Crossing South Spring Avenue, we reach the final block in our survey of Botanical Avenue in the Shaw neighborhood. The first house on the corner is an impressive example of what I might call almost Tudor Revival or Jacobethan in style. Interestingly, it also appears to have been originally built as a two-family flat. The…
Tag: Shaw
Botanical Avenue from South 39th Street to South Spring Avenue, Part Two
Botanical Avenue is getting decidedly more wealthy as we head east in the middle of the block on our way to South Spring Avenue. Houses are eclectic, with influences from the Romanesque and the Renaissance. Towers with curved brick, which would have required the most skilled masons, are more prevalent. These houses are probably from…
Botanical Avenue from South 39th Street to South Spring Avenue, Part One
Continuing on past South 39th Street on Botanical Avenue in the Shaw neighborhood, we encounter more four-family apartment buildings connected together to look larger than they really are. The housing stock becomes incredibly varied, with a mix of apartments and houses. Red brick mixes with tan brick. And rusticated stone with smooth ashlar for facades….
Botanical Avenue from Lawrence Street to South 39th Street
Crossing over Lawrence Street on Botanical Avenue, there are more elaborate four-family flats, replate with turrets and false roofs. One thing that is notable about Shaw is that severe lack of demolition, and it’s surprising to see anything built after 1930, but we do spot a little bungalow below built after World War II. Finally,…
Botanical Avenue from Klemm Street to Thurman Avenue
The housing stock clearly changed crossing over Klemm Street on Botanical Avenue from multi-family to include single family houses. But there are still plenty of two-family houses, often carefully designed to still look like single family houses. We also see a first: the appearance of a multi-family building with a cut-stone ashlar front, which is…
Botanical Avenue from Tower Grove Avenue to Klemm Street
We will now continue our examination of the Shaw neighborhood, which I remarked should really be called Tyler since Mary actually owned more square acreage within the modern boundaries of the neighborhood (if you eliminate Interstate 44 and include McRee Town, which was owned by Shaw, then it’s more of a tie). We’ll walk the…
Tower Grove Avenue Between Magnolia and Botanical Avenues
We walk back to Tower Grove Avenue and work our way north, glancing back to the south into Tower Grove Park at the Superintendent’s house, which I looked at all the way back in May of 2008. Through the trees we can see the Tudor Revival roofline of the current president’s house of the Missouri…
Magnolia Avenue from Klemm Street to Tower Grove Avenue
We cross over Klemm Street and encounter some more grand homes, whose backyards are truncated by some houses built perpendicular to Magnolia Avenue on the cross street. Their styles reflect the eclecticism that is so common in the early Twentieth Century, with styles coming from all sorts of sources. This house has a wonderful porch…
Magnolia Avenue from Thurman Avenue to Klemm Street, Part Two, and Hortus Court
After another not terribly inspired 1950s or 60s long apartment building, we get to Hortus Court, a fascinating and unique development in St. Louis. Platted in 1921, Hortus Court is a row of Dutch Colonial houses arranged around a walkway perpendicular to Magnolia Avenue, creating a quaint, private community of homes facing each other across…
Magnolia Avenue from Thurman Avenue to Klemm Street, Part One
Crossing Thurman, we see more apartment buildings and houses. This first one is perhaps more reminiscent of the U-shaped buildings of Chicago that are so prevalent, but not so much in St. Louis. But as I often remind readers, apartments in St. Louis, no mater how complicated they look, are usually just four- or six-family…