hi everyone my name is ken welcome to this house today we are exploring a house built in lafayette
square in st louis missouri it was built around the 1860s and then in the 1970s artist james king
took over this house stripped it down and made it his own personal work of art every single detail
in this house has been handcrafted and is beyond anything you've ever seen stick around because
we're going to blow your minds it looks like any normal house on any street in the united states
but once you start looking closer at some of the details you notice that things are just
a little bit strange this pedestal here we can see that it's not an actual pedestal the
top of it is made from a fruit punch bowl and a toilet puncher that have both been painted black
as we enter the house we are greeted by a giant crystal chandelier suspended from a barrel vaulted
ceiling and it is paired with a mirror that also goes floor to ceiling right to the side of us
as we turn to look forward we'll see a staircase that is encased by architectural details that just
don't seem to make any sense now nothing in this house is quite as it appears to be as we look
closer at the details we'll start to notice some quirky things first we'll enter the sunken living
room that is inside of a pyramid-shaped area that is boxed in and blocking the windows from
the front of the house there's actually a skylight that allows light to trickle down into the space
and illuminate it and there are also some interesting details here
the fireplace is actually fake and there are triangle-shaped speakers built into the walls
as well as custom art that was all made by artist james king
james king was close friends with bob cassily the primary designer of the city museum so as we leave
that room don't even try to keep track of where we are in the house the use of mirrors in this space
exaggerates the proportions and really lends itself to almost a fun house kind of a feel
because you get lost so easily so this for example as we follow the architectural elements
this archway for example connects to a column but as we switch to the other side the details are
totally different so every time you turn a corner in this house it's like starting over with visual
mapping you don't know exactly where you are and this is kind of the central room in the house it
has a lot of natural light fed by skylights and a lot of architectural salvage used as decoration
and as we look around there are just so many little details to take in this chandelier
for example is hanging very low to the ground we also have original sculpting work by bob cassily
as we look down through the coffee table we'll notice that it's actually glass that's open to
the basement below so we can look up and we can see straight up into the house from the
basement and as we rotate around just notice how dynamic the space is so as we look further around
this room there are even more details to take in and there are beams that don't make sense
there are pulleys that go to nowhere there are even this two-story set of shutters right here
that open up to a koi pond that kind of serves as a courtyard this koi pond is just so beautifully
decorated and it is so unique none of these elements really make sense where they are but they
all serve as decoration and this truly is just one giant piece of art this house i wouldn't even
call it a house because it really is just like one giant inhabitable sculpture that you can live in
like living inside of a museum or an art exhibit so the natural light that's being let in once
again is from a skylight so we don't actually have any windows in this room that look directly to the
outside though you would never notice it if you weren't looking for the glass panels on the roof
we can look around at even more details and we can start to see how these things were made how pieces
of random debris of junk essentially were glued together nailed together
and made to look like something that they weren't now this isn't to excuse some of the
finer things there are bits of alabaster there are pieces of marble old cast iron engraved wood
it's all over this house and we can see how the artist has kind of pieced together
all of these bits of salvage as none of them quite line up and here are those pulleys again
that don't do anything it's just a bunch of gears that add even more mystery to the space
and there's also a bunch of artwork on these walls a lot of architectural salvage
so we can look around and see bits and pieces from the local area from buildings that were demolished
or even just a collection of porcelain and encaustic tiles that have been framed on the wall
as well as random bits of different buildings that are just kind of taken out of their context and
displayed as artwork there's also a bathroom off to the side here and once again just the amount
of detail is exquisite have you ever seen plywood look so elegant on the ceiling there are even bits
of wood that have been used in place of grout to separate the tiles on the walls in this room the
sinks are completely unique and the mirror just makes it feel like it is such an enormous space
even though it's really just your average powder room as far as size goes as we turn the corner
we immediately come into the kitchen and i want to point out that these rosettes on all of the
woodwork are actually the bottoms of aluminum soda cans that have been painted so that is a really
interesting diy project and this house is just full of diy projects i know you guys are going
to see things that i'm not even going to mention just because there's just too much to cover here
so there is a functional kitchen in this house and there's a range a hood
everything it's not your traditional range by any means because it's built up on a pedestal
and there's also a dumb wader that goes down to the basement here in a built-in seating area
that kind of goes in an l-shape around the kitchen with a display overhead and every inch
of this house is just covered in art so if you are feeling overwhelmed by the details just um
just skip along with me because every inch of this house is just covered in artwork and custom
furniture and here are those soda cans again on the cabinets uses decoration in the corners
as well as copper countertops and custom backsplash
as we look around this house we can really see how it embodies the viral hashtag zillow
gone wild in the very best of ways now there's another really interesting feature of this house
we are looking straight up into the upstairs bathroom right now so this house was designed
to breathe so that air could flow throughout it kind of like a natural air conditioning system
it just allows air to more evenly flow throughout the house and we can even look down at the
basement and we can see that the shoots they don't quite line up but they still allow for air to
breathe as we head upstairs there is decorative painting that goes all along the walls and the
colors and the textures immediately start to change whenever you get to the top this material
that's on the wall i can't even tell you what it is it's almost like leather the way it feels and
of course there are more skylights that are cut into the ceiling to allow natural light to come in
and just all of this little artwork everywhere so here's another piece that was designed by
bob cassily the chief designer of the city museum in st louis he built this
piece to go over the stairwell and it is just such a unique organic piece of architecture and they're
just details everywhere i mean you've there are also like no doors in this house so you just
walk through the beads and you get to the bathroom and the bathroom is really elegant
in its own way it has all of this dark wood and dark tile beautiful countertops and mirrors and
just little places to display art but it really is clean and simple but just very very elegant
there's even a claw foot tub that's kind of in its own separate space over here
and we'll take a closer look at that because it just has some gorgeous details on it
and then this actually does have a window to the courtyard that we saw with the koi pond so
you're still not looking at your neighbor's house if you decide to open up the blinds
as we head down the hallway there are more pieces of art
more fragments of pottery just displayed on the wall as if though they're in true form
and let's take another look at this because this is just this is just amazing right here
i've never seen anything like this in my life so we turn the corner and we can notice that
we're in a lofted space now so we're above that central room in the house with all of the beams
that we can see below us supporting this area there's a giant fireplace in this room as well
and it goes floor to ceiling and also a workspace so i guess this would kind of be like an office
or like a quiet riding area or something it's not completely closed off to the stair hall
as there's this kind of partition wall here and as we keep going we get to kind of like
the actual office space in this house so this would have been like a real workspace where
james king could have drawn or made little models made pieces of art and we can see that his two
workspaces are separated by the living room below and we saw this earlier but i think it's important
to point out that this is the space that divides the room on the second floor and over here is just
an absolute dream of a drafting studio we have all these different art supplies a giant drafting desk
and just everything an artist could ever wish for so we'll start to head up to the third floor now
and it's really cool how as you head up the stairs the bottom floor goes out of sight
and suddenly you're in the master bedroom so this space is very light and open it also has
vaulted ceilings with skylights that allow in a lot of natural light and the high contrast between
the lighter walls and the dark ceilings the dark furnishings the built-in bed
it just lends itself to a very euphoric kind of feel a very ethereal feel
and the visual texture in this room is just like nothing i've ever seen before it is absolute eye
candy there are little trinkets that are displayed very tastefully and the color balance in this room
is just exquisite i promise you being in here is like no space you've ever been in your life it is
absolutely peaceful and completely tranquil there are even these french doors that open up straight
to the outside on the roof and that brings you to these panoramic views of the city and we're still
not all the way up so from here we can start to see kind of how the house is laid up we can see
skylights that allow light to trickle down into the different rooms the vents from those holes
that allow the house to breathe and as we get all the way up here to the top we can
actually take a seat on the widow's walk and we can turn around and we can see the entirety
of the st louis skyline from this spot so this would be a great place to watch fireworks whenever
the arch is having its show during the summer and just wow taking the taking the view from here
it's like being at the top of a wonderland there are vines growing over the roof there are
vents that are spinning and then there is an entire city that just adds to the backdrop
it's just breathtaking whenever you're up here there there's nothing else like this
in the city at least nothing residential the closest thing would probably be the city museum
which we mentioned earlier um james king was apparently very close friends with bob cassilly
and we can definitely see the influence of bob cassilly's work in james king's work so
let's go ahead and head downstairs and we're just going to skip through really fast to
get to the garden so this is directly off the back of the kitchen whenever you walk outside
in the backyard we lose that sense that we're in a city we feel like we could just be in our
own little chunk of paradise there are statues and waterfalls and bridges to nowhere and it is
just landscaped beyond anything you've ever seen before once again it's very tranquil very peaceful
it doesn't sound like a city because of all the birds and the trees and the water flowing around
and let's go ahead and follow this stream because as we follow we can see every rock
has been stacked perfectly and by the way this was a flat lot just with just nothing in the
backyard so everything you see has been placed by hand and is very intentional and here's one of
those bridges that i mentioned earlier that just kind of goes to nowhere next to another bridge
so we can keep walking through the space and let's notice how the ground is constantly changing the
bricks are laid out in different patterns there are works of art that just back up to these
garden walls that you couldn't see from just five feet ago whenever you're walking up on it
so continuing on we get to a garden shed and it is kind of made in a pagoda style or at least to have
some sort of a semblance of a pagoda and directly across from it is an actual little pagoda shrine
and there is a little footbridge that you can take to cross over to it and you can see that
the bricks here have been stacked in a way that
you would not normally stack bricks the bricks have been used as decoration
and here again we have the aluminum cans on the outside of this pagoda that have been painted
and it's just all these little bitty details that just make this house so special i want to give a
huge shout out to the owner of this house fritz mcavoy for allowing us to come film here once
again we were on a very tight time crunch here and only had a few minutes in this house but i
thought it was so worth it to do this video in a different style just so that all of you at home
could see how magnificent this work of art is which room was your favorite let us know
in the comments make sure to like comment and subscribe i'll see you next time on this house