Heading east of Ohio Avenues on Accomac Street towards South Jefferson, we continue to see two family houses. The architectural styles are hard to quantify; take for example, above, where there is a little point sticking up above the pediment. Overall, the houses look more or less the same, and it can be seen that…
Accomac Street Between California and Ohio Avenues
Moving one block to the north, to Accomac Street, we see more of a mix of four-families, single families and two families. If you’ve ever wondered where the name came from, it is a town in Virginia, located out on that little peninsula that is not contiguous with the rest of the state. Originally the…
Armand Place Between Ohio and South Jefferson Avenues, Revisited
Moving along east of Ohio Avenue in the former St. Louis Commons on Armand Place, we see the continued unity of style consistent with being built in a relatively short period of time in the late 1880s and early 1890s as part of the Sarpy’s Partition of the DeVolsey Tract. I looked at this block…
Armand Place Between California and Ohio Avenues
Over the next couple of weeks, I’m going to be looking at the east-west streets in Fox Park and Compton Hill in between California and South Jefferson Avenues. We’ll start in the south with Armand Place and work our way north, ending with Hickory Avenue in the north. This first block is the Sarpy’s Subdivision…
Selma Hall
Selma Hall, or Kennett’s Castle, was built according to designs by George I. Barnett in 1854 along the bluffs south of St. Louis in Jefferson County. I rarely only show historic photographs, but the house is so far back in a huge estate and is never open to the public that it is impossible to…
Anheuser Estate, Kimmswick
The Anheuser family had a country estate on the banks of the Mississippi just south of Kimmswick that is now a park. The house was originally built in 1867 but the Anheusers bought it in 1916. I suspect the family could have easily taken the train directly to their estate on the tracks, which may…
Windsor Harbor Bridge, Kimmswick
On the south side of Kimmswick is the Windsor Harbor Bridge, which is now completely closed to all traffic, after once being open to pedestrians. Originally placed in Carondelet up in St. Louis from 1874 to 1928, it was moved here in 1930. There is a modern road bridge to the west, made of reinforced…
Kimmswick, Revisited
Founded in 1859 by German Theodore Kimm, we thought that Kimmswick was worth a second look recently since we were in the area after having looked at it back in August of 2020. I had forgotten how many log cabins there were in the town. And judging from the National Register nomination, which does not…
Buyer Beware: Painted Brick
I know from talking to many people that there is great frustration in the rash of out of town flippers, particularly from California, who have come in, flipped houses, gutting perfectly intact interiors with original woodwork and replaced it with cheap materials, and then for the final insult, slathered the beautiful red brick exterior with…
Eckert’s
You might be surprised that in forty years since first arriving in St. Louis, I had never been to Eckert’s, the famous orchard which interestingly lies partially within the city limits of Belleville. Not surprisingly, we were immediately interested in the large farm house in the Italianate style, which sits high up on a hill…