Straddling the city of Peoria and suburb of Peoria Heights, Grandview Drive offers panoramic views of Lake Peoria, a widening of the Illinois River as its wends its way through the prairie, buffeted by bluffs to the west. Originally envisioned in 1894, construction began in 1903 and was completed several years later. Laid out like…
Tag: Colonial Revival
Three Churches, St. Joseph
Originally organized in 1854, the current First Presbyterian Church dates from 1911, sitting at the corner of 7th and Jules streets. Edmond Jacques Eckel, perhaps the most famed, talented and ubiquitous architect in St. Joseph, as well as a collaborator Walter Boschen, designed the church. It’s a nice example of the Colonial Revival with a…
Moorlands / Claverach Park
I almost certainly will go back, but I made a first foray into one of the most interesting and beautiful additions to Clayton, just west of Big Bend Boulevard and Forest Ridge and Southmoor, and south of Brentmoor. Developed by the Moorlands Land Company, Moorlands Park, now known as Claverach Park, was platted in May…
Louisiana Avenue Between Walsh Street and Taft Avenue, Part Two
Heading north, the houses reach back to the first decade of the Twentieth Century. The brick gets redder, if that’s a word. The round windows of the Romanesque begin to appear. Those stately four-square houses, as we call them, also are there. More complicate hipped roofs with projecting gables and intricate porches are also present….
Louisiana Avenue Between Holly Hills and Wilmington Avenues, Part One
For whatever reason, I thought I would mosey up Louisiana Avenue through Dutchtown on a bright and sunny Saturday recently. Starting down south at Holly Hills, the houses are from the Twentieth Century. And red brick like you see in the Nineteenth Century is rare. You see tan, buff and brick, sometimes mixed together in…
Wydown Boulevard Between Big Bend and Skinker Boulevards
I’ve looked at the various private streets west of Big Bend before (here’s a cool map of Forest Ridge and Brentmoor Park) in Clayton, but now let’s head east until Wydown Boulevard terminates in the City of St. Louis. Laid out in 1909, the subdivision takes up land that was once the western side of…
Lake Forest
Once part of an estate known as the Gay Villa, Lake Forest is that famous subdivision that has its own traffic light at the southwest corner of Hampton and Clayton roads. It was exciting, while exiting, to finally be able to use it! Lake Forest was platted in 1929 when a later owner of the…
Hortense Place
Platted in May of 1900 by Jacob Goldman, a Jewish businessman and banker who was kept out of other private streets and designed by Julius Pitzman, Hortense Place is one of the more interesting of its kind in the Central West End. The lots are huge, and it is perhaps famous for #13 above, where…
Flora Terrace, Affton
Only a week before the infamous Stock Market Crash of 1929, a new subdivision was being advertised down Gravois Road, boasting of its quick drive to its intersection of Grand Boulevard. Flora Terrace soon saw the development of the standard architectural styles of the 1930s and 40s, with some later styles thrown in later. I…
Odell Street Between Ivanhoe and Tamm Avenues, North Side
One block south of Marmaduke Street is Odell, which is one of the most fascinating long blocks in the City of St. Louis. Odell was originally named Cleveland in the Breezy Heights Subdivision, but due to the possible confusion with the street of the same name further east, it was renamed. It is lined with…