The Cassilly and Cassilly Shop on Lafayette Avenue has been in the news a lot recently when its owner, who also operates the currently closed Avyan Hotel to the east, tried to apply for a demolition permit again like he did last year (and failed).

The building actually has a really interesting history. Built in 1895, according to City records, it originally was two stories tall and functioned as the Compton Hill Livery and Undertakers. I suspect the second story was used as a hayloft. By 1932, it had a new use, that of the Rose Coffee Company.

In 1946, a major renovation, recorded in a building permit, converted the building into a Bettendorf’s grocery store, a small chain that was eventually bought out by Schnuck’s in the 1970s. Aerial images show small houses to the north (see maps below), dating back to at least the 1870s, were demolished no later than 1958 for a parking lot that surely served the grocery store. A row of houses survived until at least 1974 to the east, when they were demolished for what would eventually become a hotel and strip mall with a grocery store tenant. The parking lot to the north would become the staging area for many of the Cassillys’ creations that started inside the shop.

The front facade was built to show off the concrete casting abilities of the Cassillys and also to improve the appearance of the building. The repeating pattern below had already been used on a building contract in the Central West End (third photo).

Below is the Pictorial St. Louis showing the future shop location in the middle with the houses to the east and the houses that would eventually be demolished for the parking lot and yard to the north.

The Whipple Fire Insurance Map shows just how much was torn down in the mid-Twentieth Century for first Lafayette Towne and then the Gate District redevelopment plans for what had been Compton Hill.