You might be surprised that in forty years since first arriving in St. Louis, I had never been to Eckert’s, the famous orchard which interestingly lies partially within the city limits of Belleville.
Not surprisingly, we were immediately interested in the large farm house in the Italianate style, which sits high up on a hill overlooking the orchards.
It’s a great example of an Italianate country house that has a widow’s walk but no belvedere, but still has small windows that could be opened to create the draft that would draw air up through open windows on the lower stories, cooling the house in the summer.
Johann Peter Eckert came to America in 1837 from Hesse-Darmstadt, which interestingly is the same German state from whence came Adam Lemp in 1836. I suspect both men left due to the same economic malaise reasons that was afflicting the German duchy in the 1830s, though they are from towns that are a fair distance apart.
Eckert’s introduced a tulip festival in a former corn field this year that was a lot of fun and may still be going this weekend.
Annually Mom would go to Ecker’s, buy a peck or two of peaches and make peach jelly. One year she even made peach ice cream and to this day, more than 60 years later, it is the best ice cream I’ve ever tasted.