I have sneaking suspicion that preferences in this category will change over the years, as more people move upward into those downtown towers. Yet for the time being, the Best Place to Catch a Sunset, according to A List readers, is still the Oasis, the hillside restaurant and bar out at Lake Travis. It received 39 percent of the vote. Mount Bonnell, a scenic magnet for centuries, came in second with 18 percent. Iguana Grill managed a respectable 11 percent, while Hula Hut relaxed with 10 percent. Lake Travis, the whole of it, merited 8 percent. The UT Tower, Zilker Park, ...

The goal is $5 million. Already, donors have pledged $2 million. For one charity event. Pick the right cause, at the right time, and one can line up the biggest names to back it. Ask Steve Hicks, investor and executive chairman of Capstar Partners. Hicks and his wife, Donna Stockton Hicks, long ago selected a charity, the Rise School of Austin. They are helping to turn its first creative event, the Rise Across Texas Challenge, into the richest ever for Austin. And the news keeps on rolling in: You’ve probably already heard about the cross-state bike ride, slated for March 6-20. Or ...

I’m an inveterate tour guide. As a youth, I’d show visitors the hidden gems of Houston (most of them are well hidden). I could point you to the most alluring spots in the desolate Badlands of South Dakota, or the finest espresso in the urban battlegrounds of Brooklyn. Yet little did I know, when Kip and I moved to the Bouldin neighborhood 12 year ago, that a mostly decrepit strip of shops along nearby South Congress Avenue would become a top tourist attraction. As a pedestrian, I appreciated the incomplete commercial density, gentle grade and wide sidewalks. But tourist magnet? ...

“Land was in his blood.” That’s how Mary Bohls, 82, summed up her late husband, Everett Bohls, consummate Austin businessman, developer and outdoorsman, who died Aug. 12 at age 91. Late in life, Everett demonstrated his green thumb gardening in his Balcones Park neighborhood near Mount Bonnell. Also, he more than dabbled in art, painting adroit florals, wildlife, travel scenes and landscapes, including wildflower views. So it follows naturally that his son, Rex Bohls, his wife, Laura, and their children, Catherine and Will, donated $2,400 to seed the Tarrytown flank of Mopac in memory of this man of nature. Their gift benefited ...