The “old estate” I was referring to back in September of 2018 was the Orthwein property in Huntleigh, and since then the property was sold off and subdivided. Large McMansions have gone up on the western end of the property. It was by far the largest tract of undeveloped land in St. Louis County outside…
Tag: Central County
Des Peres Presbyterian Church, Frontenac
Constructed in 1834, the old stone Des Peres Presbyterian Church is rapidly approaching the bicentennial mark out in Frontenac off Geyer Road. Despite the roof collapsing in 1874 and a car crashing into it a few years ago, the venerable church has remained a beacon in the community. At one point it was threatened with…
After the Tornado: Wydown Boulevard, Clayton
I had just looked at this stretch of Wydown Boulevard back in January of 2024 in Clayton in between Big Bend and Skinker boulevards, and it has now been transformed due to the tornado of May 16. The trees and windows of the houses along here have been savaged. There are also signs of damage…
West Bruno Avenue, Richmond Heights
I’ve been looking at the mansions north of Highway 40 in Richmond Heights, but I recently traveled down West Bruno Avenue just west of Big Bend Boulevard and caught these houses. Richmond Heights really has some great architecture, and if you travel as the crow flies, it is as close to downtown St. Louis as…
Webster Groves Presbyterian Church
I was in Webster Groves recently in the evening and parked across the street from the Webster Groves Presbyterian Church, with roots going back to 1865. This building dates from 1924 and was an expansion from earlier structures. I photographed the tracery in the rose window way back in May of 2013. That church is…
Second Baptist Church
Second Baptist is a congregation with roots going back deep into St. Louis history. Their current location at the southeast corner of Clayton and McKnight roads was on the grounds of the Barron-Childress Mansion, which they demolished back in 2002. The current church, which received a new vestibule a few years back, was originally designed…
The Galleria, Former Westroads Shopping Center
It’s increasingly forgotten, but the Galleria originally was the Westroads Shopping Center, and like many other early shopping centers, it was more of strip mall with a single anchor, in this case a Stix, Baer and Fuller, and several other stores arranged in behind a parking lot. Built in 1955, Westroads was Stix, Baer and…
Requiem for Shopping Malls?
The announcement that Macy’s will be closing the store at South County Center raised the specter that there will be another round of mall closures after an initial wave that struck the St. Louis region earlier this millennium. As Toby Weiss at B.E.L.T. St. Louis documented so well at Northland Shopping Center and River Roads…
Church of the Annunziata
Founded in 1929, the Great Depression and then World War II held up the building of the church of the Annunziata out on Clayton Road at Cella Road in Ladue. It’s in what I would call the French Romanesque Revival, and it cut a beautiful profile on a snow-covered Saturday when I visited. The church…
Salem United Methodist Church
I’d long spotted Salem United Methodist Church just north of Highway 40 at the Lindbergh Boulevard exit, so I decided to look more in depth about its history. It turns out its story goes way back to the first decades of the Nineteenth Century in St. Louis. Founded by Dr. Ludwig Jacoby in 1841, its…