Readers had been inquiring about the house at the corner of Cook and Whittier, so I went by and checked up on it. Overall, the house looks to be doing about the same as it always has been, but I would not expect its roof to last too many more severe storms or winters.
There have been several attempts at rehabbing it, but so far, they don’t seem to have taken off. There are other amazing houses on Cook, which I’ve looked at before, so I think the best case scenario would be that there is a general interest in the whole area, and not in just this one house.
Like I said, I think this roof need immediate intervention.
But this house is not doomed, even if the entire roof has to be replaced.
By the way, this is actually the work of Frederick W. Fout, and was built in 1892 or so as part of an addition to the street grid known as Fout Place. Fout was an attorney, and like many wealthy St. Louisans, augmented his income with real estate speculation. I’ve created a new tag, Fout Place, for this house and retroactively added it to all of the posts for this house so you can look it up due to its popularity.
One thing’s for sure: a tuckpointing company will make a ton of money on the salvation of this house! I look forward to seeing someone fix up this beauty.
How is it possible there is still copper on the roof?
It’s a slate roof. No idea what they used to fasten them though.
Snowballs chance in hell that building is saved. Get real. The neighborhood is desolate. Brutal crime consistently perpetrated. Who in their right mind would spend the time and money to fix up a property in that location? Not going to happen.
You must be unaware of the close to $8,000,000 investment in 120 housing units one block away from the house that was completed only five years ago.
That place is a mansion. Investment in public/mixed income housing a block away from there does nothing to attract the multimillionaire that property demands.
HUD or the St. Louis housing authority should use the place as a pet project and turn the old mansion into a section 8 rooming house. Like the way Lafayette Square mansions used to be .
Much higher odds that the property is stacked onto pallets and an “investment” like the one you’re pointing out is built in its place.