I’ve looked at the super rare Carpenter Gothic house before, but there are also other extremely unique and very old houses located in the northern reaches of Carondelet that date back to the earliest days of the then-independent city and may even predate the Civil War. The first tow houses are located right on Michigan…
Tag: Carondelet
Frank W. Choisel Residence, Carondelet
This house, which I suspect is one of the earliest examples of the Second Empire style in St. Louis, was the home of Frank W. Choisel, editor of the The Realty and Builder Record, which published information on new buildings being built in St. Louis. It is a critical source on the built environment in…
Revisiting Carondelet: Steins Street Between Pennsylvania and Michigan Avenues
Steins Street is just one of those streets where you think, wow, what an amazing snapshot of what this city used to look like back before the Civil War. These are some old houses, and they have been immaculately restored. They give us a window into what the early housing stock of Carondelet and St….
Revisiting Carondelet: Minnesota Avenue Between Mott and Iron Streets
On the other side of Minnesota Avenue from The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet is this row of houses, many showing alterations from the passage of time. The cornices are missing here and there, but overall they look much the same as they probably did a century ago. The proliferation of tan brick also…
Revisiting Carondelet: Haven Street Between South Broadway and Minnesota Avenue
Walking up the hill, we realize just how steep the grade changes from the flat land along South Broadway to the heights along Michigan Avenue. There are some interesting houses along the way. And there’s also some awesome examples of houses that were clearly built before street grading! The terrain of the area was clearly…
Revisiting Carondelet: South Broadway Between Quincy and Haven Streets
Moving north past Quincy Street, the majority of the historic built environment is on the west side of South Broadway. On the east side are a bunch of vacant lots and rusty warehouses. Still, there are more elaborately decorated Italianate storefronts that are not common in St. Louis anymore, largely swept away by later development…
Revisiting Carondelet: South Broadway Between Nagel Avenue and Quincy Street
South Broadway is where the industry and the people met in Carondelet, and the businesses that served both line both sides of the thoroughfare that was originally known as Carondelet Road for much of its early history. Below is the Southern Commercial Bank, with drive-up bank teller windows in the back. The bank still has…
Revisiting Carondelet: Nagel Avenue Between Michigan Avenue and South Broadway
We already saw the front of this house (last photo) at the corner of Michigan and Nagel, but now we see this interesting addition out the back along the latter street. This was the home of J.C. Degenhart, but it doesn’t seem to help us identify the purpose of the building. Perhaps it was a…
Revisiting Carondelet: Virginia Avenue Between Blow Street and Nagel Avenue
The west side of Virginia Avenue south of Blow Street has a group of very old houses that makes me suspect there was some type of industry nearby. These wood frame houses are old, perhaps dating back to the 1860s or 70s, right around the time Carondelet was annexed into the City of St. Louis….
Revisiting Carondelet: Virginia Avenue Between Loughborough Avenue and Blow Street, Blow Elementary School
It’s interesting to see how a similar pattern of development occurs in different parts of the city. As I showed recently at the old Webster Elementary School in Old North, at the Blow Elementary School in Carondelet, there were original two earlier school buildings built adjacent to each other before both were demolished for a…