Districts / Heritage Hills
Heritage Hills
Oklahoma's first historic preservation district — and still the one everything else is measured against.
Built
1900–1930
Boundaries
NW 13th to NW 23rd
Protection
HP District, 1969
National Register
Listed 1979
Typical range
Update this yourself
The neighborhood
What it actually is.
Heritage Hills sits just north of downtown, running roughly from NW 13th up to NW 23rd. The name only dates to 1969, when several separate additions — Harndale, Colcord Heights, Winan's, and others — were joined together to form the first historic preservation district in the state of Oklahoma.
Most of what's standing went up between 1900 and 1930, built by the oil money and banking money that ran early Oklahoma City. Henry Overholser's mansion went up in 1903 and pulled the rest of the city's leadership up here behind it. The neighborhood was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
The houses
There is no single Heritage Hills style, which is exactly the appeal. Châteauesque, Italian Renaissance Revival, Prairie School, Neoclassical, Craftsman, Colonial and Georgian Revival, Mission Revival, American Foursquare, and Dutch Colonial all sit within a few blocks of each other.
Scale varies just as widely. The largest house in Oklahoma City is here, at over 20,000 square feet. So are bungalows a young couple can actually afford. People assume this is a mansion district and rule it out before they've looked — that's a mistake worth not making.
What I tell buyers before they write an offer here
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Exterior changes need approval. Windows, roofing, paint colors, and additions all go through the Historic Preservation Commission. This protects your investment, and it also means your timeline and your contractor list are not entirely your own.
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Budget for the systems, not the finishes. A hundred-year-old house can be beautifully restored above the surface and original underneath it. Electrical panels, plumbing stacks, and HVAC sizing are where the real money sits.
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Get the sewer line scoped. Non-negotiable at this age. Cast iron and clay fail, and the repair runs into the driveway.
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Foundations move here. Our clay soil guarantees some movement. If the inspector flags it, hire a structural engineer, not a repair company — the engineer has nothing to sell you.
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Ask what's already been permitted. Prior owners' unpermitted work becomes your problem at resale. I pull this before we go under contract.
Living here.
Midtown is walkable, and Uptown 23rd is a few minutes north. That combination — a genuinely historic housing stock inside walking distance of restaurants and bars — is rare in Oklahoma City and is most of why values here have held the way they have.
The neighborhood is organized, in the good sense. There's an annual homes and gardens tour, an active preservation organization, and neighbors who know each other. If you want anonymity, this is the wrong block.
Who it suits
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Buyers who want architecture and are willing to accept oversight to protect it
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People who'd rather walk to dinner than drive
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Owners planning to stay — restoration rewards patience, not flipping
Who it doesn't
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Anyone who wants to renovate on their own schedule and terms
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Buyers whose budget has nothing left after the down payment
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People looking for new construction and low maintenance
Thinking about Heritage Hills?
I'll walk it with you and tell you what I'd want to know if I were buying it myself — including the parts that aren't in the listing.