Buena Vista Heights Historic District

Buena Vista Heights is a residential neighborhood of about 45 acres in northwest Athens, Georgia, planned in 1890 by the Athens Park and Improvement Company as a streetcar suburb. Electric streetcars began serving the area in 1891, allowing middle-class families to live beyond the downtown core. The district keeps its original gridiron street plan, uniform setbacks, small lots, informal front yards, mature hardwood trees and some historic stone and concrete retaining walls. Most of its 82 historic houses are one-story wood-framed dwellings built between 1890 and 1949, with Folk Victorian or Craftsman details. House types include Georgian cottage, central hallway, gabled ell, pyramid cottage and bungalow. It sits beside the Boulevard Historic District, and together with the earlier Cobbham district it illustrates how better transportation extended Athens' residential growth westward. Demolitions beginning in the 1970s and a 1973 tornado removed some houses, and 20 resources are noncontributing, but the district's overall character remains intact.