I really like O’Fallon Park; located on steep, rugged bluffs that cascade down to the interstate, it’s perhaps one of the less famous recreational sites in the city. It has a beautiful pavilion (will photograph that in the future) that looks a lot like the one in Carondelet Park, but it also has these buildings, less exciting, but still interesting. Take this abandoned house; why is it here? I assume it was a park employee’s house at some point. The building below obviously functions as a maintenance facility.
And also, just like in Forest Park, there are these stone restroom facilities, long since closed.
Why have they closed most of those stone restrooms? I can’t imagine they were THAT big of a drain on resources.
Probably the City tired of replacing stolen metal pipes and copper wiring.
Too much hanky-panky, from what I understand.
Looove that little wooden house. Adorable…and cute. Can I put it in my pocket and bring it home with me?
I did notice that the maintenance buildings and public restrooms in O’Fallon are identical to those found in Forest Park and Carondolet Park, and yet they possess such strong individual identity in situ that one doesn’t get the impression that they were likely built from the same plans. Interestingly, at least one of the restrooms in Carondolet has some flat (roofing?) Ludowici tiles incorporated into the mortar joints between the stones. Surprised the heck out of my wife and me.
I have a feeling these structures were built “on the fly;” the masons simply had a general guideline of what the City wanted, and there was a fair amount of leeway–and no official blueprints–instructing the builders on site.
The bathroom stonework definitely has a good deal of character to it, and the individuality of the masons could account for that. My thought at the time my wife and I noticed the Ludowici components was, “What made this mason, or team of masons, think to take broken roofing tiles and set them randomly inside the joints, amongst the stones and mortar?” It’s this type of freehand creativity, along with all of the many brick bonds, terra cotta, brick colors, and other such variation on the St. Louis brick vernacular which continues to amaze and delight my wife and me. And why I get so bloody irritated every time I see yet another building fall.