Travis Heights is, to our eye, one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in the city to simply drive through — and an even better one to walk. Its history goes back to the 1876 Congress Avenue bridge, which finally made the south side of the river feel safe to settle, and to the 1880s development of Fairview Park, laid out by New York speculators in the curving, landscape-following style that was fashionable in the wake of Frederick Law Olmsted. Most of what you see today, though, was built in the 1920s and '30s, and the housing stock is gloriously varied: 1800s Victorians, 1920s bungalows, mid-century moderns, and brand-new glass-and-wood builds, often on the same street. It holds the city's first local historic district south of the river, and the tree canopy and rolling, creek-cut topography give it a settled, unhurried feel that's hard to manufacture.
The two Stacy parks — Little Stacy and Big Stacy, connected by the Blunn Creek greenbelt — are the neighborhood's green heart, with Big Stacy's spring-fed pool open year-round. And then there's South Congress, which functions as Travis Heights' living room: Jo's Coffee (home of the "I love you so much" mural) for the morning, Perla's for oysters on a shaded patio, June's All Day for wine and bistro plates, Güero's for long-standing Tex-Mex, and Home Slice for pizza. Each fall, the neighborhood opens its studios and homes for the Travis Heights Art Trail, which is exactly the kind of thing that tells you a place actually has a community and not just a zip code.
