Why We Shouldn't Give Up The Clemens House

In the weeks following the the Clemens House fire on the morning of July 12th, I saw many friends and fellow preservationists post RIPs and other comments essentially giving up the historic complex as being gone. While the fire was obviously a tragic event, it should not be concluded that the end is here for the Clemens House. Maybe its my experience with bringing back many buildings that were essentially shells, some seemingly on the brink of destruction, but I don't believe we should give up on the Clemens House. Here's why: 


A: Not much has really changed with much of the structure. 


Today the Clemens House complex stands as a shell, but I would argue that this is not much different than its condition before the fire. The complete lack of any care or maintenance had already reduced the Clemens House complex to a group of shells. Nine years ago, in May 2008, the main roof of the chapel building collapsed. Much of the east wall also collapsed, over half the roof was gone and the west wall was left buckled, but still standing. The front and rear walls of the chapel remained with about one bay of roof at each end. Over the past nine years the remaining portions of roof deteriorated severely with the front bay completely gone and the rear section down to sagging joists and rotted sheathing. Photo of the chapel above by Paul Sableman.


The roof and interior floor structure of the original mansion had not fared much better. Around the same time of the chapel collapse, portions of the parapet at the demising wall between the original house and dormitory addition fell onto the house roof creating holes in the northeast and northwest corners. With no repair done, these holes grew over the years with the interior floor structures below deteriorating and eventually most of the large rooms at the rear of the original house collapsed pancaking into the basement. The last time I was in the house several years ago, the floors of the front rooms were also deteriorating rapidly from openings in the valleys of the roof. By this year, these floors were to the point of requiring complete reconstruction.


While the four story addition to the house had fared slightly better overall, the roof by this year resembled a wavy piece of Swiss cheese giving no protection to the interior structure. An entire section of the west mansard fell off of the building a few years ago leaving a gaping hole. As of several years ago several floor areas were unsafe to walk so I can imagine that by this year the percentage of structure that was to the point of needing complete replacement had risen dramatically. The recent fire simply burned off what remained of the severely deteriorated wood floor and roof structures that by this year required almost complete replacement. Some more photos of collapses and what appears to be earlier fire damage in the mansion can be seen in this RFT article.


B. Significance of the Clemens House. 


The James Clemens house designed by Patrick Walsh in 1858 is one of St. Louis' very few remaining antebellum mansions; its Italian Renaissance Revival design is distinguished by an extensive use of cast iron for the portico, quoining and window enframements which is unique in the city's domestic architecture. 
It has been said it is the finest application of cast iron on a residential building outside of New York City. Cast iron was usually utilized on commercial structures, but the St. Louis Great Fire of 1849 apparently convinced Clemens that the exterior of the home needed to be fireproof, so the mansion was adorned with many cast iron features. 

In memory of James Clemens' wife. Walsh and Porter White, a plaster artist, were instructed by the grieving Mr. Clemens to reproduce Eliza's image in the ornamental plaster ceiling molding on the first floor, in a Carrara marble mantle in the parlor, and in other design elements. Eliza's death mask was also carefully re-created in cast iron and used in the exterior ornamentation over every window of the mansion. 


The 1896 chapel which adjoins the house, designed by architect Aloysius Gillick for the Sisters of St. Joseph, carefully follows the Italianate forms of the earlier building. The stone trimmed pedimented porch with paired Ionic columns and paired brick pilasters at the second story repeat motifs from the original mansion.

C. Paul McKee owes St. Louis! 


After spending years secretly acquiring thousands of buildings and vacant parcels through anonymous shell corporations Paul McKee publicly revealed his grand plan for Northside in May 2009. The plan he said would include 3 million square feet of office and retail space, 1 million square feet of light industrial space, hundreds of new apartments and single family homes, parks, street improvements and even its own trolly system. In October 2013 the St. Louis Board of Aldermen approved $390 Million in TIF financing for McKee's Northside plan. Additionally, the State of Missouri gave McKee $43 Million in Distressed Areas Land Assemblage Tax Credits. The Land Assemblage Tax Credit was custom written by McKee's lawyers and due to the large quantity of land required to be purchased, he is to date the only recipient.

Since unveiling the grand plan for "Northside Regeneration" over eight years ago and with hundreds of properties now owned for over a decade, McKee’s track record as a property owner has been nothing short of abysmal. The reality has been an intentional Northside Disintegration. Buildings owned by Mckee, many of which were occupied and in decent condition, were immediately emptied and left unsecured. Doors and windows mysteriously disappeared hastening the cycle of intentional demolition by neglect. Many buildings succumbed demolition by brick theft, and many of these were were hastened by arson fires. 
See Built St. Louis' pages on Blairmont, one of several of Mckee's shell companies that purchased the properties. Note: Almost all the beautiful historic structures on the page linked above have since been demolished.

While there are certainly many other absentee landlords who abandoned their properties and let them rot and crumble (St. Louis Public Schools could be included on this list), the sheer quantity of historic buildings that have fallen in the last 10 years as a direct result of McKee's blatant and intentional neglect has probably not been seen since the days of urban renewal clearance in the 1960s. It only seems less dramatic because it has occurred over a decade. What has replaced all the buildings and neighborhoods that have been decimated by Paul McKee? Absolutely nothing! Yes the NGA is building its new campus at the corner of Jefferson and Cass, but this should not be considered a win as the result of McKee. Out of all that was to come from the grand plan, the only Northside project McKee has completed is a moderate rehab flip of an existing office warehouse building.

While most of McKee's grand plan for North St. Louis envisioned new construction, McKee also promised to preserve and rehabilitate about 60-80 houses and buildings he dubbed "legacy properties". Although he refused to ever release an actual list of these properties, he specified that the Clemens House would be rehabbed. McKee however provided no more protection for the legacy properties than any other buildings he owned that were left to rot. Another presumed legacy property was the Bernhardt Winkelmann home at 1930 St. Louis Avenue among what was referred to as "Millionaires Row" in the Clemens House-Columbia Brewery Historic District. This beautiful home was struck by brick thieves on multiple occasions with no response to clean-up, secure, or protect the remainder of the home in any way. Eventually the thieves removed literally the entire house leaving a pile of wood behind the stone facade, which was then unceremoniously demolished.

McKee claims to have spent a lot of money stabilizing the Clemens House. The reality is that the only work done was removal and storage of the 2-story porch and removal of portions of the chapel roof, supporting trusses and portions of the east wall of the chapel. The removals occurred because the porch and the rest of the chapel roof were on the verge of imminent collapse because they had not been properly protected from the elements. If McKee had truly stabilized the structure, the roof and floors of the mansion wouldn't have been collapsing into the fucking basement! 

After 10 years of broken promises, its time for McKee to make good on at least one: Stabilize and rehab Clemens!!

D. Precedent

Rebuilding and restoration of a building shell that remains after a fire or collapsed such as the Clemens House complex is more common than you might think. Here in St. Louis there are a few relatively recent examples.

In Lafayette Square, two buildings on Mississippi Avenue that were part of an International Shoe Company factory had sat abandoned for decades. The buildings deteriorated to the point where about 30% of the 5-story building had collapsed into the basement and the rest of the roof had mostly collapsed. The roof of the 1-story building was collapsing as well. This didn't keep Craig Heller from pursuing a rehab for lofts, commercial space, and a restaurant. He hired Pyramid to re-construct and stabilize the buildings and the development was later finished by Conrad Properties.

The finished exterior of the end of the M-Lofts building that was reconstructed.

The Lister Building at Taylor and Olive in the Central West End had similarly deteriorated to the point where the rotted floors and roof had to be completely removed and re-built. It was also rehabbed into loft apartments and ground floor commercial space.

From the exterior you can see upper floors being re-framed even as collapsed debris was still being pulled out from the first floor.

An interior view of the shell (photo from the now defunct original website).

Another local example is the reconstruction of several on Dick Gregory Place to create affordable apartments in the Ville neighborhood off Dr. Martin Luther King Drive. The interior floors, walls and roofs of several of the large but severely deteriorated large homes and portions of the mixed use buildings had to be completely re-built. Crown Square and the Mullanphy Emigrant Home, both in Old North St. Louis, are two additional projects that involved extensive re-building of collapsed portions of buildings.
  

An exterior wall of the mansion w/ iron window frame covering the outermost brick. 

Despite being gutted by fire, the walls of the Clemens House remain solid and stable. The exterior walls are four wythes (courses) thick, which is unusual for a residential structure. The exterior walls, including the tall front wall forming the outline of the pedimented portico (which was disassembled several years ago and is safely in storage), are braced by interior masonry walls that run north-south on both sides of the center hall and by intermediate east-west masonry walls that separated the large front and rear rooms of the mansion. All of these interior walls are three wythes thick.

 Portions of floors and woodwork survive in the west front rooms.

While a large percentage of the upper floor walls of the structure at the rear of the house collapsed during the fire, a substantial amount of the original 2-story walls of the original portion of the rear structure have survived largely intact. Like the main house, this portion of the structure also contains many interior masonry walls that are largely intact and stabilize the remaining portions of exterior walls. There are some portions of the east wall of the dormitory addition that are standing 3-stories tall un-braced. These should be stabilized in place and possibly have the upper portion removed. The condition of the chapel is largely the same as before the fire, with the front, rear, and west walls standing un-braced. These should be braced in place.

Now that McKee's negligence to keep the Clemens House secure has allowed an arsonist to torch the complex, its time for the City of St. Louis to hold McKee accountable and if necessary, force him to secure and stabilize the remains of the mansion, dormitory, and chapel in a manner that preserves it for rehabilitation or restoration. If McKee refuses, the City of St. Louis should either seize the property or force McKee to donate the Clemens complex to an organization that commits to stabilizing and facilitating eventual rehabilitation. Additionally, as the Post recently editorialized, the City should raise the amount fines for property owners that won't keep their buildings secure and allow them to deteriorate to stop the cycle of simply paying the fines as a cost of business.

Putting the CARt Before the Horse on 39th Street

Tomorrow the Preservation Board will consider the partial demolition of a 12 unit apartment building at the corner of Lafayette and 39th Street in the Tiffany Neighborhood National Register Historic District. As with so many demolitions in St. Louis, this building is proposed to be knocked down for a surface parking lot. The building at 3867 Lafayette was built with 6 apartments facing Lafayette and 6 facing 39th Street. It is a textbook example of how good urban corner buildings were built to address both streets. 

The view above is of the portion of the building facing 39th Street which is proposed to be demolished. These views from Google Steetview are not very old, and as you can see, the building while empty appears in decent shape. The windows look to be almost completely intact. Like any building of this age though it likely needs a complete rehab inside. Being located in a National Register Historic District, the a rehab of the building is eligible for Missouri and Federal Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits.

UPDATE: The Preservation Board voted tonight to approve the demolition of the 6 units facing 39th Street. There were 3 yes votes, 2 "reluctant yeses" and 2 no votes. The comparison I made to the Spring Avenue buildings was called non-relevant because Spring is a "nice tree lined street with gates on Lafayette" and 39th is a busy street during nearby hospital shift changes. So basically they said this is a bad site... so lets add off-street parking! Neighbors, the Garden District rep and Alderwoman Marlene Davis argued that this has been a "problem property" for some time and that the "density" was a problem. Interesting how it doesn't seem to be a problem on the other end of the same block. These same arguments, by the way, led to clear-cut demolition of 6 blocks west of 39th 10 years ago (see link below). My argument that unit density could be easily reduced to 8 by combining portions of units was also ignored. In the end, against the wording of the ordinance, the board voted to demolish a sound merit building in a National Register Historic District. This sets a very bad precedent for historic districts across the entire City!


The elevation facing Lafayette is identical except for the lack of the raised terraces flanking stair to the entrance. The demolition is being proposed the Garden District Commission, the organization that ten years ago employed 1960's style urban renewal tactics to clear-cut six blocks of historic buildings between 39th Street to Thurman and Lafayette to Folsom.

The Garden District Commission does not currently own the property. According to Geo St. Louis it is owned by CXA Corporation of Dallas, TX. The Commission wants to acquire the property, demolish the 6 apartments facing 39th Street and build the parking lot, then sell the building to a developer who would rehab the remaining portion of the building.


The Garden District Commission argues that the demolition is required in order to serve the remaining 6 apartments with off-street parking. The Commission is also playing a shell game with Historic Tax Credit rules. If a developer bought the building and tried to demolish half of it, they would very likely find themselves being denied Historic Tax Credits for the remaining portion of the building. But if the Commission demolishes the wing facing 39th Street and sells the the property, the tax credit reviewers would not be able to punish the developer of the remaining building because it is a different owner.


39th Street at left in the aerial view above was the demarkation between the clear ant re-build development and the remaining neighborhood. 3867 Lafayette sits at the west end of a remarkably intact block and one needs to look no further than the other end of the block to debunk the Garden District Commission's argument for demolition.


On Spring Avenue between Lafayette and McRee there are no less than three 12-unit buildings of the exact type in question at the other end of the block, and none of them have any off-street parking. The buildings are all occupied and appear to be well maintained.


A view north on Spring Avenue from Lafayette. Other than architectural style, these are the exact same building typology with 6 apartments facing the main streets of Lafayette and McRee and 6 facing Spring.


Toward the middle of the block the buildings form a very attractive urban landscape. Just think how different this would look with three surface parking lots replacing the wings of the buildings that face Spring. 


Back on 39th Street, the Preservation Board should deny the proposed partial demolition of this historic building. It is clear that buildings on Spring and from a quick survey of many buildings in the nearby Shaw neighborhood that off-street parking is not required for a building to attract residents.

If dedicated parking is desired, it could easily be attained by creating angled parking along 39th Street in front of the building. The traffic lanes would shift to the west side of the street where street parking is not needed along the side of the suburban style single family home. Between Lafayette and the mid-block alley about 10 spaces could be created. With additional parallel spaces on Lafayette, a similar parking ratio as being proposed with the demolition could be achieved. The south side of Lafayette that abuts the highway provides ample overflow parking.


To improve the parking ratio immediately adjacent to the building, the developer could take down the rear portions of the 2nd & 3rd floors of the north wing and half the south wing and create three 2-story townhouse units, reducing the overall unit count to 9. Because the selective removals would be at the rear of the original apartments and not visible from either street, this could likely be approved by the tax credit reviewers. The townhouse units could end up with very desirable roof decks in this plan. Another option to reduce the unit count would be to simply combine portions of the units, which are mostly under 1,000 s.f.

If you have comments or opinions about this proposal, you can email to the Preservation Board via the Board's Secretary, Adona Buford: buforda@stlouis-mo.gov

SLDC Releases Cupples 7 RFP

St. Louis Development Corporation has released a Request for Proposals for Purchase and Redevelopment of the Cupples 7 Building located at 1014 Spruce Street. The deadline for  submittal of proposals is January 10,2013.

Montgomery Bank took back the building from Ballpark Lofts III, LLC after developers Kevin McGowan and Nat Walsh failed to pay back taxes of over $250,000 and the $1.4 million mortgage that was held by the bank. The bank is having SLDC / LCRA administer the process to see if there is interest in taking on the task of rehabilitation of the building. Last year the St. Louis Preservation Board denied a request by Ballpark Lofts III, LLC to demolish the building. 

My opinion, having dealt with a smaller, but very similar collapsing building in Lafayette Square that was rehabilitated into the M-Lofts by Craig Heller and Conrad Properties, is that Cupples 7 can be saved. It will take an experienced developer to put together the right package of financing combined with a creative use of the large footprint of the building to make the project work, but It can be done.

Cupples Building 7 CAN and SHOULD be Saved!

Last week Kevin McGowan applied for a permit demolish Cupples Building #7 saying "he had not choice". Whether he gets a demolition permit will be decided by the Preservation Board on Monday, November 28th, the same night that the fate of the Pevely Dairy will be decided.

There are however other choices besides demolition for Cupples 7. McGowan says that it would be $2 million cheaper to demolish the building than to stabilize it. As someone who works on historic renovation projects for a living, I understand that fully stabilizing the collapsing interior structure would be an expensive endeavor. There is however an alternative that would be significantly less costly than fully re-building the interior timber structure, which is something that should eventually be done as part of the building's redevelopment.

Erecting structural steel bracing on the exterior is something that is often done to stabilize unreinforced masonry facades. On Boston's Russia Wharf the facades of two warehouses were braced while the interior of the buildings were dismantled to make way for a new hi-rise development that incorporates the facades. In the case of Cupples 7, the four exterior masonry walls would be braced and the collapsing interior left as-is, to be stabilized in the future.

Another view of Russia Wharf showing that the scale of the facades is similar to that of Cupples 7. While the cost of this type of bracing would not be chump change, neither would demolition of a massive masonry building. In 2001, according to City records, the unfortunate demolition of another Cupples warehouse (#4) across the street at 10th & Spruce cost $147,760.00. Cupples 7 is at least 1 1/2 times the size of the demolished warehouse and with 10 years of inflation, the cost of demolition for Cupples 7 could be at least twice as much. It should be noted that demolition of the Cupples #4 building was done under the auspices that the building was "structurally unsound" AND would be replaced with a similar scaled office building instead of the parking lot that eventually replaced it.

The exterior walls of the United Methodist Church in Burlington, Iowa were braced after a devastating fire gutted the building. The congregation plans to re-build and expand into an adjacent vacant downtown department store.

Some might argue that bracing the facades of Cupples 7 would render portions of Spruce and 11th Streets as well as sidewalks unusable for years.

This does not necessarily need to be the case as with this example in Memphis (photo by Cathy Jones). The sidewalk is fully usable and there are even temporary displays in the storefronts! In Washington DC, where this technique has been used many times for various projects, the exterior of the former Gales School was structurally braced while awaiting renovation.

While this method may not be a familiar sight in St. Louis, it is a proven way to preserve at least the exterior of historic structures that otherwise would be lost forever. In the case of Cupples 7, while much of the interior is crumbling, you might be surprised how it is possible to save portions of the timber that remain and rebuild what is collapsed.

My first loft project was a building that had suffered what would appear to be catastrophic damage but was resurrected into the M-Lofts, which consists of 40 apartments and commercial space in Lafayette Square. In 1999, the former factory building of the International Shoe Company had seen better days. Almost 30% of the floors of the building were collapsed in the basement, and about 80% of the roof structure had fallen to the floor below.

Looking into the one of the debris pits at the west end of the building

Floors bending down into the hole

Much of the roof and clerestories had collapsed onto the floor below

Portions of the interior structure that had collapsed were carefully cut away and removed, then re-building began from the first floor up. All of the interior rebuilding was eligible for Missouri and Federal Historic Tax Credits because it was a restoration of existing building elements. This made what otherwise would not have been affordable workable for the projects proforma. In the case of Cupples 7, which has a larger floor plate, planning an atrium in one of the collapsed areas could further reduce the cost of re-building the interior structure.

Massive new timbers replicating the originals were imported from Canada

The completed building shows how something that looks insurmountable can be accomplished successfully. If Kevin McGowan is not up to the task of rebuilding Cupples Building 7, then he should sell the building to someone who is willing to do so. In the mean time, structurally bracing the walls from the exterior is the best solution for stabilization so that this National Register landmark can be preserved for the future.

McGowan said himself that "millions of people walk by that building every year going those Cardinals games, going to the hockey games, going to the various courthouses, even living across the street and next to the building in apartment buildings", which is all the more reason that Cupples 7 should not become yet another giant vacant lot like the Ballpark Village site.

The Forest Park Parkway Wall

Central Corridians or anyone else who drove the Forest Park Parkway before 2001 might remember the concrete wall that bordered the south side of the Parkway from Skinker to just west of DeBaliviere and the north side of the Parkway from DeBaliviere to Union. To many the wall was known as the "World's Fair Wall" due to its location along what was once the northern boundary of the 1904 Worlds Fair. Evidence suggests however that this name is incorrect as photographs of the area researched by Landmarks Association have dated its construction to about 1910.

The wall was likely built by the developers of the Catlin Tract, which comprises the large homes located along Lindell Boulevard facing Forest Park. The wall separated the deep lots of the homes from a railroad that once ran in the Parkway right-of-way.

By the later part of the 20th century, the portion of the wall between Skinker and DeBaliviere was crumbling.

The many weed trees that grew along the the wall were one of the culprits of the decay as trunks and roots pushed against the wall and branches grew through the openings.

Bob Cassily however saw potential for beauty in the decaying wall and 1998 he created this amazing sculpture by hand forming new concrete around the existing wall. Bob had asked permission of a Lindell home owner who agreed to let him do the work. Some of the trustees of the street were apparently not happy with this, however they did not seem to be coming forward with any other plan to deal with the walls condition. Photo by Carrie Zukoski.

Close-ups of the figures that Cassilly formed around remaining wall elements. Photos by Carrie Zukoski.

The fat of the portion of the old concrete wall between Skinker and DeBaliviere was sealed with the routing of the Metrolink Blue Line along the south side of Parkway, and the wall was removed for construction of the extension.

As part of the Metrolink construction, a new pre-cast concrete wall was built along the south side of the right-of-way.

Part of the new wall was incorporated into a pedestrian crossing over the tracks at Des Peres Avenue.

The new wall bears some resemblance to the old wall, however there are not openings in the wall, only indentations.

The recessed design only shows up on the south side of the wall facing the Lindell homes. As part of the Arts in Transit program, neighborhood artist Andy Cross was commissioned to design decorative metal screens on the north side of the wall that faces Metrolink and the Parkway.

Unfortunately there is not much contrast between the metal screens and the wall, so they do not show up well.

The portion of the wall between DeBaliviere and Union was in much better shape than western half of the wall. Unfortunately this wall was removed as part of a separate City project to re-build the Forest Park Parkway from DeBaliviere to Kingshighway. The removal of the wall allowed for a larger shoulder along the new roadway. A new wall similar the the one installed along Metrolink was put up along the south side, but in this case, the indented based on the old wall faces the Parkway. Photo above courtesy of STL Style.

When the old wall was taken down, artist Bill Christman salvaged a few pieces that he has incorporate into the garden adjacent to Joe's Cafe.

Beside the sculpture that he did along on the old wall itself, Bob Cassilly was obviously inspired by the wall and its construction. Bob designed and fabricated several styles of pre-cast concrete walls that have been installed in various locations around the City. Above is an installation that surrounds the yard of an architectural salvage business located on Lafayette just west of Jefferson. The wall at the rear is a replica of the Parkway wall and in front is a variation with a diamond pattern. A Post Dispatch photo from 1984 shows Bob standing with one of his walls.

Another of Bob's walls can be seen along Sarah Street behind the Dorris Loft building. The wall surrounds the building's common courtyard space. Bob had an amazing way of enlivening our built environment with everything he created. He will be sorely missed.