Mayfield Park: The Free Peacock Garden Everyone Drives Past on the Way to Mount Bonnell

Mayfield Park is a free, 23-acre garden and nature preserve at 3505 W 35th St in Austin, Texas — and its entrance sits directly across the street from Mount Bonnell Road, the route thousands of visitors drive every week to climb Mount Bonnell's 106 stone stairs. According to ATX Things analysis, almost none of that traffic turns into the gate on the other side of the road, which means a walled 1870s cottage garden full of free-roaming peacocks, lily ponds, and century-old palm trees sits nearly empty while Mount Bonnell's summit gets crowded at sunset.

What is Mayfield Park, exactly?

It's two things layered on top of each other. Inside a set of antique rock walls sit two acres of cottage gardens — water-lily ponds, cobblestone paths, a white 19th-century farmhouse, and the largest stand of Sabal Texana (Texas palm) trees north of the Rio Grande. Outside those walls, 21 more acres of Mayfield Preserve hold walking trails through oak and juniper woods down toward Lake Austin. Both halves are free, and both are open to the public daily, though the walled gardens specifically close whenever they're booked for a private event — commonly weekends, per the city's own site.

The peacocks didn't come with the park — they came with a gift in 1937

The cottage itself was built sometime between 1860 and 1880, long before it had anything to do with peacocks. Allison Mayfield — a former Texas Secretary of State and chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission — bought the cottage and its 23 acres in 1909 as a family weekend retreat, adding most of the porches and the stone-and-wood pergola patio that's still there today. When the property passed to his daughter, Mary Frances, and her husband, Dr. Milton Gutsch, in 1922, the couple redirected their own interest in native Texas plants and water lilies into building the gardens visitors walk through now.

The peacocks arrived as a gift to the Gutsches in 1937. The roughly two dozen birds that strut the grounds today are their direct descendants, and they've had the run of the place — by the city's own count — for close to 90 years.

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"Few people know the historical significance, which is an important part of the park," — Karen Cannatti, a volunteer with the Mayfield Park Community Project since 1986, in an interview posted on the City of Austin's own Mayfield Park page.

Mary Frances Gutsch willed the entire property to the City of Austin in 1971, specifically so it would become a public park rather than private land. It's been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since, and the same volunteer group Cannatti belongs to still maintains the 32 heritage-plant beds inside the walls today.

Why this is a better call than Mount Bonnell this week

Austin's forecast is back in the triple digits — a 100°F high today, climbing toward 104°F by Thursday, with no real rain in sight until the weekend. Mount Bonnell's summit is a bare limestone platform with a handful of benches and almost no shade; Mayfield's cottage gardens sit under a canopy of century-old palms and oaks that keep the walled section noticeably cooler, and the preserve's trails run through wooded creek bottom the rest of the way down to the lake.

Mount Bonnell still wins on the actual view — Mayfield doesn't have a hilltop panorama, and it isn't trying to. What it offers instead is quiet: benches by the lily ponds, koi and turtles in the water, blue and green herons working the shallows, and none of the parking-lot scramble that hits Mount Bonnell every evening around sunset.

What locals should know before you go

• It's genuinely free, with no ticket, timed entry, or reservation required to walk through — you only need a rental if you're hosting an event in the walled gardens or cottage.
• Never approach, touch, feed, or chase the peafowl. The city's own signage is blunt about it: these birds and their ancestors have lived at Mayfield for roughly 70 years, and it's their home, not a photo prop.
• Fishing and removing anything from the ponds is prohibited — the koi, turtles, and water lilies are the ecosystem the whole garden was built around.
• Surfaces are uneven — dirt, grass, cobblestone, and old sidewalk by turns. Wear real shoes, not sandals, especially near the rock walls.
• Don't climb or sit on the rock walls. They're original 19th-century stonework, and the city asks visitors to stay off them entirely.

Frequently asked questions

Is Mayfield Park the same place as Mount Bonnell? No. They're two separate City of Austin parks that share a corner — Mayfield's gated garden entrance is at 3505 W 35th St, directly across from Mount Bonnell Road, while the stairs up to Mount Bonnell's overlook are about a quarter mile further along that same road at 3800 Mount Bonnell Rd.

Do I need a reservation or ticket to visit Mayfield Park? No. Admission is free and the park is open daily from 5 AM to 10 PM. The only exception is the walled cottage gardens specifically, which close to the public whenever they've been booked for a private event.

Can I bring my dog to Mayfield Park? No. Pets of any kind, including service and emotional-support animals, are barred from the entire property — both the walled gardens and the surrounding preserve trails — to protect the resident peafowl and wildlife.

Are the peacocks free-roaming, and is it safe to be near them? Yes, they roam the grounds freely and have for generations. The city asks visitors not to approach, touch, feed, or chase them; keep a respectful distance and let them move at their own pace.

Is there parking at Mayfield Park? There's a small lot just inside the single entrance gate, including accessible parking, plus street parking along W 35th once the lot fills — the same constraint Mount Bonnell's own lot faces, so arriving early matters at both.

Hungry after? A handful of solid lunch spots sit a short drive away in the surrounding 78703 neighborhoods.

For more of the city's actual hidden corners — not the ones every visitor guide already lists — see our look at the free bat-viewing spot locals use instead of the paid boat tour, or if the heat has you thinking about water instead of gardens, where Austinites are actually swimming through this heat wave and the day-pass trick that saves a wasted drive to McKinney Falls. Mayfield's own National Register status connects to a bigger story too: the preservation fight shaping which of Austin's historic sites survive the next decade.

Sources: City of Austin, Mayfield Park; Mayfield Park Community Project; Visit Austin, Mount Bonnell at Covert Park. Weather figures from this week's Austin forecast, pulled the morning of publication.