Southampton, Houston

Southampton Place, also known as Southampton, is a neighborhood located in Houston, Texas. The Southampton Civic Club Inc. is the homeowner's association.

E.H. Fleming developed Southampton in the 1920s. The Southampton Civic Club was formed after a meeting on May 24, 1929.

When some land appraisals doubled from 1990 to 1991, over 30% of Southampton residents protested. The Harris County Appraisal District said that because tear-down development, causing smaller older houses to be replaced with larger newer houses, is occurring, then one expects to see an increase in valuation. Values leveled off in some nearby communities.

Around 2007 the company Buckhead Investment Partners Inc. proposed building a 23 story high rise building, called the Ashby High Rise, at a site at 1717 Bissonnet at Ashby. Many residents of Southampton opposed the developer's plan. Several residents of Southampton and Boulevard Oaks formed a task force intended to oppose the development, and they hired Rusty Hardin, an attorney, to help with the efforts.

Southampton is in proximity to Rice University, the Houston Museum District, the Texas Medical Center, and Downtown Houston. The community has large numbers of live oak trees along Rice Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard. Katherine Feser of the Houston Chronicle said that the trees were "are a hallmark of the neighborhood." Bill Merriman, an architect living in Southampton, said that the model of trees, which he described as orderly, was adapted to many newer master-planned communities such as First Colony in Fort Bend County. Feser said that lot sizes in Southampton were larger than lot sizes in Southgate.

In 2000 Southampton had 601 houses. Southampton's housing stock includes brick cottages, bungalows, and classical Georgian houses. The houses used side porches and used large wooden windows to help with cooling in the pre-air conditioning era. The houses have alley accesses behind them, which allow for vehicles and trash to be kept out of sight from the street and for more green space to be placed in front of houses. By 1999 many of the older houses had been remodeled to the tastes of contemporary families. Feser said that a typical remodeling project in Southampton included an addition of a master bath suite, an expansion of the kitchen, and an addition of a den.

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