This Month's Neighborhood - Avondale

Avondale

Avondale is a area of Houston, just west of downtown, designed to compete with other new upscale neighborhoods, such as Courtland Place, Montrose, and Westmoreland. Today, the original Avondale neighborhood includes two historic districts: Avondale East and Avondale West, where homes were built in the Tudor Revival, Prairie, American Four Square, and Craftsman styles. Some of the neighborhood’s red concrete sidewalks and curbs, carriage houses, and hitching posts can still be seen today. 

In 1906, Joseph F. Meyer, Jr., was a Houston businessman who owned a 31-acre pasture in the country outside Houston. Meyer sold it to the Greater Houston Improvement Company (GHIC) for $105,000. Before 1900, most business and professional people lived south of downtown, along Main Street.  But as the city grew after the turn of the century, upscale neighborhoods were beginning to expand beyond the Main Street corridor.  Avondale was perfectly located since the Houston Electric Street Railway was extending it South End Line which would allow people in the neighborhood to travel to work by streetcar.  Avondale became one of Houston's upscale “Streetcar Subdivisions.”

GHIC platted the land into 129 lots along three main streets, which were paved with oyster shells and the curbs and sidewalks were concrete. The company also hired Teas Nursery to plant 500 trees in the area. (More on Teas Nursery in next months neighborhood blog - Bellaire)  Every lot had gas, water, and sewer connections, and alleys were cut through the middle of each block where utility poles were located.  Avondale required all deliveries and trash collection to used the alleys, so to keep the neighborhood more attractive.

The name “Avondale” is based on William Shakespeare’s hometown in England: Stratford-upon-Avon.  The three main streets were named in keeping with the Shakespeare theme: Avondale, Stratford, and Hathaway (Shakespeare’s wife was Anne Hathaway.)  The cross streets included Baldwin, Helena, Mason, and Taft.  Most readers with not know of Hathaway Street, since it no longer exists.  Keep Reading! 

From the beginning, the neighborhood was designed to be very upscale and exclusive. Deed restrictions ensured only wealth people would build larger homes on the lots.  The most affordable street was Hathaway, where 5000–6000 square feet lots were developed with a 25 foot required set back, and a home must cost at least $3,000 to build. Stratford Street required homes of at least $3,750 to be constucted, and on the 10,000 sq foot lots of Avondale, a house construction cost of at least $5,000 was required.  Avondale immedately became a popular neighborhood for Houston's wealthy families, with some homeowners buying multiple lots and building large mansions.

As Avondale developed, many of the homeowners were wealthy enough to afford that new contraption called an automobile. This resulted in most properties building 2-story carriage houses with the same design as the main house, on the alley.  These carriage houses had space for two cars on the ground floor, and has small apartments for the servants above.  This change also resulted in hitching posts being moved from the alley to the front of the house at the curb so horses to tie up to when making deliveries. 

The expiration of the neighborhood’s deed restrictions in 1930 resulted in two things.  First, non-white people were no longer prohibited from owning property Avondale, and some businesses started occupying some of the houses.

After World War II, Houston like many U.S. cities did not have enough housing for returning servicemen and their families. As old families moved away from Avondale, many of their large houses were torn down to make way for apartment buildings, which helped solve the housing crisis. At that time businesses also took over much of Hathaway Street, which had been renamed Westheimer Road.