Hotel Ella (Goodall Wooten House)

The mansion at 1900 Rio Grande Street was completed in 1900 as a private residence for Dr. Goodall H. Wooten — a physician, regent, and businessman whose influence in Austin extended well beyond medicine — and his wife Ella Newsome Wooten, whom he had married in 1897. The couple purchased the land from Goodall's father, Thomas Dudley Wooten, in 1898 and moved into the finished house in January 1900. The home occupies the western edge of the University of Texas neighborhood, positioned between the academic center to the east and downtown Austin to the south.

In 1910, Ella took on the renovation of the home, hiring Neiman-Marcus to oversee the interior decorating — the first home in Austin on which the Dallas-based retailer worked. The renovation reconfigured the structure into its current Greek Revival form. Ella Wooten was also a civic figure in her own right, organizing Red Cross relief efforts in Austin during both World Wars. The Wooten family remained associated with the property for decades, during which it served as both a private home and a social landmark on the edge of campus.

The property later passed into other hands and operated under several names — most notably as the Mansion at Judges' Hill — before a comprehensive 2013 restoration returned the historic core to its early-20th-century character while adding compatible new wings. The reopened property took the name Hotel Ella in tribute to Ella Wooten and now offers 47 guest rooms, a wrap-around veranda, and a cabana-lined pool on the historic grounds.

The mansion is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the hotel actively preserves and interprets the property's architectural and family history through its public spaces, restaurant (Goodall's Kitchen & Bar), and seasonal programming.