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 Carondelet or Baden in the city.
It reminds me of St. Louis Hills in many ways, or areas west of Kingshighway.
We’ll explore more of the side streets in the future.
I grew up in Richmond Heights in the area between Dale Ave., Big Bend Blvd. and Clayton and Hanley roads (streetscape doesn’t connect to Hanley because of the mansions in Hampton Park, accessed via Clayton Road) . This is part of Little Flower Catholic Parish. You must check out Arch Terrace, which the church property borders. Truly a hidden gem among St. Louis streets. This is where my family lived and still does as my niece bought my parent’s house. Unlike most of the neighborhood, it’s all single family homes vs. flats or apartments mixed in. Sadly Little Flower school closed last year but not the church and parish. (The PD report that it only had 8 students enrolled for the next year is a misnomer; enrollment had shrunk to near and below 100 students in recent years, and knowing that the school might be closed many families registered at neighboring parish schools to get slots but could have switched their registration if it had remained open, as had been fought for). Little Flower, a church in the round, is a stone stunner and one of the most unusual churches in the St. Louis archdiocese. The light brick school and rectory are also standouts, with a matching architectural style that’s quite different from the church (originally the church was in the school building’s lower level). What a great place to grow up. I had friends in the black community off and along Dale Ave. and Laclede Station Road, which dates back to clay mining in the area; in the mansions in Hampton Park; as well as along the streets closer to Arch Terrace. My siblings and I are still friends with people we grew up with from all these necks of the neighborhood as well as over W. Bruno way, as our parish extended south of Dale (but not East of Big Bend–that was St. Luke’s,now closed) into the edge of Maplewood (not a trendy place when we were growing up!) One friend lived in Maplewood right at the parish border (that was a big deal back then!) Lindberg Drive, which intersects with W. Bruno near the Maplewood border, is also one of the area’s great streets, with a grassy medium where the streetcar once ran. On our side (north) of Dale pretty much all the kids went to Little Flower. Some parish families remained part of our school and church community when they moved up the economic ladder and bought in or near Claverach Park in Clayton, on the opposite side of Clayton Road from my neighborhood. So I had school friends there too even though it wasn’t officially part of our parish. Clayton’s Oak Knoll Park aside Claverach was one of our hangouts. But back to Arch Terrace. Fittingly for St. Louis it indeed arches: off and back onto Boland Avenue with no other cross streets. Little Flower parking lot/schoolyard, which has a playground, runs along the sidewalk on one side. Every house is different in style except for a few plain ones that were moved when Highway 40 took out a chunk of the neighborhood. See if you can spot these homes as well as the one teardown and the one in-fill! (Boland crosses Highway 40/I-64 at the south end of Arch .)
Thanks for all the memories!
I know my previous post was long but to add one small point: Little Flower Church is made of smooth cut limestone, not rough-cut stone, as some might have thought as I simply called it a stone church. As noted previously, it is a round building, very unique!