I’ve looked at the Chamberlin Addition (Bartmer Avenue between Union and Clara) numerous times over the years, first when Toby Weiss of BeltSTL and I discovered it way back in April of 2012.and found the amazing Union Memorial United Methodist Church, which was then featured in this post by Toby. I also revisited the street in May of 2019 and then looked at the south side of the street east of Belt Avenue in June of 2021.

I thought I would come back and look at the street west of Belt Avenue, which I had inadvertently looked at back in October of 2017 from Clara Street outside of the street barricade. But this time I thought I would look more comprehensively. We’ll look at the south side of the street first.

While there has been some interesting in-fill in the last couple of decades, for the most part there are still many of the original huge mansions left that were built at the turn of the Twentieth Century.

I’ve always found these houses below, with three clear stories, to be an interesting choice for the more suburban parts of St. Louis when they would fit in a more dense neighborhood.

The house below has the most interesting proportions. It has an octagonal bay window on the left and a curved tower on the left, but then there’s a hipped roof plopped on top that ignores what’s going on below. Is it original? I do not know.

The house below is abandoned, I think.

Then we see more abandoned houses, sadly, as we get closer to Clara.

But this gem below, which would have originally been clad in shingles, is in immaculate condition and is a rarity in St. Louis. So much for the supposed brick-only building code in St. Louis. And yes, this was well within the city limits when it was built.

Then we cross over to the north side of the street, where the house I saw from Clara and the other side of the barricade is still sitting vacant. I hate the blocked off streets.

This Shingle style house is still sitting vacant, too. There is such a small number of this style of house that every one is precious.

But luckily this fascinating house is occupied and well taken care of. That is what is so important about this street and why I like it so much. There are so many one of a kind houses on it.

Then another abandoned house.

I think you could easily trick many people into thinking the photo below is in Webster Groves or Kirkwood.

Then come more of those mansions. It’s not surprising that a man of good taste owned the house below; it is none other than the house of William B. Ittner, the famous school architect; I suspect he very well might have designed it, as well.

I always liked this one, as well.

The house below was once the residence of Grace Bumbry, the famous African American opera singer.

And then there’s the amazing stone house on the northwest corner with Belt Avenue. As mentioned before, a member of Union Memorial, which owns the house, said they once received an offer to purchase the house and have it disassembled, but they turned him down.