Davidson County · Middle Tennessee
Living in Boscobel Heights
Boscobel Heights is what people call the blocks around Boscobel Street in East Nashville, between roughly South 10th and South 14th, south of Woodland Street and north of Shelby Avenue. It is a real pocket with a genuinely confusing name, and sorting the name out is the first thing worth doing before you buy here.
- County
- Davidson
- Distance to downtown Nashville
- ~2 miles
- Design review
- Neighborhood Conservation overlay, the lighter tier
- Boundary of record
- Metro ordinance BL2003-1369, 48.05 acres, effective May 24, 2003
What’s actually there
- Boscobel Street running east and west through the middle of the pocket, toward Shelby Park in one direction and Historic Edgefield in the other
- The 48.05 acres Metro brought under the Lockeland Springs and East End Conservation overlay in 2003, from South 10th to South 14th and Woodland Street to Shelby Avenue
- Cottages and bungalows on smaller lots than the larger Victorians north of Fatherland Street
- Almost entirely residential streets, with the commercial life a short walk away at Five Points and along Main Street
- Shelby Park a few blocks east and the Envision Cayce redevelopment a few blocks west
- The Shelby Avenue and Woodland Street bridges into downtown
The housing stock
Smaller than the neighboring stock, and that is the point of the pocket. Where Lockeland Springs and Edgefield run to large Victorians, these blocks are cottages and bungalows on tighter lots, mixed now with renovations and new infill. The 2003 conservation overlay is what governs that mix: it reviews new construction, additions and demolition, so a teardown and its replacement get looked at, while ordinary exterior repair does not. Metro’s 2025 zoning changes allowing detached accessory dwelling units and small multifamily districts sit on top of that, which makes verifying a specific parcel’s overlay status the single most useful thing you can do before you write an offer.
Getting around
About two miles to downtown, six to nine minutes off-peak, and genuinely walkable to Five Points, to the Shelby Avenue bridge and to Shelby Park.
Things to do in Boscobel Heights
Places worth knowing before you decide whether you want to live here.
East Nashville Farmers Market
511 Woodland Street at the edge of Shelby Park. Tuesdays 3:30 to 6:30pm, April 7 through October 27, 2026, then 3:30 to 6pm through December 22.
Shelby Park
300 acres a few blocks east, open dawn to 11pm, with a dog park, Sevier Lake, a community center and two golf courses.
Shelby Golf Course
Municipal 18-hole course at 2021 Fatherland Street, opened 1924 as Nashville’s first municipal course.
Shelby Bottoms Nature Center
1900 Davidson Street. Open Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday 9 to 4, Wednesday and Friday noon to 4.
Checked against each business as of August 17, 2026. Nashville loses restaurants faster than most cities, so if something here has closed since, tell me and I’ll get it corrected.
Subdivisions and named developments in Boscobel Heights
Once you are actually looking, you stop searching by city and start searching by subdivision. These are the names that come up, and what is true about each one that will still be true in three years. No prices, no dues, no days on market, because those change and this page would go stale telling you about them.
The name is about to belong to two places
Something worth knowing before it starts showing up in searches and confusing people.
- MDHA plans to return the James A. Cayce Homes to its original 1939 name, Boscobel Heights, as part of the Envision Cayce redevelopment.
- Plats recorded in 2018 already carry it: Cayce Place Boscobel 1 Area A4 recorded July 30, 2018, and Boscobel 2 on November 28, 2018.
- So within a few years the name will attach to both the historic blocks on the bluff and the redeveloped Cayce site next to them.
- They are different places with different housing. If you are searching this name, check which one a listing means.
There is no Boscobel district
No overlay, no National Register listing, and no historic plat carries the name.
- Metro’s overlay layer returns nothing for Boscobel. The state’s National Register inventory has no Boscobel district. The only plats bearing the name are the 2018 Cayce redevelopment plats.
- About 79 parcels carry a Boscobel legal description, all of them in 37206.
- The name is genuinely historic even though the plats are not. The Edgefield National Register nomination records that Dr. John Shelby’s properties gave their names to Fatherland and Boscobel, and two Edgefield streets were named after them.
- What governs this ground is the Lockeland Springs and East End conservation overlay, not anything named Boscobel.
The conservation overlay that covers it
Two ordinances reach these blocks, and one of them names the street directly.
- BL2003-1369, effective May 24, 2003, covers about 48 acres from South 10th to South 14th between Woodland Street and Shelby Avenue.
- BL2014-812, effective July 25, 2014, covers about 40 acres north of Shelby Avenue and explicitly names Boscobel Street.
- It is a conservation overlay: new construction, additions, demolition and relocation are reviewed. Repairs, materials, paint and signage are not.
- The Edgefield historic overlay, which does review materials and repairs, is a separate district a few blocks west. Do not assume the same rules apply.
The plats underneath it
The recorded names on this ground, and two mid-century ones people mistake for historic.
- The historic core here is Edgefield Land Company No. 1, No. 2 and No. 4, East Edgefield Addition, and the Payne, Blakemore and Cummings additions.
- Shelby Village and Shelby Hills also turn up in searches here and are mid-century, not historic. Shelby Village No. 2 recorded March 9, 1951 and Shelby Hills recorded September 9, 1963. About 171 parcels carry a Shelby Village description.
- Those two sit south of Shelby Avenue, outside the historic core, and the housing reflects it.
- Also recorded on this ground: Hobson Addition, Hanner Addition, Confederate Hill Subdivision, Christian Subdivision and Lindsley Home Place.
Flood exposure
The number for these blocks.
- The 2010 flood damaged structures on about 4 parcels in the Boscobel area.
- Zip 37206 overall recorded about 246 damaged of roughly 12,268 parcels, about two percent.
- The neighboring East Bank zip, 37213, recorded about forty-two percent of its parcels damaged, which is the contrast that matters.
- These blocks are on the bluff. The bottom land is not, and the redeveloped Cayce site sits lower than the historic streets.
Schools
Metro Nashville Public Schools
Look up an address with the district →
Served by Metro Nashville Public Schools, assigned by address, with a separate choice and magnet application alongside zoned assignment. Confirm the specific address in the district’s Zone Finder.
I publish district and school zoning as published fact and nothing more. No ratings, no rankings, no comparisons. School zones are set by the district, assigned by address rather than by subdivision or city name, and they change. Confirm any address with the district itself, and evaluate the schools yourself against what matters to your family.
What a buyer needs to know here
Read this one before you rely on a listing that says Boscobel Heights. Metro does not draw a boundary around a neighborhood by that name. The nearest thing to an official line is the 2003 ordinance that extended the Lockeland Springs and East End Conservation overlay over 48.05 acres from South 10th to South 14th, Woodland Street to Shelby Avenue, which is the same ground my East End guide covers. Real estate portals draw the polygon differently from each other, and some of them pull in addresses on Sevier Street and out past South 19th that have nothing to do with these blocks. Wikipedia calls the area Boscobel Hills rather than Heights. And there is a second collision coming: MDHA plans to return the James A. Cayce Homes to its original 1939 name, Boscobel Heights, as Envision Cayce is built out, which means two adjacent places will share one name. None of this is a problem with the houses. It is a problem with search results and with comparable sales, and it means you verify the parcel, the overlay and the flood zone by address rather than trusting the neighborhood label on the listing.
Common questions
Where exactly is Boscobel Heights?
The honest answer is that it depends who you ask, which is why the ordinance matters. Metro’s boundary of record for these blocks is BL2003-1369, which extended the conservation overlay across 48.05 acres from South 10th Street to South 14th Street and Woodland Street to Shelby Avenue, effective May 24, 2003. Boscobel Street runs through the middle of it. Portals draw wider and inconsistent polygons around the same name.
Is Boscobel Heights the same place as East End?
They cover much of the same ground. East End is the name attached to the 1876 East Edgefield plat and to the conservation overlay area, and Boscobel Heights is the name that grew up around Boscobel Street inside and near it. If you see both on two listings a block apart, that is not an error, it is two naming conventions sitting on top of each other. What decides your purchase is the parcel: which overlay covers it, what the flood map says, what the zoning allows next door.
Why is the Cayce redevelopment being called Boscobel Heights too?
Because that was its name first. The James A. Cayce Homes opened in 1939 as Boscobel Heights and were renamed for a housing board chairman who died shortly before completion, and MDHA has said it plans to bring the original name back as Envision Cayce is built out. No date has been published for the change. Practically, expect two adjacent places to share a name for a while, and expect search results and automated valuations to be confused by it before people are.
Where does the name Boscobel come from?
From the house. John Shelby, the same Shelby name on the park and the avenue, built a home for his daughter and called it Boscobel. Boscobel College for Young Ladies took the name when it was founded in 1889 on ten acres near Sevier Street, closed in 1916, and the site later became the Cayce site. The street, the pocket and the college name all trace back to that one house.
What can I change on a house here?
Under the Conservation overlay, routine exterior repair and replacement is not reviewed. New construction, additions and demolition are. That is the lighter of Metro’s two tiers: Edgefield, a few blocks northwest, sits under a full Preservation overlay adopted in 1978 that reviews materials and repairs as well. Verify your specific parcel before you plan anything, because coverage varies lot by lot after the 2003 extension.
Is it in the National Register historic district?
Probably not, and the distinction matters less than people think. The East Nashville Historic District was listed on the National Register in 1982 and its southern edge is Fatherland Street, which is north of most of these blocks. In any case National Register listing on its own restricts nothing about what you do to your house. The rules that actually bind you come from Metro’s zoning overlay, which is a separate thing entirely.
Does it flood?
These blocks sit back from the river, but I do not publish a flood answer for a neighborhood, only for a parcel. Metro points people to FEMA’s map service at msc.fema.gov and to its own flood tool at nashvilletn.withforerunner.com, and Development Services will confirm the zone, the panel and the base flood elevation for a specific address. Do that before contingencies come off, every time.
Thinking about Boscobel Heights?
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