hello my name is nathan jackson and this is nathan's neighborhood history today we're going
to be featuring the st louis place neighborhood there is a lot of renewed interest in this area
and the property values have actually started to go back up a little bit
and only say five or ten years ago the prices in this area basically hit rock bottom so st
louis place park is actually the third oldest park in the city of st louis
it was developed largely in part by this one guy named hiram leffingwell hiram leffingwell was
a mid 19th century urban planner he decided to create the two set of boulevard with a big park
in between known as st louis place the city also had its northern reservoir if you look on the 1875
compton and dry map which is a hand-drawn map showing the entire city of st louis at the time
you can see where the reservoir was hiram leffingwell is also known for his contributions to
getting forest park plotted here in the city of st louis after the civil war wealthy saint louis and
started to move into the neighborhood originally this street was known as grand boulevard back
when it was plotted in the 1850s but when grand boulevard was laid out also by hyrum leffingwell
in 1855 and the city limits were expanded they changed the name of the street to st louis avenue
st louis avenue became known as millionaires row shortly thereafter in the 1870s through the early
1900s some of the wealthiest st louisians in the northern part of the city built their houses along
this section of street among those residents in a now demolished mansion chris vonderahi who
started the st louis cardinals actually built his house in the 2800 block of st louis avenue
another significant house in the neighborhood is the sheehan mansion and
it was owned by two brothers john and patrick sheehan and they built the house in 1892 it's
one of the largest surviving houses on st louis avenue with over 6 000 square feet of living space
moving down the street at 23rd and st louis avenue which features four historically significant and
well preserved houses in the second empire in italian its style these are very typical
of wealthy neighborhoods in the mid to late 19th century and as you can see they have stone fronted
facades with the limestone and why people in the 19th century used the limestone fronted facades
was essentially to show off their wealth the italian style houses were both completed in 1880
and they appear on the 1883 hopkins atlas while the two second empire houses were built a little
bit later in about 1885 and they do not appear on the 1883 hopkins atlas moving down the street
from this row of houses we have the james meager house this is one of the most well-oriented second
empire style houses in the whole city it was built in 1879 james meager moved to st louis in about
1850 as an irish immigrant worked his way up through many different jobs eventually became a
leading commission's merchant and with the fortune that he built for himself he built this mansion
here on st louis avenue in 1879. in about 1910 this mansion was converted into a funeral home
and they had an addition made and the funeral home operated on this site for about a century
moving down the street we have one of the earliest residences in this section of st louis avenue here
in the st louis place neighborhood and this house was built sometime around about 1860 or so it's a
two family house it features a hipped roof the mid 19th century vernacular style in many
neighborhoods the vernacular style houses feature a pitched roof and are two stories high but this
is a one-story house with a hipped roof and this shows that at the time the house was built this
area had a bit more of a semi-rural character at the time it is featured on the 1875 compton and
dry map next door we have a house built in 1883 for a guy named john b o'mears like several of
the other houses we featured on the street this house was also built in the second empire style
although it does not contain any dormer windows and it also features that limestone fronted facade
john b o'mears was the president of the st louis quarry company
and so he had the means and the ability to get the limestone from his company to front the
facade of his house with quarried limestone as we continue down the street we have the
otto steeple mansion now otto stiefel was the head of a significant north st louis brewery
the lafayette brewery up on cass avenue he operated this brewery for a number of years
and decided to build his mansion on st louis avenue at 21st street in the early 1880s
it was adorned as one of the finest mansions in the northern part of the city
and the stifo family lived in it for a number of years
this is also the same stifle family that runs stifle nikolas which has the stifle theater in
downtown st louis the next house we have featured here at the corner of 20th and st louis avenue
has wide window arches and a turret and those are two features very typically associated with the
romanesque revival style the romanesque revival style was popularized in the 1880s by henry hobson
richardson a boston architect who created many designs using lots of stone features and
wide arches and large turrets on many of his buildings and the style became popularized
and the more stone fronted examples are often referred to as richardsonian romanesque while
more brick fronted features are typically just referred to as romanesque revival style and
this particular house here was actually built by a guy named ludwig pullman who was a doctor
and he had the house constructed in 1892. he and his family actually lived in this house for over
20 years and continued to live here throughout the beginning of the early 20th century thank you for
watching this house be sure to like comment and subscribe for more information be sure to book
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