National Register Listing

Idylwood Historic District

Roughly bounded by Lawndale Ave., N. MacGregor Wy., Sylvan Rd. & Wayside Dr., Houston, TX

The Idylwood Historic District was platted in 1928 by Idylwood, Inc. and developed by Embry and Gillette as a garden suburb development in Houston, Texas. It was one of the first developments in Houston to take advantage of its location along a bayou. When it was opened, it was advertised as a suburb in Houston where middle-class families could purchase houses "amidst such beautiful, lovely and natural surroundings" along Brays Bayou." The early- to mid-twentieth-century houses in Idylwood represent a collection of architectural types that are excellent if generally modest, examples of their time. The neighborhood also contains a number of innovative and unique houses designed by local Houston architects specifically for middle-class homeowners. Idylwood is distinguished from its contemporary subdivisions in that it is a very intact and excellent example of a middle-class automobile suburb that has escaped much of the development pressures that have affected neighborhoods elsewhere in the city. The district contains 525 contributing and only 91 non-contributing resources. The district is nominated to the National Register of Historic Places in the area of Community Planning and Development as an early and excellent example of important neighborhood design movements of the early twentieth century: the automobile suburb and the garden suburb movement. Idylwood is also National Register-eligible in the area of Architecture as a well-preserved and representative example of popular, twentieth-century, middle-class, suburban housing styles with early and distinctive examples of architect-designed houses.

Local significance of the district:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 2011.