The Monte Vista National Historic District is located one and a half miles north of downtown San Antonio and is home to approximately 3,000 people. Its distinguished residential architecture, primarily from San Antonio's "Gilded Age," defined as extending from 1890 to 1930, forms the most extensive and intact neighborhood of this era in Texas.
Monte Vista's approximately one hundred blocks comprise fourteen platted subdivisions. The district takes its name from the largest of these developments, platted in 1920.
The entire Monte Vista neighborhood achieved national landmark status on December 10, 1998, when it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. This marked the conclusion of a long-term effort supported by the Monte Vista Historical Association, organized in 1973 as enthusiasm, mingled with a sense of responsibility, reflected the spirit of neighborliness hundreds of Monte Vista residents have demonstrated during the last quarter of the twentieth century.
One reason for the district's ability to survive the urban decay that destroyed such neighborhoods elsewhere is suggested in the exhaustive National Register nomination form, prepared by Maria Watson Pfeiffer:
The neighborhood's resilience was at least partially attributable to the wide variety of housing stock-eclectic in its range of sizes, materials and designs (and therefore prices)-found in the area's numerous subdivisions, each built for a different segment of the homebuying public. Wealthy ranchers lived in close proximity to modest schoolteachers, each in houses designed and constructed by noted architects and builders.
The resulting array of architectural styles summarizes a booming period in San Antonio's history when popular national design trends influenced local tastes.