Update: Demolished for failed redevelopment, put up for sale as a vacant lot.

As I first discovered on the Built St. Louis website, the strange, half timber building across the from the Syndicate Trust seems to hold much older secrets.

The building, on closer examination, is really a faux half-timber house, and hides old brick construction behind. I remember when this restaurant was open; it looked like a dump so I never went in.

As the above two photos show, there are actually cast iron columns on the ground floor; Built St. Louis reports that the building might be from the Civil War.

As it is, it sits rotting and in limbo; the Roberts Brothers apparently want to tear it down, but considering they’ll be trying to sell units in their tower nearby, I have a feeling it will not be going anywhere anytime soon. An examination of the brick on the alley wall gives few clues to the original purpose of this property; you can often “read” a building by looking at its irregularities and patchwork, but not this building.

The old fire insurance maps from show the building here. From close examination of the 1909 map, it appears the building, at the northeast corner of Locust and Tenth, had a series of small rooms in the back.