Boylan Heights

Boylan Heights is a residential neighborhood in Raleigh, planned on a curving grid that follows a wooded slope falling away from Montfort Hall. Boylan Avenue, a wide S-shaped street, serves as its main north-south axis, while service alleys run behind the narrow lots and Boylan Springs Park, later a school site, sits in the southeast. Mature trees, dogwoods and crepe myrtles line the streets. The houses are mostly wood-frame and conservative in design. Tall Queen Anne/Colonial hybrids and two-story Colonial Box houses stand along the principal streets, but the neighborhood is above all a suburb of bungalows, appearing in great variety from large dwellings to small cottages and duplexes. A brick school of 1926 adds contrast in scale and material. The district was listed because it keeps its original street plan, pedestrian scale and housing stock, which reflect the aims of its first residents to find quiet and security in the city. Later infill and siding changes have had only limited effect.