Preservation Houston

We've Joined!

The Woodland Heights Civic Association has recently decided to join Preservation Houston. As one of Houston's oldest and among it's first suburbs with historic structures in Woodland Heights built between 1907 and 1925 remain. Many of these original homes reflect the Queen Anne, craftsman and English cottage architectural styles popular just after the turn of the century among the more modest middle class. These home styles are predominately bungalows, cottages and four squares with most featuring the generous front porches so important to the social conventions of the era and personal comfort in Houston’s pre-air-conditioned climate.

With this in mind it seemed fitting we should join an organization that works to "promote the preservation and appreciation of Houston’s architectural and cultural historic resources through advocacy, education and committed action, thereby creating economic value and developing a stronger sense of community."

We look forward to our relationship with Preservation Houston to help keep our historic homes and history for future generations.

President's Report: January 2026

Here we are at the end of January already. Lights in the Heights is now well behind us. Immediately following our neighborhood event, the holiday season hit like an avalanche. There was barely time to recuperate before the first WHCA board meeting of the year.

The board met on Tuesday, January 6th. On this occasion, we invited the various committees involved in Lights in the Heights to participate in an after-action-analysis of the event. There was much discussion of the various aspects of the event. Who did what? What were the processes? What were the problems? Where are the opportunities for improvement?

On the whole, the collected parties felt the event ran well this past year. It was an incremental improvement over last year in some ways. We also jotted down some ideas for ways to evolve both the event and the organization, to make things easier, and potentially more remunerative, in the future.

I’d like to personally thank everyone who participated, from start to finish. Lights in the Heights is a huge event, involving dozens of volunteers. In the end, most of the work falls to a handful of extremely dedicated neighbors, who invest a huge amount of the time and energy.

January also finds WHCA holding the first Member’s meeting of the year. That gather was Tuesday, January 13th at Zion Lutheran Church. While we did go through some of the normal business of the civic association, the major draw was a presentation by Jim Parsons, Director of Special Projects at Preservation Houston. 

Jim’s talk, “Time & Place: Unlocking the History of Your Home or Building” was both enlightening and entertaining. He described the various available resources and paths of investigation that could reveal the history of older homes. His slides were tweaked to show historic maps of Woodland Heights, so many in attendance could see references to their own homes!

The presentation drew a crowd of about 40, which is well above average for a Member’s Meeting. After the formal presentation there was about 15 minutes of Q&A from a very engaged audience.

We had an inkling this would be broadly of interest to the neighborhood, so we recorded Jim’s part of the presentation. If we can get a copy of his slides, we’ll try to make this part of the meeting available via the WHCA web site.

That said, if you have any interest in this subject, and missed our January meeting (tsk!) you can sign-up for their next formal presentation, which is Tuesday, February 10, at PH Studio in the Preservation Houston office, 3907 Main Street. Registration is $10 for Preservation Houston members and $15 for non-members.

Jim was referred to us by Debbie Hall, a former WHCA board member, who oversees the Venerable Home Project. That project sets out to recognized homes in the neighborhood that have been verified as 100 years old.

An Option To Protect Your Home From Being Torn Down

Are you concerned about your beloved home falling prey to a wrecking ball?  Looking for a way to protect it?  An option is to apply for Protected Landmark status.  In a nutshell, here are some of the details.
 
Buildings have to meet three of these general requirements to qualify as a protected landmark: 

• 50 years old or older*

• Example of an identifiable architectural style*

• Associated with a known architect, builder or craftsman.

• Important building to the community or scene of a significant event in the community*

• Illustrates how the neighborhood developed or last surviving example in its neighborhood*

• Associated with a family or individual prominent in the community. 

The four with asterisks are the most common qualifiers. When it says community, it can just be the neighborhood; it does not have to be the whole city.
 
The ordinance is concerned with structural changes to the house: things like replacing windows and doors, enlarging the openings. Substantial changes. You can also build additions to the house as long as they don’t dominate the historic portion. All these kinds of changes have to be submitted to the preservation office for approval before the work is begun.
 
At the owners request, Preservation Houston can produce the protected landmark nomination at no charge.  Contact Preservation Houston at  713-510-3990  for more information.