Brays Oaks

The neighborhood is roughly about eight square miles bounded by Breaswood on the north, South Main Street on the south, Braewick ditch on the east and U.S 59 on the west of the neighborhood.

Brief History

Originally part of oil tycoon Walter Fondren’s ranch, Brays Oaks is one of Houston’s most accessible communities with a mixture of families, culture and commercial businesses this neighborhood has become a popular place to live as well as work.

In the 1940s, developers turned undeveloped land in the Brays Oaks area into a new attractive location for young professionals. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the area begins to further transform with the mixture of apartment complexes that sprang up beside residential subdivisions. Many commercial businesses begin to appear along the neighborhood’s major corridor, Fondren. Restaurants and strip malls followed the same economic stream into the neighborhood. The outlook seemed promising to the predominantly Jewish area. By the mid 1980’s, the real estate market begins to suffer from the Houston oil bust. Property values begin to decline and many of the apartment complexes started to deteriorate as management changed. Turnover in the residential areas also led to merchants leaving retail spaces along the Fondren strip vacant.

By the early 1990s, apartment owners and other residents began a counter offense of their own. In several high-profile cases, homeowners in the Southmeadow subdivision sued the owners of the West Fondren and Village of the Green apartments for negligence contributing to constant criminal activity. The homeowners collected a multi-million dollar settlement and used it to buy and raze both properties. By the mid 1990s, property values began to rebound.

Reference: Super Neighborhood 36, City of Houston website