by Michael R. Allen
The St. Louis Preservation Board meets on Monday to consider a rather short agenda.
Notable items on the agenda include:
Category: Historic Preservation
Fire gutted the building housing the St. Gemme Beauvais bed and breakfast, built in 1848. Read more here. (Thanks to Andrew Weil for the tip.)
Categories
Watching and Waiting
by Michael R. Allen
City of Destiny offers insightful commentary on the failure of Chicago preservation groups to reach their logical audiences and actually spotlight endangered buildings. Katherine, author of the blog, takes as her starting point the annual endangered buildings lists of Preservation Chicago and Landmarks Illinois:
I feel I should join both these preservation groups because I support their goals, but I’m so frustrated at how little opportunity there seems to be for interaction, for publicizing other buildings that deserve attention, for getting updates on the status of buildings they’ve put on the lists.
Read all of it here: “Watching the watch lists”
by Michael R. Allen
Above is the grim scene that I encountered two weeks ago after a blustery winter storm: the vacant city-owned building at 2917-21 N. 13th Street in Old North St. Louis had suffered a roof collapse. The building, built around 1880, stands one block north from my house in the densest section of a neighborhood famed for its loss of building density. Mt neighbors and I were aghast to see what misfortune had struck a vacant building already beset by misfortune.
The building and an adjacent building to the north form a graceful row that hugs the sidewalk line. Before, the buildings’ back walls had fallen. Loose bricks on the parapet of the alley side elevation had caused the Land Reutilization Authority to consider emergency demolition, but LRA backed off after the Old North St. Louis Restoration Group reminded LRA that they were trying to market the poor buildings for historic rehabilitation.
Now, the mansard roof with its two dormers had completely collapsed outward and the flat roof above had fallen inside of this part of the row. But again the Restoration Group acted quickly. Development Coordinator Karen Heet fended off the Building Division and managed to get the debris out of the public right-of-way (a favorite demolition excuse) within 24 hours of the collapse.
Karen has posed a very interesting idea for reusing the buildings. A look at the rear of the row helps underscore her logic.
Rather than try to rebuild the buildings, which have lost significant building material, Karen would like to try something else. She suggests demolishing the interiors and retaining only the front and side elevations. Inside, a developer could build a new building on the old foundations using the existing brick walls as facades. The new building could be modular and modern, allowing Old North to offer a different housing unit while retaining the impressive street face of this row. I think that idea is worth attempting.
There are many historic buildings in the city with severe damage that are ineligible for historic rehabilitation tax credits. Some of these buildings are located outside of historic districts and are never going to eligible for such designation. Others are buildings that once were contributing to historic districts but have had so many sections collapse their rebuilding would count as “reconstruction” and not “rehabilitation” and thus would be ineligible for both state and federal historic rehab credits. Still others are badly remuddled old buildings that don’t count as contributing resources in districts.
In such cases, a straightforward attempt at replicating the old building fabric may be cost-prohibitive or simply limiting. The old Archigram concept of using masonry walls as armaments for modular housing offers an intriguing solution to situations where we have a pretty wall and little else. In other cases, more of the original building may be retained than in others. The important thing is that we don’t commit to a dichotomy in which the only common form of rehab is the tax-credit project and the only alternative is demolition for new construction. There is a full spectrum of architectural options, and saving any of the embodied energy in an old building at all is far more green than starting completely fresh.
Anyone interested in purchasing and rebuilding the buildings on 13th Street can call Karen at 314-241-5031.
More information on the row, including earlier photographs, can be found here.
by Michael R. Allen
While photographing a building across the street for work, I stumbled across this Craftsman gem on Ridge Avenue (just west of Hamilton Avenue) in Wells-Goodfellow. The size of the brackets on the porch end of the roof is incredible. Brackets, half-timbering and wide gable roofs were hallmarks of the Craftsman style, which was part of the revival style craze that dominated American residential architecture between 1890 and 1930. The Craftsman style drew upon the Arts & Crafts movement as well as historic rural European vernacular styles. St. Louis has great examples in north and south city, especially west of O’Fallon Park and in Tower Grove South.
Coincidentally, this home is only a few blocks from one of the city’s most prominent Craftsman landmarks, the Wellston Station at 6111 Martin Luther King Drive.
I don’t know much about the house on Ridge, but I co-wrote the National Register of Historic Places nomination for the Wellston Station. The Station was built in 1911 and designed by Martin Arhelger for the St. Louis Transit Company, the streetcar arm of United Railways. United Railways held the monopoly on mass transit in the city until 1963 when it was subsumed into the Bi-State Development Agency.
Under its wide roof, the Wellston Station provided covered boarding, and a shelter with waiting rooms and toilets, for the first fixed-track streetcars on Easton Avenue (now MLK). Wellston Station was the destination for the last streetcar run in the city’s history: the run of the Hodiamont street car in 1966. For years after that, the building served as a bus shelter, but the grandeur was out of scale with cash-strapped Bi-State. Bi-State aimed to convert the building to a farmers’ market, but in 2006 abruptly turned it over to the Land Reutilization Authority. In May 2007, the National Park Service placed the Wellston Station on the National Register. That designation has not yet led to redevelopment, although a burger joint still rents the front end of the waiting room area. (The waiting room has always had a storefront at the street side.)
Two Craftsman gabled buildings in Wells-Goodfellow — one a domestic building, the other a remnant of a once-robust public sector economy. May they both be part of the city’s future.
by Michael R. Allen
The original version of the agenda for the January 28, 2008 meeting of the St. Louis Preservation Board included an appeal of staff denial of demolition of the commercial building at 5100 Page Boulevard. This building stands just east of another building whose fate on the same agenda, 5286-98 Page. The final agenda did not include the appeal. Whether or not it returns is up to the owner of the building, Rosie Love.
Curiosity sent me to look at the building. I was pleasantly surprised to find a sturdy three-story building with a mansard-style roof and lovely masonry details. The stepped-down parapet alongside the mansard gives the corner some pizazz, while a terra cotta cornice below the mansard has an eye-catching swag garland motif. The brick cornice on the secondary east elevation adds a less formal vertical line.
What is perhaps most intriguing is the bricked-in storefront configuration on the east wall. Under a continuous cornice with an egg-and-dart pattern are some strange capitals; these top brick false pilasters that run vertically between the storefront opening. Looking at the painted wall closely, one can see the distinct vertical lines between the pilasters and the infill. How wonderful it must have been to have the storefront opened up to both the main and side streets!
The building is, of course, vacant and deteriorating. It’s been empty for some time. Geo St. Louis shows records of an occupancy permit for a convenience store in 1995 and a permit for a “grandfathered pay phone” in 1998.
The front wall has some damage at the cornice line, while missing downspouts on the rear elevation has caused severe mortar erosion. Still, there are no collapsed wall sections yet. Numerous buildings in worse condition have been spared demolition by the Cultural Resources Office and the Preservation Board.
The Academy neighborhood (and the Mount Cabanne-Raymond Place National Historic District that encompasses much of the neighborhood) needs its commercial edges to remain strong. Delmar on the south has become a lost cause, but Page retains many corner commercial buildings like this one and the one at 5286-98 Page, which bookend rows of historic residences. With its proximity to the Central West End and its largely intact building stock, this area is bound to be an emergent rehabbing neighborhood. We need to keep the neighborhood’s buildings around for the new day ahead.
by Michael R. Allen
Washington University recently purchased this building, located at 4340 Duncan Avenue in the central corridor. The university’s master plan for the Medical Center calls for demolition as part of the CORTEX redevelopment project. Although unadorned, and perhaps a bit sepulchral, the brick industrial building possesses several unique architectural features. Built in 1936 for a printing company, the building is the work of the noted firm Mauran, Russell and Crowell. The firm employed its characteristic genius here. While the concrete-framed fireproof building appears as a four story building, the second and third floors are actually a second floor and mezzanine. This arrangement allowed for production using machinery with overhead components on the second floor and distribution on the first floor, with loading bays lining the east wall (see the photo above). The floor arrangement allowed for the building to have a smaller footprint, saving room and creating a more urban form. The mezzanine arrangement is reflected in tall exterior windows that call to mind the same firm’s earlier Federal Reserve Bank Building (1924) at Broadway and Locust downtown.
In 1946, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch acquired the building and put it to use printing its popular Sunday lifestyle magazines. The Post expanded the building in 1959. In recent years, the building housed Crescent Electrical Supply. The former owner recently began clearing the building in preparation of its impending demolition. The loss is a shame. The lack of lavish ornament no doubt seals the fate, but that same quality gives the building an appearance consistent with its original use. While not a masterpiece, the building is a handsome modern industrial composition that is an important part of the character of Duncan Avenue. Besides, the building is almost built with adaptation in mind. All we need is a little imagination — the sort of big thinking that led our leaders to envision CORTEX in the first place.
by Michael R. Allen
Sometimes I wonder if the mid-twentieth century practice of adding storefront sections to the front of historic homes is a St. Louis phenomenon. Certainly, we have many interesting examples here on major east-west streets like Delmar, Natural Bridge, Cherokee and Forest Park. These are symptoms of explosive population growth and changing land uses.
The example shown here is located at 3808 Olive Street, between Spring and Vandeventer, in Midtown. (The Central Apartments stood across the street.) Here we have a limestone-faced Queen Anne home dating to the 1890s. The architect may be Jerome Bibb Legg, a prolific residential architect who designed the other home remaining on this desolate block; Legg’s name appears as owner or architect on several building permits on this block.
In front we have a pressed-brick storefront from the middle part of the twentieth century. A door at right leads to the original entrance of the home. This photo does not show the quirky gesture in which the builder reused stone from the porch to build a side wall that connects the house to the storefront.
Weird? Yes. Useful? Also, yes. While not a candidate for listing on the National Register of Historic Places as a 19th century house, the hybrid building offers some interesting potential for reuse. Perhaps the alteration of the house itself could make it eligible for National Register listing. What is needed is a local survey of such storefront-bearing houses, followed by national comparison. This strange building could be a treasure!
by Michael R. Allen
Vanishing STL alerts us to the possibility that the Washington University Medical Center may demolish the Shriners’ Hospital and Central Institute for the Deaf buildings.
Meanwhile, Curious Feet notes two impending demolitions: a large storefront building at Page and Kingshighway in St. Louis and an old bank building in downtown Granite City.
by Michael R. Allen
Preservation Chicago just released its annual Chicago 7 list of the city’s most endangered historic resources. Topping the list is not a building or bridge but the city’s Landmarks Ordinance. According to Preservation Chicago, “several recent redevelopment projects endorsed by the city’s planning department and approved by the Commission on Chicago Landmarks call into question whether the integrity of the ordinance itself is in danger of being destroyed.”
The ordinance date sto 1968 and has led to local landmark status for 255 buildings and 49 historic districts. Yet recent decisions by the Commission on Chicago Landmarks to allow such travesties as the demolition of the landmarked Farwell Building and the reassembly of its facade on a new, much taller building call into question the level of protection the ordinance provides.
Rounding out the list are the American Book Company, Grant Park, the Devon Avenue commercial district, the Daily News Building, the Booker Building and Norwood Park. The full story is available here.