hi everyone my name is ken welcome to this house
today we are in st louis missouri exploring a home that was built in 1895.
this house had a pretty rough journey in its previous years and the current owner has gone
through every effort to rescue it let's take a look around outside and then let's go explore
so walking inside of here brian this is really awesome can you tell us a little bit about not
only your inspiration for the space but also just some brief history on it hi my name is brian
mckenna and i am the host of stl brick house yeah thank you ken uh we call this place the stl brick
house and it was built in 1895 little history on the house its original owners were frank and
katie leaps they migrated over from germany and uh made their way to st louis they raised their five
children in this home um and uh frank was a local painter that's really awesome that you have that
because so many of these homes have lost their history over the years and you've gone through
exhaustive research just to find out what you can absolutely and even fun facts like in 1972
this place rented for 105 a month which is quite a bargain now absolutely i'd say so this wall
that we're standing in front of um my wife and i are thrifters and we sourced all of the decor in
this home from local estate sales and thrift shops because we wanted to pay homage to the community
well i think that that's absolutely amazing that you've taken the time to go out with the community
and really bring in these items that just scream st louis and really give you context for the place
that you're in so as we look around this hallway of course there's some modern updates but up on
the ceiling i see what looks to be the original bead board i see the original windows looking
into another room which we'll explore that in a moment i'm sure but let's just kind of take a
moment to see all this and then what do you say we move on to the parlor sounds great all right
now to get to the parlor we're going to cross through these french doors
and let's pay attention to these beautiful crystal doorknobs that are still here
now let's go ahead and open these up and come on in here
so immediately my eyes are drawn to this beautiful fireplace with its cast iron inside could you tell
us a little bit about its restoration process absolutely so we wanted to bring some local
art into this home and so we commissioned a very nice guy named ray harvey a local muralist to come
in and paint our logo for stl brick house and in that process he also touched up our fireplace here
he gave it a little patina and a very nice you know kind of a unique
design and it's almost a a throwback look and it's very striking when you first walk in the room i
love the choice of colors because of course this fireplace as well as the millwork in this room
would have always have been intended to be painted as was common in the area especially
with a working person's house like this so it's just nice to see that you've used these
modern colors to really breathe new life into it while still keeping the historic charm and
the historic elements that were present here when you found it so speaking of those things
can you tell us a little bit about what this looked like whenever you first acquired it
yeah this house when we first got it it looked like something out of the 80s it definitely needed
a remodel and so we wanted to give it a facelift without taking away any of its original features
these types of historical elements really help to enhance the environment here and to make it feel
more cohesive so let's take a moment to see some of these details and then we'll move along to the
next room and if we look closely at these windows we can see that it still has its original hardware
as well as its original latches above and if we even look further in it has the original
chains that pull the windows up to the ceiling passing into the master bedroom we are going to
go through this doorway but first let's look down because there's this beautiful art deco
event that was most likely placed here in the 1920s so let's continue on through here
so brian walking in here one of the first things that really catches my eye is you still have the
hardware for the transom window and that's just magnificent because you could really allow for
some great ventilation through here absolutely and it's still in working condition that's awesome
so as we look across this room of course these windows on our side those look out over that front
hallway that we entered into and then directly in front of us is another mural from that same
artist and this was just recently done it was just uh maybe about two weeks ago yeah
ray harvey we uh we gave him a couple ideas and we wanted something big on this wall and
what better than the arch in the riverfront so i wanted to mention a couple of the items in here
with airbnb we always try to encourage people to stay longer and so we made sure to have an old
old desk uh included with all of our vintage items like i mentioned were sourced from the community
we tried to give it uh that that that vintage feel with our um our chandelier here as well
um some funky light bulbs and of course i think that this room is a large just like
all the others in the house they all have 12 foot vaulted ceilings which really makes you
feel like you're in a big space absolutely so let's take a moment to see some of the smaller
details that you've incorporated into the space and then let's check out that bathroom perfect
this bathroom is really amazing if we look up there's privacy glass off to the side
and this has those same daisy coils that we've been seeing in some of the other homes
from this era in this area bringing our focus down we can notice the painted chair rail that caps off
the bead board and then a newer toilet and vanity and off to the side is a very large walk-in shower
passing now out of the master bedroom we are going to come into the dining room and brian one of the
first things that just catches me is this absolute showstopper of a piece of furniture here can you
tell us a little bit about this was this here or did you put this here this cabinet was here when
we bought the place and i will say it is installed in the wall um it's actually very unique if you if
we open this door here if it's interesting or not you can actually see some old electric some
old hardware they built it right into the wall and we did nothing to it this is how we found it wow
so that's amazing so you didn't strip any paint or restain it this is its natural patina here
we believe the floors are original they have a lot of wear to them but we like to call that
character so we decided not to do anything with them and we think they really add to this house
absolutely and i'm glad you mentioned that because if we all look down now we can see all
of the different growth patterns in the floor and this would have been really common for a working
class home as they would have tried to source the materials as cheaply as possible before we had big
box stores like lowe's or home depot where we could just buy matching dye lots from
now bringing our focus back up and we've seen this so far in every room there's a picture rail
that continues all the way around this room and the other rooms we've seen so it's just really
wonderful that even though you're not using them right now that you've still left them in place yes
and we have hopes to add to this home as time goes on but uh yeah i wanted to keep the picture real
that's beautiful and what do you say we check out the kitchen that sounds great
now passing out of the dining room we're going to come through what used to probably be the
back door and we can notice just how thick the millwork is and this most likely contains
between it three wides of brick as was the fire code back when this house was constructed
now passing through here we arrive in the new kitchen and brian this is just really awesome can
you tell us a little bit about your inspiration for the space well i have to say my wife is our
our interior designer and uh but we try to
um you know match to the rest of the house give it that that classic look
so in the kitchen here uh we tried to keep as much as we could um and uh and update the rest but it's
got a lot of natural light all these windows were custom made on the property when it was built
we learned that when we were looking for blinds they're all very custom i just love that you've
kept all the window trim the original windows and then how you've also paid homage to the bathroom
bead board that we saw by integrating the vertical tile that acts as the backsplash here i just think
what a way to really modernize a space while still maintaining a cohesive flow so this is
just beautiful thank you very much and like i mentioned earlier we think that
this edition was put on in the early 1900s you know possibly between like 1910 1930
um and the receipt we have shows that frank leaps spent 450 to add this kitchen onto the house
brian thank you so much for opening up the doors to this beautiful house for us
could you tell our audience how they could book a stay here absolutely you can go to
sdlbrickhouse.com you can also find us on facebook sdl brickhouse and we really appreciate you coming
by and checking out the place absolutely it was a pleasure again thank you so much thanks ken
thank you everybody for watching i really hope that you enjoyed this tour
if you would like to book a stay here please find the link down in the video description
please make sure to like comment share and subscribe i'll see you next time on this house