Please note that advance ticket purchase is required for this walking tour.

What is now the First Montrose Commons Historic District includes two historic neighborhoods platted on what was then Houston’s southwestern edge: the Lockhart, Connor & Barziza Addition (1873) and the Bute Addition (1907). Construction in the area began in earnest after the adjacent Montrose Place neighborhood opened in 1911. Today, the streets of First Montrose Commons are lined with an eclectic mix of large and small homes and apartment buildings designed in a variety of 20th-century styles.

Please note that advance ticket purchase is required for this walking tour.

The Rice University campus is one of the most beautiful places in Houston thanks to the Mediterranean-influenced designs of Boston architects Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson, who were responsible for the university's earliest buildings. Our 90-minute, docent-guided walking tour circles the campus, exploring the history of the university itself, the story and murder of its founder and the development of Rice's signature architectural style.

Please note that advance ticket purchase is required for this tour.

Although Glenwood Cemetery is known for its splendid Victorian monuments, there’s a more modern side as well. This docent-guided walking tour explores some of the newer sections of Glenwood and the lives of some of the well-known 20th century Houstonians buried there, including businessmen George and Herman Brown; cotton magnate and statesman Will Clayton; Edgar Odell Lovett, Rice University’s first president; Astrodome builder Judge Roy Hofheinz; and longtime television anchor Ron Stone.

Please note that advance ticket purchase is required for this walking tour.

Buffalo Bayou in downtown Houston was teeming with activity at the turn of the 20th century, from the wharves of the Port of Houston at Allen's Landing to the produce wholesalers, warehouses, breweries and factories that lined the bayou’s banks. The scene is very different today, but remnants of the busy commercial district of a century ago are visible if you know where to look for them.

Please note that advance ticket purchase is required for this walking tour.

Our 90-minute, docent-guided walking tour of the neighborhood tells the story of Allen's Landing and looks at historic buildings nearby, including turn-of-the-century warehouses, a former neighborhood saloon with a checkered past and the restored Willow Street Pump Station, the centerpiece of Houston's first sewer system. We'll also get a unique perspective on Allen's Landing as we walk across the historic Main Street Viaduct, one of the city's major public works projects of the 1910s.

Please note that advance ticket purchase is required for this tour.

This two-hour walking tour traces the changing tastes and the varied social and personal motivations reflected in some of Glenwood's outstanding monuments, which range from elaborate Victorian obelisks and angels to crisp, modern compositions. Along the way, docents will explain the symbolism and stories behind the monuments and will discuss the lives of Houstonians both famous and forgotten who commissioned them.

Please note that advance ticket purchase is required for this walking tour.

Montrose Place set a new standard for Houston’s suburban development when it opened in 1911. The neighborhood was the city’s first large-scale planned subdivision, with more than 1,000 lots and $1 million in improvements; its four principal boulevards quickly became some of the most fashionable addresses in town. This walking tour explores two of those boulevards — Lovett Boulevard and Audubon Place — and what they can tell us about early 20th-century suburban design in the Bayou City.

Please note that advance ticket purchase is required for this walking tour.

This tour explores the changes in downtown Houston's skyline during the past 100 years through buildings like 806 Main, called "Carter's Folly" when it was completed in 1910 because some locals thought a 16-story building couldn't stand on its own, and Philip Johnson's groundbreaking Pennzoil Place, which set the stage for the postmodern skyline of the 1980s.

Please note that advance ticket purchase is required for this tour.

This two-hour, docent-guided tour looks at the lives and legacies of some of the men and women buried at Glenwood Cemetery who shaped Houston after the turn of the 20th century. They include oilmen R.L. Blaffer and Ross Sterling, who were among the founders of Humble Oil (later ExxonMobil), and Howard Hughes, the legendary billionaire whose family fortune was built on oilfield services.

Please note that advance ticket purchase is required for this walking tour.

Broadacres was among the residential neighborhoods developed near Rice University in the early 20th century. Our docent-guided walking tour explores the history of this beautiful historic district, the architecture of its gracious homes and the stories of the oil, cotton, lumber, banking and railroad families that built them.

Please note that advance registration is required for this online program.

Preservation Houston has presented Good Brick Awards since 1979 to recognize outstanding historic preservation projects — and we’re inviting you to join us online at Tuesday evening, August 22, to learn more about this year’s Good Brick winners.

Please note that advance ticket purchase is required for this walking tour.

Oilman Henry Masterson developed Cherokee Place in the early 1920s as open prairie southwest of Houston gave way to desirable neighborhoods bordering the recently opened Rice University campus. In the years that followed, businessmen, doctors and attorneys built comfortable homes on Cherokee’s large lots. Many of those homes still stand, reflecting the range of residential styles popular among Houston’s middle class from the 1920s to the 1940s.

Please note that advance registration is required for this online program.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Harris County housed disadvantaged elderly and disabled people at the Poor Farm. A few dozen residents lived and worked on the 200-acre tract off Bissonnet Street in what was then the open countryside southwest of Houston. The Poor Farm operated at the site until 1922; the acreage was later developed as Southside Place and part of West University Place. Today, Poor Farm Ditch — which once ran alongside the property — is one of the only reminders that the county farm was once located in the area.

Please note that advance registration is required for this online program.

The Good Brick Award-winning redevelopment of the Barbara Jordan Post Office as the mixed-use POST Houston is one of the highest-profile preservation projects in the Bayou City today. Join Preservation Houston for an inside look at the work that went into adapting this downtown landmark for new uses during an online Preservation in Practice program with Amanda Barry, historic preservation tax credit manager for Ryan, on Tuesday evening, July 11.

This event is open to current Preservation Houston/Pier & Beam members.

Preservation Houston members are invited to join us Tuesday evening, June 20, for a celebration of the organization's work over the past year and a chance to welcome incoming members of the PH Board of Directors during the 2023 Member Reception and Meeting at POST Houston.

Please note that advance ticket purchase is required for this walking tour.

The campus of Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts includes work by locally and internationally acclaimed architects, from William Ward Watkin’s original classically inspired 1920s building through mid-century additions designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and striking 21st-century structures by Steven Holl Architects. Together, these buildings — along with landscape elements such as Isamu Noguchi’s Cullen Sculpture Garden — show how museum design and conceptions of cultural space have evolved over the past century.

Please note that advance ticket purchase is required for this tour.

Glenwood Cemetery, established in 1871 on rolling, wooded land near Buffalo Bayou, is one of the most beautiful outdoor spaces in Houston. It is also the resting place of scores of people who built Houston into the city we know today — railroad executives, bankers, politicians and architects, among many others.

Please note that advance ticket purchase is required for this walking tour.

Market Square, one of the public squares laid out in the Allen brothers' original plan of Houston, was home to the city market and City Hall from 1841 to 1939. During that time, the square became the center of Houston's early commercial district. Although the area declined in the mid-20th century, preservation projects have brought new uses to its historic buildings and new life to Market Square itself. Our docent-guided tour explores the neighborhood’s past, present and future as a vital part of downtown Houston.

The small town of New Harmony, Indiana, was an important site of Houstonian Jane Blaffer Owen’s architectural, art and cultural philanthropy. New Harmony is renowned as the site of two successive Utopian settlements during the 19th century: the Harmonists and the Owenites. More than 30 structures from the Harmonist and Owenite communities have been preserved alongside other historic buildings that Jane Blaffer Owen moved to the town and striking modern works she commissioned by Richard Meier and Philip Johnson.

Please note that advance ticket purchase is required for this walking tour.

Avondale, a residential neighborhood in what is now the Montrose area, was part of the first wave of Houston’s southwestern suburban expansion in the early years of the 20th century. Our 90-minute docent-guided walking tour explores the neighborhood’s history and explains how Avondale has changed over the years and the work that has been done to restore many of its outstanding historic homes.

Advance registration is strongly encouraged for this event.

Architectural historian Stephen Fox's new book The Architecture of Birdsall P. Briscoe examines Houston architect Birdsall P. Briscoe's country houses, offering a glimpse into the architect's methods and analyzing how Briscoe built a "social architecture" to frame his clientele during periods of economic expansion and contraction. Join Fox for a special History in Print author event as he recaps Briscoe’s significant work, followed by a Q&A with the audience.

Please note that advance ticket purchase is required for this walking tour.

When Beth Israel Cemetery was established in 1844, Houston was still a frontier village — in fact, the cemetery was located well out of town on the San Felipe Road (now West Dallas Avenue). Over the years Houston has grown up around Beth Israel and many of its most prominent Jewish leaders have been laid to rest here, including merchant families the Levys, Meyers and Sakowitzes; philanthropist Ben Taub; and Rabbi Hyman Judah Schachtel, who led Congregation Beth Israel for 32 years.

Please note that advance ticket purchase is required for this tour.

Historic Glenwood Cemetery is known for its beauty, but the stories of the people buried there are just as compelling — especially Glenwood's women, whose legacies range from the suffrage movement to the silver screen. This tour tells the stories of some of those fascinating women and their impacts locally and nationally. Among the featured subjects are Charlotte Allen, the wife of Houston co-founder Augustus Allen; suffragists Annette Finnigan and Florence Sterling; publisher and stateswoman Oveta Culp Hobby, who led the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps during World War II; and movie star Gene Tierney.

Please note that advance ticket purchase is required for this walking tour.

The Old Sixth Ward, one of Houston's most beloved historic neighborhoods, was settled in the mid-19th century on what was then the edge of the city. The principal developer was W.R. Baker, Houston mayor and president of the Houston & Texas Central Railway, and many of the neighborhood’s early residents were railroad workers who decorated their cottages with hand-cut gingerbread ornamentation.

Please note that advance ticket purchase is required for this walking tour.

What is now the First Montrose Commons Historic District includes two historic neighborhoods platted on what was then Houston’s southwestern edge: the Lockhart, Connor & Barziza Addition (1873) and the Bute Addition (1907). Construction in the area began in earnest after the adjacent Montrose Place neighborhood opened in 1911. Today, the streets of First Montrose Commons are lined with an eclectic mix of large and small homes and apartment buildings designed in a variety of 20th-century styles.

Please note that advance ticket purchase is required for this tour.

Although Glenwood Cemetery is known for its splendid Victorian monuments, but there’s a more modern side to the cemetery as well. This docent-guided walking tour explores some of the newer sections of Glenwood and the lives of some of the well-known 20th century Houstonians buried there, including businessmen George and Herman Brown; cotton magnate and statesman Will Clayton; Edgar Odell Lovett, Rice University’s first president; Astrodome builder Judge Roy Hofheinz; and longtime television anchor Ron Stone.en George and Herman Brown; cotton magnate and statesman Will Clayton; Edgar Odell Lovett, Rice University’s first president; Astrodome builder Judge Roy Hofheinz; and longtime television anchor Ron Stone.

Please note that advance ticket purchase is required for this walking tour.

This 90-minute docent-guided tour traces the history of downtown Houston east of Main Street through architecture old and new, ranging from historic structures such as Union Station and the 1915 Texas Company Building to new developments like Discovery Green, which has been a catalyst for nearly $2 billion in new construction.

Please note that advance registration is required for this online program.

Houston Community College’s Fashion Archive is a hidden gem: a collection of clothing and accessories that dates back to 1728, offering a look at nearly three centuries of trends in apparel and design. Join Preservation Houston and Erica Hubbard, director of library services at HCC’s Central College, for a behind-the-scenes look at this fascinating collection during an online program at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, November 8.

Join Preservation Houston for the 2022 Good Brick Tour Opening Reception at the Junior League of Houston on Thursday evening, October 27. Explore the rich cultural and architectural heritage of the Bayou City through some of its most iconic homes and buildings. The opening reception will highlight the 2022 Good Brick Tour and Preservation Houston's efforts to celebrate and protect historic properties in communities of color.