Live in Cherrywood
Nearly a thousand houses built between 1930 and 1959 on the land between I-35 and the old Mueller airport, under a neighborhood plan that sets where a garage, a porch and a driveway may go rather than what a house looks like.
Cherrywood filled in after the war on the cotton fields and pastures east of the interstate, and the appraisal roll still shows it: 947 of its 1,049 dated single-family houses were built between 1930 and 1959, and only 23 since 2015. It is the Cherrywood subdistrict of the City's Upper Boggy Creek neighborhood plan, adopted in 2002, which allows small-lot houses and secondary apartments and adds design rules for garages, front porches and front-yard paving. The 2020 census counted 3,947 residents in 2,106 homes, against 3,401 in 1,800 in 2010, with the Hispanic share unchanged at 15.9%. Next door, the 700-acre Mueller redevelopment of the former airport is still being built out, and Zillow put the typical home in the Upper Boggy Creek area at $576,729 in August 2026, 24% below its June 2022 peak.
The postwar houses mostly stayed, and the airport next door became a neighborhood
The area the Cherrywood Neighborhood Association has filed with the City of Austin's Community Registry, about 479 acres, which the association describes as bounded by Interstate 35 on the west, Manor Road on the south, Airport Boulevard on the east and Wilshire Boulevard on the north. It is almost exactly the Cherrywood subdistrict of the Upper Boggy Creek planning area, 451 acres on the City's map. Mueller lies east across Airport Boulevard, the Hancock neighborhood and the Commodore Perry Estate west across I-35, and the Delwood Duplex Historic District sits inside the registry's northern corner.
Cherrywood is the area the Cherrywood Neighborhood Association has registered with the City: about 479 acres between I-35, Manor Road, Airport Boulevard and Wilshire Boulevard, and almost exactly the Cherrywood subdistrict of the Upper Boggy Creek planning area. The association's history describes cotton fields, pastures and woods that filled with houses after the war, and the appraisal roll agrees: of 1,049 dated single-family houses, 126 were built in the 1930s, 475 in the 1940s and 346 in the 1950s. The median is 1948. That year Bascom Giles put up 77 two-story concrete-block duplexes on Kirkwood, Ashwood, Wrightwood and Maplewood roads, each built with a garage; they became the Delwood Duplex Historic District in 2011, with 72 still contributing and no teardowns.
The plan rules the site, not the style. The Council adopted the Upper Boggy Creek plan on 1 August 2002. The Cherrywood subdistrict allows small-lot houses and secondary apartments and carries three design tools: where a garage may sit, how much of the front yard may be paved and parked on, and where a front porch may come forward. None of them says what a house must look like, and about 72% of the zoned land is SF-3-NP. HOME, adopted in 2023 and 2024, now allows up to three homes on a single-family lot and a house on 1,800 square feet. The City's 2016 East Austin historic survey stopped at Manor Road and did not assess these blocks, and no local historic district covers them.
Change on the lots has been slow. Only 23 of the single-family houses on the roll were built in 2015 or later. The census counted 3,401 residents in 1,800 homes in 2010 and 3,947 in 2,106 in 2020, the Hispanic share held at 15.9%, and renters went from 912 of 1,659 occupied homes to 1,176 of 1,972. Zillow publishes no Cherrywood series; its Upper Boggy Creek area, which is larger, was $252,582 in August 2010, peaked at $756,108 in June 2022 and stood at $576,729 in August 2026, against $582,738 a year earlier. The appraisal layer does not say which year its values are, so this guide gives no median assessment; the citywide tax arithmetic is on the Austin page.
Mueller is the neighbor that changed. Robert Mueller Municipal Airport, east across Airport Boulevard, closed in 1999 when Austin-Bergstrom opened, and the Council signed a master agreement with Catellus in 2004 to build a neighborhood on its 700-odd acres. The agreement now ends on 31 December 2027. Catellus counts 6,900 homes there, a quarter of them in its affordable program; Wikipedia gives 4,600 for the plan, and this guide does not settle the difference. What Cherrywood gets from it is on the map: the Mueller H-E-B on 51st Street, Dell Children's Medical Center, a 30-acre lake park and a 31-acre greenbelt along the eastern edge that the City took on in 2024.
The creek is the other thing to map. On the City's floodplain layers, drawn on Atlas 14 rainfall, 60 of the 1,050 house lots fall in the fully developed 100-year floodplain, 39 of them also in FEMA's 1% annual chance area. The southeastern blocks are in the City's Homestead Preservation Reinvestment Zone, which sends 40% of its tax increment to affordable housing. Route 20 runs along Manor Road, and MLK Jr. station on the Red Line is about two kilometers south.
- Pull the City's floodplain map for the address: 39 house lots are in FEMA's 1% annual chance area
- Ask which design tools apply before drawing an addition or a new garage
- Assume the lot next door can hold up to three homes under HOME
- Work the tax out on your own price: the seller's capped value does not carry over
How Cherrywood got here
- 1940The City acquires the half-acre lot on East 34th Street that is now Cherrywood Pocket Park, and in 1941 the land on Brookview Road that holds Patterson Neighborhood Park and the Burnett "Blondie" Pharr Tennis Center. The association's history names Nye Patterson among the early landowners whose names the streets and parks keep.
- 1948Bascom Giles, trading as Delwood Apartments, builds 77 two-story concrete-block duplexes, each with a garage, on Kirkwood, Ashwood, Wrightwood and Maplewood roads. The decade of the 1940s produces 475 of the single-family houses still on the appraisal roll, and the 1950s another 346.
- 1952Maplewood Elementary School is built just south of the duplexes, on Maplewood Avenue.
- 1976The Alamo Recreation Center is dedicated at 2100 Alamo Street, on land the City bought in 1974 to replace East Avenue Park, which was demolished to widen I-35.
- 1999Robert Mueller Municipal Airport, east across Airport Boulevard, closes when Austin-Bergstrom International Airport opens.
- 2002On 1 August the Council adopts the Upper Boggy Creek Neighborhood Plan (Ordinance 020801-91) and the neighborhood plan combining district that carries it out (020801-92).
- 2004The Council approves the Mueller Master Development Agreement with Catellus on 2 December, for a redevelopment of just over 700 acres of the old airport.
- 2006A plan amendment of 6 April creates separate subdistricts, each with its own design tools, for Blackland, Rogers-Washington-Holy Cross, Delwood I and Wilshire Woods, and Delwood II; the rest of the planning area is the Cherrywood subdistrict.
- 2009On 12 March the plan takes in the MLK station area plan and rezones the land around the Red Line stop at Alexander Avenue to transit-oriented development. The station opens on 22 March 2010.
- 2010The census counts 3,401 residents in 1,800 housing units inside the registry boundary, 540 of them Hispanic or Latino.
- 2011The Delwood Duplex Historic District is listed on the National Register on 21 March: 77 duplexes of 1948 on about 20 acres, 72 of them contributing, with no teardowns and no major additions.
- 2016The East Austin Historic Resources Survey is completed with its northern line at Manor Road, so Cherrywood's houses are left out of it.
- 2020The census counts 3,947 residents in 2,106 housing units. The Hispanic or Latino share is 15.9%, as it was in 2010, and 1,176 of the 1,972 occupied homes are rented.
- 2022Zillow's typical home value for the Upper Boggy Creek area peaks at $756,108 in June.
- 2023On 7 December the Council adopts HOME Phase 1, allowing up to three homes on a single-family lot; Phase 2 follows on 16 May 2024 with a 1,800-square-foot minimum lot.
- 2024The City takes on the 31-acre Southwest Mueller Greenbelt along the registry's eastern edge, and on 30 May the Mueller agreement is amended to end on 31 December 2027.
- 2025In September the Council extends Homestead Preservation Reinvestment Zone No. 1, which covers the southeastern part of the registry, for ten years with 40% of its increment for affordable housing. On 20 November the Austin ISD board closes Martin Middle and sends its turnaround plan to Kealing, Cherrywood's middle school.
- 2026Zillow's typical value for the area stands at $576,729 in August, against $582,738 a year earlier.
Patterson Park is the neighborhood's own, and the big open space is at Mueller
Patterson Neighborhood Park, 9.3 acres on Brookview Road that the City has held since 1941, sits beside the 8.45-acre Burnett "Blondie" Pharr Tennis Center. The other City parks inside the registry are small: Cherrywood Pocket Park, half an acre on East 34th Street since 1940, and the 0.2-acre Grackle Green Button Park, added in 2021.
What the map does not show: the large open space is across Airport Boulevard. The Southwest Mueller Greenbelt runs 31 acres along the edge, and Catellus counts 140 acres of parks and open space at Mueller in all.
Elsewhere in Austin, not Cherrywood
25 places, with real drive times
Road-adjusted distance and drive time from the centre of the community to each destination, nearest first. Filter by category.
Showing 1–12 of 25 places, nearest first.
Method: distances and drive times are computed from the OpenStreetMap place node for Cherrywood, using straight-line distance multiplied by a road factor and a tiered speed model: honest ranges, not routed times.
Every gym within reach
There is no City recreation center inside the registry. The nearest is the Alamo Recreation Center on Alamo Street, built in 1976 to replace a park lost to I-35, which keeps weekday hours and lists a covered basketball court but no fitness room. Tennis is closer, at the Pharr Tennis Center.
- Alamo Recreation Center, 2100 Alamo Street: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays
- Bartholomew Pool: $5 a day for a resident adult, spring break to October
- Pharr Tennis Center, 4201 Brookview Road: beside Patterson Park
| Facility | What it is | Drive |
|---|---|---|
| Alamo Recreation Center open | The City's center at 2100 Alamo Street, open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and closed at weekends, with a covered, lighted basketball court, a multi-use field and therapeutic recreation programs for adults with differing abilities. It has no fitness room listed. | 4–6 min |
| Burnett "Blondie" Pharr Tennis Center open | The City's tennis center on 8.45 acres at 4201 Brookview Road, beside Patterson Park. | 4–5 min |
| Bartholomew District Park open | The nearest City regional pool, in the 57-acre park on Berkman Drive: $5 a day for a resident adult from Austin ISD's spring break to the end of October. | 6–9 min |
| Patterson Neighborhood Park open | The free option: 9.3 acres of City park on Brookview Road, a walk from most of the registry. | 3–5 min |
The free option is Patterson Park, a walk from most of the registry.
One set of zoned schools, and a middle school taking in Martin's students
The Austin Independent School District assigns schools by address, and on its 2026-27 map every block in the registry goes to the same three: Maplewood Elementary, built in 1952 inside the neighborhood, Kealing Middle south of Manor Road, and McCallum High northwest across I-35. None of them is among the ten schools the board voted on 20 November 2025 to close, but Kealing now takes students reassigned from the closed Martin Middle and carries out Martin's turnaround plan.
| School | Board | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Maplewood Elementary School | Austin Independent School District | The zoned elementary for every block in the registry on the district's 2026-27 map, at 3808 Maplewood Avenue, inside the neighborhood. It was built in 1952 and is not among the ten schools the board voted to close in November 2025. |
| Kealing Middle School | Austin Independent School District | The zoned middle school for every block, at 1607 Pennsylvania Avenue, south of Manor Road. From 2026-27 it also takes students reassigned from Martin Middle and carries out Martin's state-mandated turnaround plan. |
| McCallum High School | Austin Independent School District | The zoned high school for every block, at 5600 Sunshine Drive, northwest of the neighborhood across I-35. |
Run the exact address through the district's lookup before you commit. Transfers open in February, close in March and depend on space.
Month by month, what living here looks like
Not a highlights reel: the actual annual rhythm, including the dates residents have to remember.
- The appraisal district values every house as of 1 January, and a new owner's 10% homestead cap starts only on the 1 January after the exemption is granted
- Highs near 17 °C and lows near 5 °C at Camp Mabry, with about five nights at or below freezing on the 1991 to 2020 normal
- Enroll Austin opens for Austin ISD's magnet, dual language and academy seats
- 48 mm of rain on the normal, the driest month, and highs near 19 °C
- With the trees bare, the Delwood duplexes show the form they share: two-story stuccoed concrete-block boxes of 1948, each built with a block garage
- Austin ISD's general registration and transfer window opens
- The general transfer window closes; transfers depend on space and are not guaranteed
- Highs near 23 °C and 73 mm of rain
- Bartholomew Pool starts charging with Austin ISD's spring break: $5 a day for a resident adult
- Notices of value arrive in spring; the seller's capped value is no guide to a buyer's, because the cap ends when the owner stops qualifying
- Highs near 27 °C and 61 mm of rain
- No night at or below freezing on the April normal; March still averages about one
- 128 mm of rain on the normal, the wettest month of the year, and about 11 days at or above 32 °C
- 60 of the 1,050 single-family lots lie in the City's fully developed 100-year floodplain along the creek drainage, 39 of them in FEMA's 1% annual chance area
- May and October are the two rainfall peaks on the Camp Mabry normal, 128 and 99 mm
- Highs near 34 °C, with about 24 days at or above 32 °C
- Bartholomew Pool, in the 57-acre district park on Berkman Drive, is the nearest of the City's regional pools
- Next door, the Mueller agreement now runs to 31 December 2027, so its last phases are being built
- Highs near 36 °C and about nine days at or above 38 °C (100 °F)
- The Alamo Recreation Center keeps weekday hours only, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
- 50 mm of rain, one of the drier months
- The hottest month at Camp Mabry: highs near 37 °C and 13 days at or above 38 °C
- The Upper Boggy Creek plan and its zoning were adopted on 1 August 2002
- 2026-27 is the first school year in which Kealing Middle also takes students reassigned from Martin
- Highs still near 33 °C and 88 mm of rain
- The Council extended the reinvestment zone over the southeastern blocks in September 2025, with 40% of its increment for affordable housing
- About 20 days at or above 32 °C on the normal
- The taxing units settle their 2026 rates: the City's is 0.579948 per $100, against 0.524017 for 2025, and Austin ISD has proposed 0.9184, against 0.9252
- 99 mm of rain on the normal, the second-wettest month, and highs near 28 °C
- Bartholomew Pool's paid season ends with the month
- The school board voted on 20 November 2025 to close ten schools; Maplewood, Kealing and McCallum were not among them
- Highs near 22 °C and 74 mm of rain
- Less than one night at or below freezing on the normal
- The Council approved the Mueller agreement on 2 December 2004, and HOME Phase 1 on 7 December 2023
- Highs near 18 °C and about three nights at or below freezing
- The Delwood duplexes' National Register listing, from March 2011, counts 72 of the 77 as contributing
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About these photographs. Openly licensed images geotagged in or near Cherrywood, found on Wikimedia Commons and served from there with full attribution. Inline photos elsewhere on the page may still come from the site's shared Austin library.