hi everyone my name is ken welcome to This House today we are in the university hills neighborhood
of university city in st louis missouri exploring a house built in 1939. i want to give a huge shout
out to joe hostman for opening up the doors here and of course we will put the listing
description and the link down below in our video description let's go see what's inside
walking in the front door and let's take a moment to really see this this is kind of like a little
vestibule space there is a segmented archway that separates the living room from the entry
and on the front door is this little window so let's go ahead and open this
up and how much more interesting is this than your standard peephole so we can pass on through here
and now this space really starts to open up we can notice directly above us there's a plaster
medallion in the center of the room on the ceiling and there are some other really interesting and
unique features if we turn around there's a niche with wood shelves next to another segmented arch
and we can continue looking around to see the built-in doorbell and the u-shaped steps that
will take you up to the second floor now before we go up there there's a lot to explore in this house
back here behind me next to the hearth is the sun room so let's go peek out here first passing
through this french door this takes us into the sun room and this is just such a cozy space with
so much amazing natural light now the current owners obviously have hollywood lights strung up
to really make this place feel more magical there are these amazing trifoil arches that
case out the windows right here in the front and if we look up there is bead board on the ceiling
and that's just one of those really interesting touches that add so much to the space just by
incorporating these different wood types together it just makes the sunroom feel a lot more natural
now passing out of the sunroom we're going to walk straight ahead through one of the
first segmented arches that we saw and this is going to take me directly into the dining room
so come on through here we can see that there are windows on two sides of this
room there's another plaster medallion that hangs directly above the chandelier
and we can just take a moment to really pan around the space
as we make our way out of the dining room we come through the swinging door and there's a
really curious feature here and i'm not exactly sure what this is used for maybe some of you know
but if you could just let me know down in the comments what this is um i'm very interested to
figure this out so come on through here to the kitchen this is actually really nice of course
it has been updated these are modern and newer cabinets and over here they have the set up like
a little wine bar so you can see the racks from which the glasses are suspended from which is just
a great touch gives the kitchen more character and as we pan around the space there is a little
breakfast nook over here and it has a wonderful window that lets in a lot of natural light
now passing out of the kitchen we come into the hall behind me are the steps that go
down to the basement over to this side is the living room where we first entered the house
now come on through here and this will eventually take us over to the master suite
before we get there i want to point out some amazing details we've probably all been looking
at these walls just assuming that they're plaster well i have a surprise for you they're actually
drywall so when the current owners bought this house it was advertised as a gut rehab and they
came in and they reconstructed everything using drywall so just look at these fine details here
off to this side are some magnificent built-ins so we can take a closer look at these as well and
this is of course original to the house now moving along we come to a barrel vaulted ceiling above
us and this leads us straight into the powder room so let's just go ahead and take a peek in here
there's a pedestal sink there's a small window and there's just a lot of natural light that
floods this space passing finally into the owner's suite this space has been opened up and expanded
so originally there were two bedrooms here and it was divided by this section so when the current
owners came in here to renovate they decided to continue on the theme of these built-in niches
with the wooden shelves and incorporate them into the addition of the owner suite
over here is the master closet and it's actually pretty large but
they have some things in there so we're not actually going to check that out today
now off to this side is the owner's bathroom so come on in here and of course this is all
brand new what we're about to see there's a double vanity here with individual mirrors hung above it
and then the lights there's a toilet and then there is a jacuzzi tub
that also has a shower attached to it so we can just kind of take a moment to see all of this
passing out of the master bedroom we're now going to make our way through this hall
and we're going to head upstairs now as i mentioned earlier
that is the path down to the basement and we will see that in a moment it's really
interesting so definitely stick around until we go down there now coming through here this
is the staircase that we first saw in the living room and of course there are these
amazing wrought iron spindles here and we can take a moment to appreciate the craftsmanship
so as we pass up we come to these two sets of landings and there are intersecting barrel
vaults above us so if we look at the ceiling it rounds out this way and then it's going to start
to round out this way before it finally takes us up to the second floor so come on up here
arriving at the top of the steps now the ceiling is sloping with the pitch of the roof
and this brings us to a small landing space now there is a closet over here and we're not really
going to peek in this the owners are currently refabricating a door because this house was
of course built before standardization so the door has to be custom to fit the space now if
we go off to this side this brings us into the first bedroom that we're going to see up here
and of course this space is absolutely massive we can see that it is set up currently with two beds
one thing i want us all to notice is where the ceilings curve
once again this is drywall so this was an incredibly laborious
process to get it to look like plaster and also to get it to curve just like this
now that we've seen this bedroom let's go ahead and make our way out and before we leave i do want
to point out it does have a full-size closet right here and once again we're not going to peek in
there today so come on through here and we're now going to pass through the landing and go directly
ahead of us through this framed archway and this brings us to another just kind of little like
landing space and in here is another full bathroom it has a full shower it has a toilet a vanity and
once again the ceiling is sloping with the pitch of the roof so let's just take a peek around this
coming out of the bathroom we're going to walk into the final bedroom that's up here and
currently this is set up as a home office so we can really appreciate all of the dynamic ceilings
in here so we can see that it matches both the side gable and the front gable and let's just kind
of take a moment to see all of this so over here this is really interesting the ceilings they come
out to meet at a point and then they continue up once again to the more dominant gable in the house
and if we travel around this way there's another closet set up at the end here and then the dormer
window that we saw in front that's represented right here by this low window over to this side is
another closet that is just kind of recessed back into the space so we won't really explore that
once again the owners have personal items back there but let's go check out the basement come on
as we make our way down these steps we're now going to cut back through the living room and
through the hall and this is going to take us towards the basement and the first thing that
we see here is how the barrel vaulted ceiling transforms into a slope so this is now taking
us underneath the steps and as we pass through here the handrail is getting more intricate
notice the top of it here how it has been carved and behind me here is a door that
takes us out to the driveway and we'll go explore this very last but first let's go on through here
now making our way down to the basement we come through this door that blends in with the bead
board and there's something really fascinating if we look up this is all solid concrete
so it's thought that this could have possibly been a bomb shelter at one point of course this
was built in 1939 the world was kind of in chaos with world war one transitioning into world war ii
and then shortly after that was of course the cold war
so when this was added we aren't exactly sure but it's just incredibly fascinating that
this is basically one giant bomb shelter underneath the entire house and the entire house
is supported by this concrete shell and over to this side is a hearth so we can see it still has
its original cast iron inset and this is very true to the period of 1939 when this house was built
and there's the dental molding that runs underneath the mantelpiece very very classic
for this time period now as we transition over here there is a built-in bar and we can see the
theme of beadboard continuing to wrap around the bar piece here with a solid wood countertop
that has been painted and there's a lot of space back here actually and there's even a wine cooler
now passing out of here they have this set up as like a little living space
and as we continue on there's a box column with built-in seating right here and this whole
basement it surprisingly has a lot of natural light coming into it and it feels very airy and
open and of course being that it's solid concrete i cannot hear the construction going on next door
right now so that's just really interesting now over here is another door and we'll just take
a moment to appreciate this the latch on here is the original hardware going to the beadboard door
and there's more storage back here and this continues throughout the rest of the back
of the house but we won't actually go back there and see it right now now that we've
seen the entire basement let's go check out the backyard so we come back up halfway through the
flight of stairs and the side door is going to take us out to the drive let's go check it out
and walking out here we can get a wonderful view of all these beautiful bricks and we can
see that we have blonde bricks with charred bricks mixed with all sorts of different colors and this
once again very accurate for the time period so let's walk on back this way now looking around
the backyard we can see that the driveway takes you straight to a two-car garage and there is
even a public easement that runs along the side that helps you to cut through this neighborhood
joe has been such an amazing experience to wearing this home this really is a treasure
here in university hills and university city thank you again so much for opening up the doors here
absolutely thanks for coming thanks for checking out this beautiful home in university hills
of university city if you have any additional questions feel free to contact me information
will be provided below my name is joe hostman with remax results thank you all so much for
watching please make sure to like comment share and subscribe i'll see you next time on this house