Crestline grows up

When Laura Canterbury moved from Homewood to Crestline in 2007, she imagined her family staying in the area for about 10 years. Now, she said, they plan on staying closer to 20. 

 “What really made us change our minds was being so close to the village and getting used to walking everywhere,” she said. “Once we got so close to Crestline Village, it was hard to think about moving anywhere else.”

With families staying longer in the neighborhood and larger homes replacing the more traditional cottage-style houses in Crestline, the area is losing its reputation as being almost exclusively for starter homes. 

“Crestline has always had younger families,” said RealtySouth agent Langston Hereford. “But I think that younger families are staying in Crestline longer. It used to be that you might stay in Crestline for the first two kids and then move to Cherokee Bend or Brookwood Forest when you had your third child to get more land and space.” 

Growing pains

Both City Manager Sam Gaston and City Planner Dana Hazen acknowledged that Crestline residents have voiced complaints about recent construction in the Crestline area. 

“Crestline was historically built with little cottages,” Hazen said. “If you drive up Euclid, you can see a pretty good example of one-story, two- and three-bedroom houses on the north side of the street. Those have been torn down consistently over the years and replaced with much larger houses.”

Some residents worry that the neighborhood is becoming too crowded, while others are concerned that the aesthetics of the new and remodeled homes do not fit in with the more traditional cottage style. 

“When people see one house go down and two go up in its place, they start to get nervous,” Hazen said. 

But in many cases, she explained, an old house may have been originally built over two lots, making it legal to build two houses on the separate lots after tearing down the old house. 

On Euclid Avenue between Camellia Drive and Beech Street, for example, four lots have recently been developed where two smaller houses once stood. The new homes, which are 35 feet from the property line in accordance with current regulations, are much larger than the nearby traditional one-story cottages that stand about 55 feet from the property line. 

As a Crestline resident, Canterbury said that she can see both views toward the changes. 

 “I personally enjoy the growth and change, but I can understand how some people feel like it’s being overdeveloped and starting to look much different than it did four years ago,” she said. 

With five children, including Ava (10), Abby (8), Annabel (2), Win (1) and Liam (1), Canterbury appreciates how Crestline’s growth has brought in new businesses and restaurants, giving her family more of a reason to stay. 

Winds of change 

Because Crestline was not a part of the original Jemison development, its lots are smaller on average than those in older areas of Mountain Brook. 

According to Gaston, most of the lots in Crestline are zoned Residence B and Residence C, with minimum areas of 10,000 square feet and 7,500 square feet respectively. Residence A, the most prevalent zoning in Mountain Brook, has a minimum area of 30,000 square feet. 

In spite of its relatively smaller lot sizes, Crestline’s recent trend toward larger and larger homes can be traced back to severe weather in the early ’90s. 

After straight-line winds in 1992 damaged many of the older cottage-style houses in Crestline, residents took the opportunity to build larger homes. “Before that, the houses in Crestline were generally three-bedroom, two-bath starter homes,” Hereford said. 

Instead of moving to other parts of Mountain Brook for more land and a larger home, more residents began to stay in Crestline. 

 “That was supposedly the starting point of the rebirth of Crestline,” said Gaston. “You started seeing Crestline become a hot area with many people buying small homes and either greatly expanding them or tearing them down to build a larger home.” 

In the late ’90s, city renovations to Crestline Village made the area more appealing with the addition of sidewalks, decorative lampposts, landscaping, streetscape furniture and additional parking. 

The housing boom of 2000-2004 increased the number of people beginning to tear down Crestline’s old cottages and build larger homes, and the trend continues today.

 “I’ve had three or four people in the last year come to me looking for a teardown,” said Hereford. “Those are getting fewer and farther between because there’s such a high demand in Crestline.” 

Supply and demand 

The recent housing trends in the Crestline area may explain the increase in students at Crestline Elementary School (CES). 

 “There aren’t many new lots being created. But what you’re seeing is small houses being torn down and built into bigger houses with more people,” said Hazen.  

In the 2001-2002 school year, CES had a student enrollment of 652, according to the Mountain Brook Board of Education. By 2014-2015, that number had risen to 777. It peaked in 2011-2012 at 831 students. 

To accommodate the influx of students, CES has added several new classrooms as well as an addition to the lunchroom. “Space isn’t a huge concern to us because as we’ve needed more space, we’ve added space,” said CES principal Laurie King, who has worked at the school for over 30 years in teaching and administration.

King described CES as a family, saying that parents are often surprised by how close-knit it feels in spite of its size. “It’s a community school,” she said. 

Lasting appeal

Like CES, the Crestline neighborhood has maintained a strong sense of community and friendliness in spite of recent growth.

Melanie Couch moved to Mountain Brook with her family in June of 2013 from the Hollywood neighborhood of Homewood. Her daughter, Eleanor, is about to start second grade at Crestline Elementary, and her son, Jack, turned 3 in June. 

“We were interested in being in a place where our friends’ children and our children could grow up together,” she said, citing the close proximity of the Tot Lot, the library and the restaurants and shops of Crestline Village as major draws to the area. 

 “This is where we want to be,” said Couch. “For us this is definitely not a starter home, this is where we see our kids growing up.” 

For more information about zoning in Mountain Brook, visit mtnbrook.org/Default.asp?ID=54&pg=Planning.