Attracted to the new suburb by the recommendation of her friend, former Governor Oran M. Roberts, Elisabet Ney built her studio just south of Waller Creek in 1892. The creek was dammed to form a small lake and provided much pleasure to Ney and her friends who enjoyed rowing to its center or simply listening to the serenade of bullfrogs. Ney entertained frequently. Her guests included several governors of Texas and such visiting dignitaries as William Jennings Bryan, Enrico Caruso and Jan Paderewski, who called her one of the most fascinating women he had ever met.
Elisabet Ney purchased seven acres from Col. Shipe and built her studio, Formosa, in 1892. Ten years later she added a tower to the structure.
Loriena Cassens of 4401 Avenue H and Bertha Duesterhoeft dressed in old-fashioned clothing for a costume party about 1925. The Cassens lived across the street from the Ney Museum and kept the key. Loriena often accompanied visitors to the museum, waiting in the basement which still held Ney's dishes, pots, and pans until the visitors were ready to leave.
Elisabet Ney visits her friends the Millers at their home on Guadalupe about 1905. Clarence Miller was the dean of the law school at the University of Texas at that time.
Boating on "Lake Ney" behind Ney's studio was a popular pastime. The city ordered it drained for health reasons in 1898 causing a local reporter to lament the disappearance of the "music of the bullfrogs" who inhabited it.
One of Elisabet Ney's friends stands at her studio entrance gate made of wire mesh. Wire mesh fences were needed in Hyde Park in the 1890s to keep out loose livestock and stray dogs.
