I’ve featured these houses before, which are masterpieces of architecture in St. Louis, quietly holding their own along the park in the O’Fallon neighborhood.
It surely is not easy, as the twins are huge, and expensive, and getting a home repair loan up this way is not easy, as many people have told me personally.
But just look at these houses, which are still holding up, with very little abandonment, and just about all of them are occupied on the streets perpendicular to West Florissant Avenue (it changes from North to West past Grand Boulevard).
Some very beautiful homes.
Thousands more like this within a mile of these mostly occupied and in great shape.
I would hope these irreplaceable bldgs are protected by a historic district. If they are, does that mean the zipcode does not play a negative factor in securing a home improvement loan?
Unfortunately, none of the areas around O’Fallon Park are in a National or Local Historic District. Additionally, residents have told me they have indeed had difficulty securing home loans in this area due to their zip code.
Thanks. Hopefully these guidelines change before it’s too late! It doesn’t make sense to not give these residents any fair means to maintain their properties, while hoping abandonment doesn’t creep into the neighborhood, and if it does, tear down what’s left of these well-built architectural masterpieces & replace it with a brick-vener-front replica with maybe one characteristic (an arched window, etc.) of the countless characteristics found in these original homes.