Category: Mid-Century Modern

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Events Mid-Century Modern St. Louis County

Next Sunday: Lecture on Samuel Marx’s Morton May House

View of the Morton D. May House south elevation. Photograph by Hedrich-Blessing courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society.

Next Sunday, architect and architectural historian Andrew Raimist will be offering the next lecture in Landmarks Association of St. Louis‘ Modern Masters lecture series. Anyone who has attended one of Andy’s insightful talks on Harris Armstrong will know to expect something equally enlightening and joyful. By the way: Recently, P.R.O. was fortunate to collaborate with Andy on the National Register of Historic Places nomination for Armstrong’s Stonebrook (1959) in Jefferson County.  Details to come. – Michael R. Allen

Samuel Marx’s Morton May House: Design Innovation and Tragic Loss

Sunday, September 26 at 3:00 p.m.
Architecture St. Louis, 911 Washington Avenue
Free, but reservations required

Andrew Raimist examines the innovative modernist home designed by Samuel Marx for Morton D. May in Ladue. This fascinating presentation will include historic published images, architectural documentation and recent photographs. Raimist will discuss the unnecessary and tragic destruction of this modernist masterpiece.

The lecture will begin at 3:00 PM in the classroom at Architecture St. Louis at 911 Washington Avenue, Suite 170. Seating is limited to 50 people. We strongly encourage reservations as we cannot guarantee seating without one. To reserve a seat, please call 314.421.6474 or e-mail: landmarks@stlouis.missouri.org.

Categories
Mid-Century Modern Missouri

Tan-Tar-A Turns 50

July 4th marked the 50th anniversary of the opening of Missouri’s Tan-Tar-A resort. The resort was the dream of St. Louis builder Burton Duenke, who was one of the pioneer builders of mid-century modern subdivision homes around St. Louis.

This summer The Lake Today published an article about the 50th anniversary that includes the story of Tan-Tar-A’s development: “Resorting to celebration”.

Thanks to Nathan Wilber for sharing.

Categories
Housing Mid-Century Modern National Register St. Louis County

Fenton House by Wright Associate Listed in National Register

Photograph from the National Register of Historic Places nomination.

by Michael R. Allen

On July 8, the National Park Service placed the Carney-Keightley House near Fenton in the National Register of Historic Places. Located on Hawkins Road on the boundary line between St. Louis and Jefferson counties, the Carney-Keightley House is a unique local connection to the legacy of Frank Lloyd Wright. Completed in 1948, the house is the only known architectural work solely attributed to Richard Edgar Carney. Carney was a fellow at Taliesin, Wright’s school for architects, and served as Wright’s personal aide from 1952 through 1959.

Jill O’Neal, owner of the Carney-Keightley House, prepared the National Register nomination. O’Neal describes the house as “unpretentious, modest, natural, economical, unassuming, authentic and totally American.” This is not surprising given that Carney designed the house in accordance with Wright’s Usonian principles for house design.  Those principles included compact layout with open living area, placement of the house on a concrete slab, respect for and harmony with the contours of the house site, use of sloped or flat roofs, use of affordable, often mass-produced materials and attention to energy efficiency through careful fenestration. The Carney-Keightley House is only 1,000 square feet and sits on a slab on a wooded site. The house is clad in local stone and redwood and has large windows, screened by the overhangs of the sloped roofs, that emphasize natural light. Carney’s work is a delightfully compact Usonian home that is a totally original work of architecture.

Read the nomination here.

Categories
Metro East Mid-Century Modern Neon Theaters

Traces of Route 66 on Chain of Rocks Road

by Michael R. Allen

One of the St. Louis sections of the historic Route 66 is the two-lane Chain of Rocks Road in Madison County, Illinois.  Between Highway 157 at the west and Highway 203 at the east, passing through Mitchell, the modest road has a surprising number of remaining signs and buildings from the Route 66 heyday.  Chain of Rocks Road was part of Route 66 from the start in 1926 until 1929, when the river crossing was shifted from the Chain of Rocks Bridge to the Municipal Free (later MacArthur) Bridge and then again from 1936 until 1955 when the crossing was moved to the new Veterans’ Memorial (later Martin Luther King) Bridg

Starting at the east and moving west, one of the first Route 66 era landmarks is this concrete block gas station on the north side of the road.  The black and white paint checkerboard marks the earliest section of a building that was later expanded.

One of most impressive signs on Chain of Rocks Road is the old Bel Air Drive In sign, which faces an uncertain future.  One of the large letters is already missing, but the sign’s bell still rings out with a swanky mid-century design.  One of the metro east’s largest, the Bel Air Drive In opened in 1953 and could accommodate 700 cars.  Mid-America Theatres built the Bel Air.  The drive-in was so successful that the owners added a second screen in 1979, but times changed rapidly before the theater’s closure in 1986.  Wreckers took down the theater buildings in 1991, and the site is now partly built out as an industrial park. The owner of the land has expressed interest in either retaining the sign on site or selling it, according to a 2007 Belleville News-Democrat article.  Originally, the sign had a channel silhouette on each bell and then incandescent bulbs spelling out the Bel Air name.

The Greenway Motel and the Apple Valley Motel remain in operation despite less traffic on the old Route 66. The Greenway sign is now bereft of its channel-letter neon tubing, but it is well-maintained and retains its historic two-tone paint scheme.


The Luna Cafe to the east pre-dates Route 66, and is located in a sprawling frame building from the 1920s. The sign went up later.  The martini glass takes the eye on a swirling journey along an arrow pointing at the cafe.  Time to pull over for refreshment!

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Collinsville, Illinois Mid-Century Modern Neon Signs

Bert’s Chuck Wagon Sign Moving

by Michael R. Allen

An article in today’s Madison County Journal reports that Bert’s Chuck Wagon restaurant has removed its landmark sign and will be reinstalling it inside the restaurant’s new home.

In a turn of rather thoughtless planning, the landmark restaurant’s A-frame Googie building will be demolished for the widening of Illinois Highway 159. Of course, many Metro East cities’ downtowns have suffered when state highways are routed around them. Collinsville at least will still have the highway running through the heart of town.

Categories
Mid-Century Modern St. Louis County

Mid-Century Homes on the Market

by Michael R. Allen

The house at 1739 Ridgewood as “Five Star Home No. 2301” in Better Homes and Gardens, January 1953; scan from Modern Ridgewood.

The vagaries of the recession have impacted the market for mid-century homes locally and further afield. In Crestwood’s mid-century modern treasure trove Ridgewood, the house at 1739 Ridgewood is current for sale at quite a bargain price. This house has a unique pedigree: it was one of the first four display homes completed by Burton Duenke and the Ridgewood house photographed for Better Homes & Gardens and House + Home‘s 1953 articles on the Ridgewood subdivision.  (More St. Louis mid-century modern houses for sale can be found on the Modern STL website.)

Meanwhile, the New York Times‘ “Grist” column reports that two of Frank Lloyd Wright’s textile block houses in Los Angeles have sat on the market unsold. An offer on one of the houses comes from a buyer who wants to relocate the house to Japan!

Categories
Events Mid-Century Modern

Lecture: Modernism and the Rise of the Early St. Louis Preservation Movement

I am pleased to be the lead speaker in Landmarks Association of St. Louis’ fall “Mid-Century Modern Masters” lecture series. The series also includes lectures by Toby Weiss, Esley Hamilton, Andrew Raimist, Eric Mumford, Gene Mackey and Mary Brunstrom; details are online here. — M.R.A.

Postcard view from the late 1950s shows the Old Cathedral (with adjacent rectory intact) and one of the columns of the demolished United States Custom House.


Modernism and the Rise of the Early St. Louis Preservation Movement
Architecture St. Louis, 911 Washington Avenue #170
Sunday, September 12 at 3:00 p.m.
Free, but reservations required

Michael R. Allen, Director of Preservation Research Office and writer of the popular blog Ecology of Absence will be speaking on the forces that provided the impetus for the preservation movement in St. Louis.

The clearance of 40 blocks of St. Louis’ riverfront for the modern masterpiece Jefferson National Expansion Memorial remains an unprecedented architectural loss for the city. However, the memorial project and contemporary clearance for highways and housing projects provided the impetus for launching the St. Louis preservation movement that endures today. Amid clearance, early voices for preservation called for saving some of the riverfront and, when battles were lost, turned attention toward other downtown buildings and historic neighborhoods. Even Eero Saarinen, Dan Kiley and the National Park Service envisioned preserving key landmarks, including the surviving Old Cathedral, and making them part of the Memorial. By the time that the city’s greatest modern landmark was completed, a legion of architects, businessmen and others were working to ensure more careful stewardship of the city’s architectural heritage.

The lecture will begin at 3:00 PM in the classroom at Architecture St. Louis at 911 Washington Avenue, Suite 170. Seating is limited to 50 people. We strongly encourage reservations as we cannot guarantee seating without one. To reserve a seat, please call 314.421.6474 or email: landmark@stlouis.missouri.org

Categories
Mid-Century Modern St. Louis County

Apartment Therapy Looks at a Ridgewood Ranch

by Michael R. Allen

Now Apartment Therapy casts its keen eye toward St. Louis’ Ridgewood subdivision, located in suburban Crestwood. The specific subject is the delightfully rejuvenated ranch home of Nathan and Hannah Wilber, which I had the pleasure of seeing myself last week. Nathan is co-author of the Modern Ridgewood blog and devoted to helping others learn about and appreciate St. Louis’ wealth of mid-century modern architecture. Yet Nathan and Hannah’s house is no museum — rather, like the best rehabs we may more often associate with 19th century town houses, it is an effort that balances reverence and the demands of daily life beautifully.

See the Apartment Therapy house tour here.

Categories
Mid-Century Modern National Register St. Louis County University City

Murphy Residence Listed in National Register

by Michael R. Allen

On May 10, the National Park Service listed in the Joseph and Ann Murphy Residence at 7901 Stanford Avenue in University City in the National Register of Historic Places. The Murphy Residence, owned by Joseph Murphy’s daughter Caroline and her husband Vincent DeForest, is one of St. Louis’ first truly modern residential designs. Completed in 1939 and expanded in 1950 and 1962, the home was key in introducing International Style-inspired modernist design to the St. Louis region. While Murphy became best known for his later work, including the Climatron and Olin Library at Washington University, this house represented an early accomplishment in his career and in the story of modern architecture in St. Louis.

Read the full text of my National Register of Historic Places nomination here.

Categories
Collinsville, Illinois Metro East Mid-Century Modern Signs

Bert’s Chuck Wagon in Collinsville to Fall for Highway Widening

by Michael R. Allen

The Madison County Journal reports that Collinsville mid-century landmark Bert’s Chuck Wagon Bar-B-Q (see “Heavenly Bar-B-Q” will be demolished soon for widening of Illinois Highway 159. Bert’s Chuck Wagon will relocate to a nearby location on Main Street and move the fine conestoga sign to the new location. The A-frame building with the vivid religious scenes painted in its gable end windows, however, will be history.

The widening of Illinois 159 costs the state $56 million, and the sites of several tax-paying small businesses — not to mention at least one landmark mid-century building. Such an expensive project in recession may very well take away more economic activity over the long run than it generates.

See also “Mid-Century Modernism in Collinsville” (August 8, 2008).