The Where I Live series aims to showcase our diverse city and region by spotlighting its many vibrant neighborhoods. Each week a local resident invites us over and lets us in on what makes their neighborhood special. Have we been to your neighborhood yet? Get in touch to share your story. If your story is selected and published, you will receive a $250 stipend.
While growing up on the Northeast Side of San Antonio, I became accustomed to the flat landscape of rolling asphalt broken by strip malls flanking big-box stores, mistakenly thinking that was all my hometown had to offer.
I left San Antonio for eight years following my graduation from UTSA, traveling the world teaching English and eventually learning to tattoo. I spent most of my years in the Middle East, traversing the sprawling urban areas on foot which brought me closer to the members of the community I lived amongst.
Upon my return to San Antonio during the pandemic, I craved that sense of community I was able to nurture abroad. I found that community and connection, a balm for the soul, in the cozy neighborhood of Beacon Hill.
Situated just north of downtown, Beacon Hill has served as the perfect haven between urban bustle and suburban serenity. I primarily chose this neighborhood for its relaxed walkability; at its most convenient, my home is just a short stroll to a local restaurant like Blanco Café or Beacon Hill Deli, up the way from the roundabout’s well-loved and appropriately named luminaria obelisk, The Beacon.
I’ll typically start the day with a walk to Bright Coffee, a bustling locale that serves as a focused workspace but also as a casual meet-up, familiar faces ever-present. Though having sadly switched to decaf long ago, sometimes I cheat with full-force espresso that leaves my heart pumping and sometimes requires a brisk lap to calm my jittered nerves. Luckily, I have the pick of parks in Beacon Hill, being that there are so many green spaces within and around the neighborhood.
San Pedro Springs Park, known as the oldest park in Texas, and one of the most serene in the city, sits just south of Beacon Hill and can be easily accessed through the calm gridded back streets. Within the neighborhood itself, 3.5 acres of formerly vacant residential land were transformed into Beacon Hill Linear Park back in 2013, small pockets of greenery meandering through the streets, connecting the community with spaces to play sports or enjoy the community garden.
The large duplex I live in was built in the 1920s and features all the charms of an older home: hardwood floors groaning stoically underfoot, a window-to-wall ratio that allows the crisp Texas sun to reach nearly every corner of the roomy floorplan and unique scars that concede its life well inhabited.
I constantly keep my front and back doors open to touch base with the breeze as it rushes screen through screen, meeting many of the treasures I fill my home with from abroad: a hand-made and hand-dyed Kurdish rug hangs in my craft room, the centerpiece whose bold colors take your eye away from the maelstrom of painting and sewing materials littering the rest of the room; bookshelves crafted by a close friend piled with my collection of journals, years of adventures lovingly documented, alongside my favorite dog-eared novels, while walls and shelves are adorned with art and ceramics from friends and fellow artists.
The pride of my place, though, must be the wide front porch that offers an unimpeded vista of the quiet street. Here, I spend hours alone or with friends enjoying the quotidian goings-on of Beacon Hill’s finest folks, admiring that no two of my neighbors’ homes look alike.
There’s a charming, multi-gabled home with a wrapping porch the family is often spending time on, waving to me from across the street; a cotton-white cottage where a young couple is always in the front yard with their two children in tow all a-tumble; a New Orleans transplant taking a break from tending his rustic cottage’s lush front garden to speak with our regular postal worker, their laughter briefly amplifying over the birds’ chatter. From my porch-side vantage point, I enjoy watching the world go by, appreciating the experience of Beacon Hill’s residents actually living.
A benefit of my home neighborhood is its proximity to my private tattoo studio that toes the heart of downtown. I opened Bottlefly Studio in 2023 as a quiet, creative space to provide custom, beautiful art for all lovers of permanent ink, five floors up in the World Trade Center Building at 118 Broadway.
After long days beautifying San Antonio’s skin, the drive back home to Beacon Hill, Miata soft-top down most days, is just a hop across Interstate 35, skirting back streets to avoid traffic. In inclement weather, I keep my car covered and take the bus. Three different lines can plop me right at my stop at Travis Park in around 20 minutes, and I am considering getting a bike to use my car less!
After leaving San Antonio for so long, I thought magic could only be found outside this city, this country. But I am grateful to have been proven wrong. The community I’ve become a part of — my neighbors, clients, friends and family — help me see the magic of my hometown, and I wouldn’t want to spend that time anywhere other than Beacon Hill.
