The final creation of Preston Bradshaw, what is now known as Lindell Towers West, was completed in 1927 for Pleitsch and Price. This building is probably the most unique of three; it violates and borrows from several styles of architecture, including Beaux-Arts, Romanesque and other eclectic elements. The front door and its two medallions even…
Month: December 2014
Mark Twain Apartments, Lindell Towers East
Preston Bradshaw continued his march west with another residential hotel for Pleitsch and Price, constructing what was originally known as the Mark Twain Apartments in 1926. Perhaps the most interesting feature is the dramatic arched, circular cornice over the front door, certainly an oddity in St. Louis. But the top then looks more Gothic with…
The Coronado
The wall of buildings on Lindell west of Spring are the handiwork of Preston Bradshaw. The first one in the picture, and the first one built, is the Coronado, built as a residential hotel between 1923 and 1926. There is a clear line in the red brick of the lower section at right, and the…
Arthur J. Donnelly Funeral Parlor, Lindell Boulevard
This old funeral parlor had an interesting brush with history; read about it here.
Bannister House
Henry Semple Ames or his mother?most likely had this building constructed in 1889, during the boom years for Grand Center. Its neighbors are gone; it was later owned by a Ms. Cushman after the Ames family moved out in the early Twentieth Century. Ames served as the president of a myriad of railroads and other…
Moolah Temple
The Moolah Temple’s original purpose, that of the Order of the Mystic Shrine, is now hosted in another building out west, and its new use as a movie theater works well. Moorish Revival architecture is interesting in that is Islamic architecture built by non-Muslims. It is fanciful, perhaps historically inaccurate, but it provides a nice…
Alexander Euston Mansion, SLU Campus
The Alexander Euston Mansion, from 1890, still sits at 3730 Lindell Boulevard, but is now part of SLU. Euston owned pressing mills that created linseed oil. Perhaps not the most exciting industrialist in St. Louis, but he still provided a valuable service to the community. The house passed through various owners and now is known…
Masonic Temple Revisited, Dusk
That massive, hulking limestone Parthenon sitting on its own man-made Acropolis is for sale again. If you have a couple of million dollars and don’t mind them using some of the rooms occasionally, it can be yours. The vacant lot next door with the rubble retaining wall was once a mansion, demolished for more parking….
Telephone Building, Grand Center
I seem to remember that this building was originally telephone building or something. It seems to have received a vertical addition at some point, as the upper floors are clearly much newer than the first two. Most likely the historic cornice was shorn off at the time of the expansion.
Powell Hall Details
Covered with an interesting mixture of grotesques, the exterior of Powell Hall, so often viewed only at night while arriving to see a performance of the symphony, never ceases to impress. The central portal of what was the old St. Louis Theater shows the influence of 17th palazzo decoration in Rome. The interior is a…