Bungalows and 1920s apartment courts under live oak canopy, and the Rothko Chapel where Solange Knowles filmed When I Get Home.
What Montrose looks like
Four boulevards run through Montrose under a canopy of live oak, thick enough by now to shade both lanes most of the day. One and two storey houses sit behind small yards on the side streets, Craftsman porches and Prairie eaves next to the occasional Colonial Revival cornice, with small 1920s apartment courts filling the corners.
The 's low grey building sits on a lawn of oak and pine at Sul Ross Street, part of a campus where the surrounding bungalows are painted the same grey to match it. A few blocks over, the is a windowless brick octagon on Yupon Street, its gray stucco walls finished in 1971.
Low storefronts line Westheimer Road under striped awnings and painted signs. keeps a red brick corner lit through the night. , a music venue open since 1978, holds a plainer painted front further down the same street.
The University of St. Thomas campus holds the , a white stucco block under a gold dome with a freestanding steel cross. , a red brick Georgian building, sits close by behind a lawn and an iron fence. 's stone walls and red tile roof sit under mature oaks on Yoakum Boulevard.
Shot in Montrose
Solange Knowles filmed inside the Rothko Chapel on Yupon Street for her visual album When I Get Home, and Cosmopolis used the same interior for a brief scene about a Rothko painting. Reality Bites shot the exterior of Lelaina and Vickie's fourplex at 409 West Clay Street in North Montrose, a building demolished in 2024.
When I Get Home, 2019
The Rothko Chapel
Solange Knowles filmed the windowless brick interior for her visual album When I Get Home, built in 1971. Cosmopolis also filmed a brief interior scene there, a limousine passenger discussing a Rothko painting.
What Montrose can double for
West Hollywood in Los Angeles, California
West Hollywood's Santa Monica Boulevard runs through the same mix of 1920s courtyard apartments and painted bungalow scale storefronts, the closest match for Montrose's own apartment courts and commercial strip. Both grew as gay nightlife districts from the 1970s onward, so a bar front here reads the same way in either city. Palm trees and hillside views in wider shots give Southern California away, so keep street level frames tight to the storefronts. Try searching 1920s courtyard apartments now.
Oak Lawn in Dallas, Texas
Oak Lawn's Cedar Springs corridor has the same painted one storey commercial strip under a similar live oak canopy, and its side streets carry the same scale of craftsman bungalows. It grew into Dallas's own gay district at roughly the same period as Montrose. Cedar Springs runs straighter and wider than Westheimer, so a tighter lens keeps the block from reading as Dallas. Try searching painted bungalow commercial strip now.
Marigny's shotgun houses and corner bars sit at the same one and two storey scale as Montrose's bungalows and converted storefronts. Its color palette runs brighter and its porches sit closer to the sidewalk, so it works best for a looser period frame rather than a match on the architecture itself. The shotgun floor plan and cast iron porch brackets are the tell in any wide shot. Try searching shotgun houses corner bars now.
