Population: 90 properties, 61 of which are original homes now included in the neighborhood’s conservation district.
Location: Northern Hills has only a handful of streets. The boundaries of the conservation district are Armstrong Avenue (one side of the street is Northern Hills, the other is Highland Park), Overbrook Drive, Abbott Avenue, and Glenwood Avenue. The subdivision also includes Springbrook and Edgewater streets, which are zoned for duplexes.
Average home price: $1 million
Average lot size: .23 acres
Where to go: Though there aren’t any businesses within Northern Hills proper, the Knox part of Knox-Henderson is easily walkable. Residents have the option of saddling up to the soda fountain at the Highland Park Pharmacy or sitting by the giant hot dog at Wild About Harry’s for a frozen custard. (“Harry knows me better than I wish he did,” resident Frank Roby says.) Residents also enjoy easy access to the Katy Trail.
Why Northern Hills: “Location, location, location,” says resident Fred Fulton, who moved into the area in 1983. Home styles range from contemporary to Tudor to Dutch Colonial to Spanish, most built in the ’20s and ’30s. Although the average lot size is about a quarter-acre, some are as large as half an acre. Just across the street on Armstrong, families can pay a higher home and land price for their children to attend Highland Park schools. “You can afford a lot of private school for that,” Fulton says of the home price differences on the street. The neighborhood association, of which Fulton is president, led the way on a three-year journey to become a conservation district, a move spurred mostly by privacy as people in smaller homes were afraid their neighbors would be peering in on them from above.
Addresses for sale:
3620 Armstrong Ave.
3704 Cragmont Ave.
