Join Preservation Houston and The Heritage Society as we welcome preservationist Minnette Boesel to share the story of Market Square’s rebirth through first-hand experiences, rare photographs and a preservationist’s perspective on saving one of Houston’s most important historic neighborhoods.

Join Preservation Houston for a special screening of Hellfighters at 2:45 p.m. Sunday, September 28, at the historic River Oaks Theatre. We’re proud to co-present this showing at the restored Art Deco landmark — and to revisit a larger-than-life Hollywood take on one of Houston’s own legends.

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.

Our next all-member happy hour is just around the corner! Join us for a relaxed evening with your fellow Preservation Houston and Pier & Beam members from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, September 23, at Under the Volcano near Rice Village.

Advance ticket purchase is required for this tour.

Broadacres was one of several residential neighborhoods developed near Rice University in the early 20th century. Its breathtaking oak allées and formal landscaping were designed by William Ward Watkin, supervising architect of the Rice campus, and many of Houston’s leading architects — including Watkin, John Staub and Birdsall Briscoe — created the homes that line North and South boulevards.

Join us for the launch of Time & Place, Preservation Houston’s new midday talk series exploring how preservation and history shape the places we share. Our first session, Plaque to Basics: Historic Designations Explained, starts with something we hear often: “There was a plaque on that building — so why was it torn down?”

Cool off with Pier & Beam as our August Happy Hour takes us to Holler Brewing Co. in Sawyer Yards, one of the standouts in Houston’s thriving craft beer scene. We’ll be there from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, August 21 — and you’re welcome to come and go as you please.

Advance ticket purchase is required for this tour.

Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts campus brings together the work of both local and internationally renowned architects — from William Ward Watkin’s classically inspired 1920s original to modern additions by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and bold 21st-century buildings by Steven Holl Architects. Alongside these structures, landscape elements like Isamu Noguchi’s Cullen Sculpture Garden reflect how museum design and ideas about cultural space have evolved over the past century.

Join Preservation Houston for a rare big-screen showing of Brewster McCloud, Robert Altman’s cult classic, at 6 p.m. Sunday, July 20, at the historic River Oaks Theatre. We’re proud to co-present this screening at the recently restored Art Deco gem — and to celebrate one of the most unusual (and unforgettable) movies ever filmed in Houston.

Advance ticket purchase is required for this tour.

Just northwest of downtown, Houston’s First Ward is one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods. Its roots go back to the 1830s, when railroad workers, grocers, immigrants and entrepreneurs began building a community near White Oak Bayou. Despite decades of decline, freeway construction and redevelopment, the neighborhood still offers a vivid glimpse of early working-class life in Houston.

Interested in submitting a project for the 2026 Good Brick Awards? Join Preservation Houston Programs Director Jim Parsons for a free online workshop at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 24. The session will walk you through the nomination process and offer practical advice to help you put your best foot forward.

This event is fully booked, but PH members can look forward to more opportunities to visit significant historic homes later this year.

Preservation Houston members are invited to a special open house Tuesday evening, June 17, at the Trone-Howe House, a Southern Colonial-style residence designed by Birdsall P. Briscoe in 1959. This was the final home Briscoe designed before retiring, and it reflects both the architect’s refined sensibility and his deep ties to Houston’s cultural and architectural legacy.

Advance ticket purchase is required for this 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.

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.

Join us Monday, May 19, for an evening of connection, celebration and discovery at Preservation Houston’s 2025 Member Reception and Meeting. This year’s event will take place at the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum, which was honored with a 2025 Good Brick Award for the expert restoration of its historic masonry.

Advance ticket purchase is required for this tour.

A walk along Main Street in downtown Houston is a walk through the city's business development and its changing architectural tastes. As Houston's business district grew in the 20th century, the street was built up with soaring skyscrapers, busy hotels, ornate movie theaters and lavish department stores. Suburbanization brought an end to downtown's heyday as a shopping and entertainment destination, but many of the buildings from this era of growth and glamour still stand, giving us a fascinating look at the Bayou City's past.

Join us from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, May 10, for a special open house at the historic Luckie School, one of Houston’s earliest schools for Black children. Tucked away on a quiet East End street, the 1918 building is rarely open to the public — and this is your chance to see it before work begins on its next chapter.

During this online program, PH Programs Director Jim Parsons will share dramatic before-and-after photos and tell the stories behind this year’s Good Brick Award recipients, from personal passion projects to major community efforts. These are buildings that were rescued, reimagined and restored with vision, craftsmanship and care.

Advance ticket purchase is required for this tour.

The University of St. Thomas broke with tradition when it hired the modernist architect Philip Johnson to design its new campus in 1956. And though Johnson took inspiration for his buildings at UST from the contemporary designs of Mies van der Rohe, his campus plan was influenced by something much older: Thomas Jefferson's 1818 design for the University of Virginia.

St. Paul’s United Methodist Church has invited Preservation Houston members to a special evening of live music, community and history at Jazz on the Plaza, happening from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, April 10. Enjoy an outdoor concert on the plaza between St. Paul’s historic sanctuary and the Jones Youth Building while taking in the architectural beauty of this Houston landmark.

Join Preservation Houston and Houston Mod from noon to 2 p.m. Saturday, March 22, for an exclusive members-only tribute to Brochsteins, the Houston company that has shaped interiors across the city and beyond with its impeccable craftsmanship and design.

Before new owners take possession, Preservation Houston members have a rare opportunity to tour the Westfall House, a beautifully restored 1905 bungalow in Westmoreland, on Saturday morning, March 15. Portrait artist George Westfall and his wife, Emma, built the house using a design by George Barber, a Knoxville, Tennessee, architect known for publishing widely popular catalogs of house plans. The Westfall House was built from one of those designs and stands as a classic example of the airplane bungalow,

We’re getting together for a happy hour for all Preservation Houston and Pier & Beam members on the evening of Thursday, March 13, and we’d love to see you there! This informal gathering is a great chance to unwind, catch up with PH members and share our passion for preservation at Marquis II — a longtime Houston favorite with a surprising architectural history.

Advance ticket purchase is required for this tour.

When developer W.W. Baldwin laid out Westmoreland Place in 1902, its location on the southwestern side of what is now Midtown was considered the very edge of Houston. Although times have changed, much of Westmoreland's historic character remains, giving us a fascinating look at the residential architecture of the early 20th-century Bayou City.

Preservation Houston’s History in Print author series continues Thursday, March 6, as architect and University of Texas professor David Heymann discusses his book John S. Chase – The Chase Residence. Join us at 6:30 p.m. that evening as we explore the story of one of Houston’s most iconic modern homes and the visionary architect who created it.

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. This two-hour docent-guided tour looks at the lives and legacies of some of the men and women buried at Glenwood who shaped Houston after the turn of the 20th century.

Advance ticket purchase is required for this tour.

Located in the shadow of the downtown skyscrapers, Founders Memorial Cemetery is one of the few physical links to the early days of Houston and Texas. The plot of land along the San Felipe Road (now West Dallas Avenue) began being used for burials shortly after Houston was founded in 1836 and became the resting place of veterans of the Texas Revolution, heroes of the Battle of San Jacinto and government officials of the Republic of Texas.

Join us for a virtual preview of Preservation Houston’s exciting new travel program, PH Travels: Philadelphia, which we're launching in September 2025. This free program offers a first look at our inaugural group travel experience, exclusively for Preservation Houston members.

Advance ticket purchase is required for this tour.

When landscape architects Hare & Hare drew up plans for Houston's civic center in the late 1920s, they envisioned a group of stylistically similar Spanish-influenced buildings arranged around a public square. However, those plans were derailed by the Depression, and the city's governmental and cultural center ended up developing over the next 50 years in a variety of styles with few overall planning efforts. Today, structures in the Civic Center and the adjacent Theater District reflect not only the evolution of Houston's municipal and cultural institutions, but also changing architectural tastes.