone can come join, hop on the mic, on the drums, on the guitar, on the bass, eat, just sit there. There’s something happening here every single day, music related.”

Buendia said she’s watched friendships and musical partnerships form at the gatherings, as students meet, agree to record together, and return the following week having collaborated.

Now in her final year at UT, Buendia said the community built around The Lodge and “Meet Me Here” reshaped her college experience. Recalling how isolated she felt as a high school freshman, she said she thinks often about what a Sunday on Pearl Street would have meant to her back then.

“It feels really beautiful that I’m able to be part of such a fruitful community that cares about each other and is interested in setting up events where people can be accepted and fed and clothed and walk away with a full belly, a new t-shirt, hopefully new shoes, pants, and, just knowing that they have somewhere where they belong,” she said.