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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