Live in Swiss Avenue

Swiss Avenue, in its association's telling, was the centerpiece of Munger Place, the addition the cotton gin maker Robert S. Munger began after turning to real estate in 1902, billed as the first deed-restricted community in Texas. Dr. R.W. Baird built the first house, at 5303 Swiss, in 1905. The association's history says the deeds demanded two stories, brick or masonry and at least $10,000 of house, and most of the roughly 200 houses the City counts went up in the 1910s and 1920s, to designs by Hal Thomson, Lang & Witchell, Bertram Hill and others. This guide covers the Swiss Avenue Historic District as the City draws it: 116.88 acres from Fitzhugh Avenue to La Vista Drive, between Live Oak Street and the alley behind Gaston Avenue, taking in Bryan Parkway.

Nothing on the outside changes without a certificate. PD 63, the district's ordinance since 1973, makes it an offense to build, alter an exterior or put a structure in a yard without a certificate of appropriateness. Staff decide routine repairs and minor work, such as paint inside the approved color range or solar panels on the rear half of the roof, within 10 days; anything more goes to a public hearing before the Landmark Commission. On the Swiss Avenue lots of Area A, a house keeps a front yard of at least 65 feet, covers no more than a quarter of its lot and stands no taller than 36 feet, with no front-yard fence or circular drive. Repainting in a new color is not routine maintenance, and no building in the district may add a dwelling unit.

The census count describes the blocks, not the houses. The appraisal roll has 192 single-family houses in the district: 101 face the avenue on a median lot of 21,073 square feet, about half an acre, and 63 face Bryan Parkway on 7,440. The 2020 census counted 1,705 people on the 30 blocks whose internal point falls inside the line, but 12 of the 20 populated blocks run back to apartments on Gaston Avenue or Live Oak Street and hold 1,409 of them. Across all 30 blocks, owners lived in 261 of 788 occupied homes; on the eight populated blocks wholly inside, in 80 of 95.

No price index follows the district. Zillow's figure for ZIP code 75214, which holds 127 of the 192 houses and 35,664 people, was $841,168 in August 2026, up 4.1% on the year, and 75206, which holds the rest, was $608,484; the citywide MLS median single-family sale was $469,900, down 6.0%. None of the three is a price for a house on the avenue. On the 2025 rates a homestead at the 75214 figure owes the five taxing units about $14,429 a year, and about $18,730 without the exemption; the arithmetic is on the Dallas page. The City still describes a historic tax exemption for rehabilitation, but the copy of the code it links to stops new certificates after 31 December 2020.

The flood map here is the City's own. Its floodplain layer shows no A or AE zone in the district, but it marks 70% of the area as a "1 PCT stormwater hazard area" and half as "Peak's Branch PFP", names its metadata does not define; 114 of the 192 houses sit in the first at the middle of the lot. The Mill Creek drainage tunnel voters approved in 2012 serves Peaks Branch, but the City's FAQ says it will not appreciably reduce flooding upstream of it, and this guide could not find which side the district is on. Day to day, DART's Route 9 runs along Gaston Avenue every 15 minutes at peak on weekdays, rail is about 2 km off, and Jimmy's Food Store and Sprouts are the nearest groceries.

Worth knowing before you commit

Find out which area the lot is in

PD 63 sets lot, height and yard rules for each of its seven areas, A to G

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• Read the rules for the lot's own area before offering on a house you mean to change or add to
• Allow for a Landmark Commission hearing on anything beyond routine repairs, paint in the approved range and minor work
• Ask the Office of Historic Preservation whether the rehabilitation tax exemption is open, since the code it links to stopped new certificates after 2020
• Pull the City's floodplain map for the lot: 114 of the 192 houses sit in its stormwater hazard area
• Work the tax out on your own price, because the seller's capped value ends with the sale

How Swiss Avenue got here

• 1857Swiss Avenue is named, by Wikipedia's account, by a Dallas resident from Switzerland, long before serious building on it.
• 1902Robert S. Munger, a cotton gin manufacturer, turns to real estate with his son Collett. Their Munger Place, which the avenue was part of, is billed as the first deed-restricted community in Texas.
• 1905Dr. R.W. Baird builds the first house on the avenue, a Classical Revival house at 5303 Swiss. The association's history says Munger Place required houses of at least two stories, of brick or masonry, costing at least $10,000.
• 1914Garrett Park, 5.2 acres on North Garrett Avenue northwest of today's district, is established.
• 1917The house at 5500 Swiss, designed by Hal Thomson and Marion Fooshee, is finished after two years' work; the banker George N. Aldredge buys it in 1921.
• 1929The Episcopal cathedral of Saint Matthew moves in July to Ross Avenue at Henderson Avenue, northwest of today's district beyond Live Oak Street.
• 1973On 10 September the City Council passes Ordinance 14247, establishing PD 63, the Swiss Avenue Historic District, the city's first; Wikipedia dates the designation to 9 July. The association credits Virginia Savage McAlester and her parents, Dorothy and Wallace Savage, with leading the preservation effort.
• 1974The district is listed on the National Register of Historic Places on 28 March, and the Aldredge family gives the house at 5500 Swiss to the Dallas County Medical Society Alliance Foundation.
• 1981Munger Place, southeast beyond Gaston Avenue, becomes a City historic district on 20 August.
• 1982On 3 February Ordinance 17285 re-establishes PD 63; any use that was illegal that day stays illegal under it.
• 1983The Roger D. McIntosh House at 1518 Abrams Road, southeast of the district in what is now Junius Heights, is listed on the National Register on 7 April for its significance in art.
• 1985Ordinance 18563, passed on 23 January, divides the district into areas with their own rules for lot size, height and yards.
• 1995Peak's Suburban Addition, which adjoins the district at its Fitzhugh Avenue end, becomes a City historic district on 8 March.
• 2009Junius Heights, across Gaston Avenue to the southeast, becomes a City historic district on 9 September.
• 2010The census counts 1,804 residents on the 31 blocks whose internal point falls inside the district.
• 2012On 6 November voters approve Proposition 2, to relieve flooding along Mill Creek, Peaks Branch and State Thomas; the City's answer is a drainage tunnel of about five miles to White Rock Creek.
• 2018On 24 January Ordinance 30763 creates Area G, where a historic house museum and meeting space may open by right from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• 2020The census counts 1,705 residents and 947 homes on 30 blocks, where owners live in 261 of the 788 occupied homes; on the eight populated blocks wholly inside the district, owners live in 80 of 95.
• 2026The 51st Mother's Day Home Tour opens eight houses and Munger Place Church on 9 and 10 May.

What the map does not show: the ordinance reaches the parkway, the strip between each front lot line and the street, as well. Only grass, trees, ground cover and flowers may grow there, the trees in a line at even spacing and the flower beds on no more than half of it. The photographs above are of White Rock Lake, Fair Park and Klyde Warren Park, elsewhere in the city.

Elsewhere in Dallas, not Swiss Avenue

The free option is a walk down the avenue's medians, or the Santa Fe Trail about a kilometer southeast.