3505 Longfellow, Compton Heights

I wrote about this masterpiece in my article about the Compton Heights House Tour. Here are more photos of this amazing house on Longfellow.

Second Empire Houses, Compton Heights and Compton Hill

Don’t forget, as amazing the mansions in Compton Heights are, there are a wealth of stunning Second Empire houses dating back to the 1870s and 80s in the area, on the back streets or Compton Avenue. They represent an era that was mostly demolished in Midtown. They’re survivors, and you should take a look.

Northwestern Compton Heights

Separated by Russell Boulevard there is a small pocket of stunningly beautiful houses in the northwestern portion of the Compton Heights area. Called by some Reservoir Square or Compton Hill, the area developed in the Nineteenth Century, with in-fill continuing into the Twentieth Century. While many houses look like the typical early Twentieth Century houses…

Third Christian Scientist Church

Update: Gutted by flames on the night of March 26, 2019 and left in ruins. The new location never opened and that building was sold in September of 2022. Here are some more pictures of the old Third Christian Scientist Church on Russell. Read my article about the new museum that just opened here. I…

Russell Boulevard West of Nebraska

And then, only two decades later, and only two blocks from yesterday, the houses of St. Louis’s elite had become detached, grown in size and taken on new, eclectic forms.

A Unique St. Louis Style: The Second Empire-Italianate Hybrid

While the Italiante and Second Empire styles can be found throughout America, in St. Louis in the late Nineteenth Century some interesting happened.  Someone took the characteristics of both styles and combined them together, as you can see in the house above on South Compton Avenue.  Combining the Mansard roof of the Second Empire (see…

Nighttime View, Compton Hill Tower

I took a series of photos out the observation deck, just as I had years ago. Above is looking to the northeast towards Downtown. Above, looking south down Grand Boulevard. Below, two of the surviving mansions on Grand. Below, traffic speeds by on Grand. Below, looking west into the Shaw and the Hill neighborhoods. It…

Compton Hill Tower

I took the opportunity to go up the Compton Water Tower last full moon, and it was well worth the climb.  It had been years since the last time, and I wanted to see it at night. The limestone glows in the illumination lights from below, and this view of the corner turret takes on…

Italianate and Second Empire on Compton Avenue

I’ve always been mystified why there’s a stretch of Italianate/Second Empire houses on Compton Aveneue just south of I-44; the houses were all built between 1883 and 1885, but the majority of the houses around them date from 1915 to 1931. I looked to the Sanborn maps, and discovered that much of the area around…

Compton Heights Gates

I never tire of Compton Heights, with its majestic gate sitting on South Grand, or its Teutonic fortresses of houses of a mix of all the different styles you can imagine. I couldn’t even tell you what style the gates are, since they’re a combination of numerous styles. Compton Heights was laid out by Julius…