I had been concerned back in November of 2021 that the Cabanne Castle, which had been gutted back in April of 2021 for redevelopment, was no longer going to be rehabbed.

But when I went back two Saturdays ago, the construction site looked active again, so that is good news. There was evidence of tuckpointing going on, and the “tap,” where the water service goes into a building from the water main, was dug up for replacement.

I first looked at the building way back in April of 2019, and I always thought it had so much potential.

As an aside, I went back early on this last Saturday morning to get these two photos, as I felt like the light was not great for the first three photos, and when I arrived, there was a coterie of huge dump trucks already in place at 8:00 AM.

“Wow,” I thought, “they’re really working hard to get those water and sewer utilities hooked up.”

I learned from Mark Groth two hours later, who writes the excellent St. Louis City Talk, that they were actually summoned by the City of St. Louis to demolish Bill Cristman’s Land of the Giants, which was located on the site of the former St. Philomena’s Technical School. I had heard that the garden was in trouble, but was not expecting it to be demolished last Saturday.