The block of Lafayette Avenue heading west between Waverly and Simpson places is very well preserved, with five Second Empire houses, apparently built in two phases. The first house is the home of Dr. Hermann Luyties, the homeopathic physician, who is perhaps most famous today for his burial monument in Bellefontaine Cemetery. Well preserved and…
Tag: Lafayette Square
Waverly Place, Lafayette Square
Waverly Place, just off Lafayette Avenue, is one of the more interesting private streets in Lafayette Square, and in the city in general. It is also, after Vandeventer Place (which was annihilated), perhaps one of the most devastated by demolition, in this case by Interstate 44. Consequently, and perhaps a bit strangely, the southernmost portion…
Lafayette Park United Methodist Church
I knew there was something peculiar about the beautiful Lafayette Park Methodist Church on Lafayette Avenue, at the corner of Missouri Avenue. More about that below. The church is a real survivor; it just avoided being demolished for the construction of Interstate 44. It is a beautiful example of Romanesque Revival, as we’ve seen for…
German House, Lafayette Square
One of the more spectacular buildings in St. Louis, the German House was the center of Teutonic culture in St. Louis for generations. Sadly, it is sitting vacant right now. It’s a huge building, and has a theater out the back, as can be seen here. The parking lot right at the corner with South…
Police Station, Lafayette Park
Boehl and Koenig, Lafayette Park Police Station, Missouri History Museum, N33625 I’ve always known this beautiful little structure in the Second Empire style as the “police station,” but apparently it might be more properly known as the park house. It was built in two sections, in 1867, and 1870. In many ways, we should be…
Nicholson Place, Lafayette Square
I had always glanced down Nicholson Place while traveling down Lafayette Avenue, and had foolishly believed that the sadly truncated little street surely contained little history and few historic houses. After digging a little, I discovered I was dead wrong. I had learned several years ago that the south side of Lafayette Square facing the…
Lafayette Avenue Between Mississippi Avenue and Nicholson Place
The block of Lafayette Avenue across from the park between Mississippi Avenue (formerly Park Place) and Nicholson Place is short, but it is packed with history. Sadly, Number 2 on Compton and Dry’s Pictorial St. Louis, the house of John P. Meyer, was lost for a parking lot, which remains its function to this day….
Lafayette Avenue Between Eighteenth Street and Mississippi Avenue, North Side
Moving west of Eighteenth Street, except for the loss of a couple houses just to the left of these two Second Empire storefronts, the north side of Lafayette Avenue is intact all the way to the alley behind Mississippi Avenue. Interestingly, little was built by 1876 except for a couple of houses that are now…
Lafayette Avenue Between Dolman and Eighteenth Streets
We’ll first take a look at these nice houses on Dolman above, which would fit in well in Soulard, but then we turn right onto Lafayette Avenue, which has changed dramatically in the time when it was first settled before the Civil War. I’ve looked at the block to the east before, with its distinctive…
Carroll Street Between Eighteenth and Grattan Streets, North Side
Heading east on Carroll Street from Eighteenth Street, we realize that the area east of the park was largely undeveloped by 1876, most likely to the presence of karst topography (there were caves in the vicinity, as well). In fact, Eighteenth was still known as Second Carondelet Avenue, a planned but ultimately terminated attempt at…