Green Pastures

ASSIGNMENT

Revive a heritage Austin brand and resurrect its positioning of gracious hospitality for a beloved property opening a new hotel and event venue.

SERVICES

Brand Strategy

Brand Architecture

Brand Identity

Brand Positioning

Foundational Language

Signage and

Wayfinding

Collateral Design

Web Design

Messaging

For over 75 years, people have gathered at Green Pastures amidst the sprawling live oaks to celebrate rites of passage, traditions or holidays, or to enjoy the famous weekend brunch.

Throughout many decades of great change and various stewards, the property has remained a steadfast symbol of Austin hospitality.

In 2025, a 63-key hotel, The Inn at Green Pastures, opened on the property. Distinguished and reﬁned, the modern venue designed by Clayton Korte offers guest rooms, event space, a bar, lounge, and a private pool.

In 2015, the five acre property closed for major renovations to the farmhouse. It reopened as the restaurant Mattie’s in 2017, and the name Green Pastures receded.

With plans to proceed with a new hotel and event venue, between Mattie’s, the hotel, additional event space and surrounding grounds, the co-located entities required a new brand architecture. Overstory naturally recommended Green Pastures as the name for the umbrella brand and resurrected the beloved brand.

To be successful, the brand identity needed to consider the Green Pastures legacy brand identity, work well with other brands on the property (existing, new, and yet to be designed) and include a visual system that conjured the splendor of the property.

In reviving the Green Pastures name we wanted to pay homage to a few iterations of the brand from over the years. Both the 1960s and 1980s versions employ gracious caligraphic styles packed with personality.

Because the new Green Pastures encompases more than the original restaurant the brand needed to communicate a broader sense of place and be welcoming to all guests. It also needed to do double duty for the storied events business on the property.

At Green Pastures, located on Live Oak Street, the trees have always featured in the experience. The shape surrounding the new brand identity, the treetop seal, evokes the tree canopy and celebrates the gnarled oaks as the great sentinels of Green Pastures and its legacy of integrated hospitality.

A little background:
In 1916 John Henry and Martha “Mattie” Miner Faulk bought the original 1894 farmhouse on Live Oak surrounded by 23 wooded acres. Mattie and John Henry lived in the home and raised their five children there.

In 1946, the widowed matriarch sold the home to her middle daughter Mary and husband Chester Koock. The Koocks lived upstairs and remodeled the downstairs to open a restaurant and catering business. They named it Green Pastures.