Fence & Gate Installation in the East End, Galveston, TX

What we install in the East End

The East End sits directly next to downtown. The Great Fire of 1885 destroyed houses from 16th to 20th Streets and from the Strand past Broadway, and whole blocks were rebuilt in 1886, many with Victorian houses by architects such as Nicholas Clayton, Alfred Muller and George Stowe. The City made the East End its first local historic district in 1971 and expanded the original 40 blocks to the east and north in 1994. The East End Historical District Association, formed in 1975, describes the district as bounded by Broadway, 10th Street, Mechanic and 19th Street. The City’s design standards list its key features: a range of scales from modest to very grand, alley houses and outbuildings, historic landscape features and an active homeowners association. We install:

• Ornamental iron front fences, including loop and spear styles, at 48 inches or under.
• Painted wood picket fences, including alternating and scalloped styles.
• Side and rear privacy: solid cedar with a framed lattice top, or iron up to 8 feet.
• Gates: wrought iron walk gates and alley vehicle gates.
• Pool fences in back yards.

We don’t offer vinyl here: the City’s design standards say not to install vinyl fencing in its historic districts. For fixing an existing fence, see fence repair.

Keep what’s there first

The City’s standards describe the history: “Fences and low walls have defined Galveston front yards since the 19th century.” Wood picket and cast iron were the most common materials, and some more elaborate fences combine cast and wrought iron. “Low walls that followed the sidewalk line were masonry and frequently stuccoed brick.” Standard 3.5 says to maintain historically significant wood picket and cast-iron fences, and stuccoed brick or concrete site walls.

For any historic feature, the standards set a preferred order:

1. Preserve it if it is intact. Rust removal, caulking and repainting count as appropriate maintenance.
2. Repair it if it is damaged, back to its original condition.
3. Reconstruct missing sections from appropriate evidence.
4. Replace only the portion that is beyond repair, with a simplified version of the original if needed.
5. Only then add a compatible new feature.

Under the standards’ definitions, an “alteration” includes changing a fence, but ordinary repair and maintenance, including in-kind replacement, is not an alteration. For a public example of the ironwork the standards describe, see Darragh Park at 519 15th Street. It is on the site of the J.L. Darragh Mansion, which was destroyed by arson in 1990, and the East End Historic District Association has owned it since 1995. The City’s standards note its ornate wrought iron fence.

Narrow lots, alley houses and the back of the lot

The East End follows the grid of the 1838 survey: fourteen lots per block, with an alley running east to west between the north and south lots. The City’s 2015 survey adds that most houses face north or south onto the avenues and that the parcels are narrow and much deeper than they are wide. The standards also describe the East End’s alley houses: quarters built along the alley before the Civil War, later lived in by servants or replaced by rentals. That history shapes a fence plan:

• The front is short and the sides are long. On a narrow, deep lot, most of the fence length is at the sides and rear, where cedar with lattice or iron up to 8 feet can be approved by staff.
• The alley house is part of the rear line. A rear fence often runs up to an alley house or outbuilding, and the gate goes beside it.
• Parking and gates go at the back. The standards put parking at the rear or side, don’t allow new driveways or garages opening onto a primary street, and ask owners to keep historic strip driveways.
• Trees. Historic landscape features are a key feature of the district. The 2015 survey notes that many historic trees died or were removed after Hurricane Ike, so plan post holes around the ones that remain.

The district’s edges: 14th Street, UTMB and downtown

The City lists neighborhood commercial uses, mainly along 14th Street, as a key feature, and issues with those uses as a concern. It also lists encroachment from the adjacent University of Texas Medical Branch, with a goal of a stronger edge between the district and the campus. If your lot backs onto one of these edges, the side and rear limits still apply: cedar up to 6 feet with 2 feet of lattice, or iron up to 8 feet, with staff approval. If the edge street is your corner side, staff approval stops at a 4-foot fence that matches the front, and anything more goes to the Landmark Commission. See how the same rules play out in Silk Stocking, where many houses face the numbered streets, and in Lost Bayou, the smaller-scale district to the south.

From plan to permit in the East End

1. Check deed restrictions. The City’s process starts there, but it doesn’t enforce them.
2. Certificate of Appropriateness, if needed. Maintenance and in-kind repair are not alterations. For a new or changed fence, go to the City’s Historic Preservation Officer (Planning, 3015 Market Street, 409-797-3660). A fence on the administrative list can be approved by staff; others, and any the HPO refers, go to a Landmark Commission hearing.
3. Fence permit. Answer yes to the historic district question on the City’s fence permit, and attach photos of any existing fences on the site and the design of the new one.

From estimate to finished fence: a free on-site estimate (the property line and right-of-way, any historic fence or wall and its condition, the alley and outbuildings, trees and parking), a design and drawing for the review, the approval and permit, then installation. What affects cost and timing: length and height, material, how much existing fence has to come out or be worked around, the number and width of gates, access down a narrow side yard or from the alley, and whether staff can approve it or it needs a hearing. Financing is available through the providers on our financing page, subject to credit approval. See a wood fence project we built in Galveston.

Questions we get about this