Woodland Heights & Norhill: Bungalow Streetcar Suburbs

North of downtown, in the bend of White Oak Bayou, lie two of Houston's earliest planned suburbs — Woodland Heights and Norhill. When the streetcar reached these blocks in the 1900s and 1910s, developers laid out shaded boulevards and modest lots and sold the dream of a green retreat from the crowded city, a short ride to work and a world away from it. What went up were bungalows: low Craftsman cottages with deep porches, tapered columns, and exposed rafter tails, the definitive middle-class Texas home of the early twentieth century. This walk moves through Woodland Heights and its neighbor Norhill, past the churches, cemeteries, and community landmarks that gave the suburb its civic life, and lingers on the porches that make these streets one of the best-preserved bungalow districts in the state. Look for the wide eaves and river-rock chimneys; that's the streetcar suburb's signature.