Update: The City of St. Louis cut ties with Paul McKee’s Northside in June of 2018. The house was finally destroyed in March of 2013.

As I reported several months ago, the end is now almost certainly coming very soon for the beloved Winkelmann Mansion on St. Louis Avenue. The addition that functioned as part of the funeral home phase of the house’s life has now been cleared and I assume the rest of the house will be knocked down in the next week.

To those would reply to my lament, “why didn’t you buy and fix it up if it’s so precious to you?” I have a simple answer. It’s hard to do when a giant corporation owns the property and holds onto it for a decade, refusing to sell it to anyone who might have wanted to do just that. As such, it rotted, in plain view, ravaged by brick thieves who sold our material cultural heritage to the Sun Belt, with little care that one more tooth has been knocked out of our city’s mouth.