I finally got back into the heart of the North Pointe neighborhood, which for simplicity’s sake, I include under the Baden tag. North Pointe is easily one of the most beautiful, intact and best kept secrets in the entire city of St. Louis.

I could not find a single abandoned house, and I maybe could only find a house or two with long grass anywhere in the entire area, which is more than can be said for my “hot” neighborhood on the South Side. North Pointe is a bastion of the African American middle class, and I hope it remains so.

While a substantial portion of the neighborhood looks to have been built around or after World War II in the housing boom when the Gingerbread Style flourished, there are some streets that are earlier in the Arts and Crafts Style.

But then I made an exciting discovery: there are large Nineteenth Century country houses mixed in the Twentieth Century tract houses, such as the one below.

And then there’s this spectacular house, which is a little hard to describe stylistically; it is Queen Anne with the Shingle Style (replaced with asphalt shingles). Regardless, it is one of the most unique, beautiful houses in the City of St. Louis. I tried to find the story behind why it was out in the countryside up north, but I couldn’t find anything.

Here’s another example of an earlier house built out in the early days of the neighborhood.

Then, up along the border with St. Louis County, the streets are all blocked off; I assume this happened sometime in the last thirty years or so.