You never know what sort of surprises you’ll find when looking around the streets of St. Louis, and in this case I found these unique porches added to the fronts of otherwise common houses.

A little bit of a mix of Spanish and Tudor influences, there were only about four or five of these in a row, and then the row of houses went back to normal.

It’s a beautiful section of Oleatha, which dead-ends to the west at some industrial buildings before it picks up again west of Kingshighway.

Then there is this one-off house, which according to a 1927 issue of Electrical World magazine, was originally built as an electrical substation by the Board of Public Service of St. Louis for $27,000. A 1967 article states there was an “electric eye” on the roof of the building that controlled 8,000 street lights in St. Louis. So apparently this was the spot that regulated when all the street lights turned on at night and off at dawn? Interesting…

As is common in this Tower Grove South, there are larger apartment buildings on the north-south streets.