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Mount Olive Cemetery, Lemay
Mount Olive Cemetery is one of the oldest cemeteries in the Archdiocese, and one of the most isolated, forgotten and mysterious. Located at the far end of Mount Olive Road before it turns right, the...
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Henri Chatillon Grave
Henri Chatillon and his second wife, Odile, who built the first phase of the Chatillon-DeMenil House, is located in the heart of Mount Olive Cemetery, its stone severely eroded and barely legible;...
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Valhalla Mausoleum, Revisited
I was thinking those Norse warriors out front of the Valhalla Cemetery mausoleum weren’t there before when I visited in 2011! Does anyone know if these are original, and therefore probably being...
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Providence Fine Arts Center, Edmundson
We went a lot of weird places this last weekend, and this isolated corner of Edmundson where this stately church sits is another place off the beaten track we discovered. It is now the Providence Fine...
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The History of West Florissant Avenue
My colleague and former North County resident, Toby Weiss, wrote up this stellar summary of the history of West Florissant Avenue. She’s been photographing this street for years (I had the opportunity...
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Bauernhof, Grant’s Farm, Revisited
The Bauernhof at Grant’s Farm comes from German, meaning “farm court,” which refers to the walled, building-lined compound that still typifies many farms in Germany. The architecture is typical of...
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Other Buildings at the Busch Estate
There are other buildings included in the Busch Estate tour that I didn’t talk about in my recent St. Louis Magazine article on the mansion. I forgot to take a picture of the pool house, but the...
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“Residential Security” Map, 1937
Prepared in 1937 and giving the housing stock of St. Louis a “rating,” this map is more a map of what is new, and what is old, than a map of quality.. Even in the 30s, old was bad, new was good. How...
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Cragwold, Revisited Christmas 2014
Seven years ago, I traveled to the southwestern corner of Kirkwood, where it abuts Sunset Hills to search for the home of Edwin Lemp, the last heir of William Lemp Sr. Edwin’s magnificent country...
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Rock Alva, the Griesedieck Estate
I have become fascinated with the Griesedieck family, the “lost” brewing family of St. Louis. Everyon’e heard of the Busches and Lemps, but for much of the Twentieth Century, the three branches of the...
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Farmhouse, Sunset Country Club
The VonEime Farm became the Sunset Country Club when Eberhard Anheuser and Adolphus Busch bought the property around 1910. The farmhouse, from the 1850s, was stuccoed and became a dormitory for female...
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Assorted Houses, Meramec Valley in Sunset Hills
These first two houses are off of Balmagoun Lane, laid out in the early Twentieth Century as the Sunset Hills area flourished as one of the first automobile suburbs out Gravois. I think this house...
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Alvin Griesedieck Book on Falstaff Story
The Central Library has an extensive collection of rare books, many of which are extremely fragile due to age. But Special Collections also has books from the Twentieth Century that are in perfectly...
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Eugene Nims House, Bee Tree County Park
Bee Tree Park is the former estate of Eugene Nims, the founder of Southwestern Bell. The house served as a summer residence, and the design features large entertainment rooms and less private space...
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Borderlands, West of Skinker
The northwestern reaches of St. Louis suffer from severe blight, but nothing compared to the wasteland greeting visitors across Skinker in southern Wellston. Here, scattered through the often dense...
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Castlewood, Revisited
I visited Castlewood State Park for a post (I’ve been there dozens of times before and since) back in 2008, when this website was new. I always find it fascinating that very little ever changes out...
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Laumeier Mansion
The Laumeier Mansion in the eponymous park is a great example of the Maritz and Young style country estates that popped up around the county in the early Twentieth Century. The garage and a small...
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Cromlech Glen
Cromlach Glen, a giant installation sculpture at Laumeier Sculpture Park, is one of my favorite works at the park. It has slowly begun to deteriorate, gain a patina, over the decades, much as its...
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The Way
The Way reminds me of ancient ruins, columns tumbled here and there, like at Paestum. It has remained the centerpiece of Laumeier for decades.
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