Architect Robert Elkington's residence in Manchester is currently for sale and listed as "perfect for tear down or rehab" on both Prudential and Janet McAfee's websites. This unique Mid-Century Modern home was built in 1948 and is located at 1520 Carman Road, just under a mile west of Dougherty Ferry.
Te see some better photos of this beautiful house, take a look at Ted Wight's blog post. The home is being offered "as is" at $250,000, a relative bargain for house like this on a large wooded lot. The property has 573 feet of frontage on Carman Road, and the homes position on the site would allow part of the eastern half of the property to be sold as a building lot without ruining your views, which would then give you money to polish this gem. Thanks Dustin Bopp for bringing this to attention.
This week demolition crews were busy taking down the last of Wydown Middle School in Clayton. After looking at alternatives including altering/adding on to the existing building, purchasing the old CBC High School (which was later purchased by Washington University) the school is be replaced with a new building.
Most of the new structure was built on the existing fields so that it would be ready for this fall. After the main wing of the old building is cleared, the remainder of the new school will be built.
I can't say that I ever had much appreciation for the existing school, which was completed in 1965. Light red-orange brick did little to soften the overall brutalist appearance of the building. The interior instead of mid-centry cool was simply dark and dated.
The structure lacked any component that stood out as great (or even better than good) architecture such as the soaring barrel vault wing of Murphy & Mackey's 1958 Ladue Junior High School. In contrast, the auditorium wing at Wydown was a plain brick box that looked like an afterthought with nothing but a void to say "enter here".
Part of the new school building stands east of the 1965 structure earlier this year.
The completed new building presents an attractive facade on Wydown with a significantly increased quantity of windows in comparing to the old building.
A view along University Lane at the east end. The new school has a large V shaped courtyard between two main classroom wings which will allow plenty of daylight into the building.
Although a few mature trees were destroyed in front of the current demolition site, a row of trees was preserved in front of the new building, which greatly improves the streetscape.
The recently demolished Wydown Middle School was not the first school on the site. In 1918, the building pictured above was constructed for Hosmer Hall, a private girls school that had been founded in St. Louis in 1884. Hosmer closed in 1936, after which the City of Clayton purchased it to relieve overcrowding at the old Clayton High School on Forsyth. It was used as a 9th grade center, then an 8th grade center and was demolished after the Wydown Junior High School (name changed to Middle School in 1988) was built in 1965.
CORTEX is currently demolishing a group of one and two story factory and warehouse buildings along Clayton Avenue. The buildings occupy are immediately adjacent to the location of a proposed new MetroLink station that could be built just east of Boyle Avenue. While the site is currently owned by CORTEX, according to Phase 2 plans for the life sciences R & D district highlighted by Next STL in May, BJC plans to build a 200,000 square foot building potentially opening next year. Just across the MetroLink tracks, Wexford Science & Technology plans complete a historic rehabilitation of the former Western Electric building at 4250 Duncan.
Most of the complex dates from the 1940's, but according to the Sanborn map below, a brass casting foundry from the Hewitt Manufacturing Company and a wagon house from the Gilsonite Construction Company date from at least 1909. These buildings are thedark grey roofed portions of the complex on either side of the white roofed portion in the aerial photo above.
Most of the complex facades fronting Clayton Avenue are very non-descrpt utilitarian buff brick boxes with very little ornamentation. The portion of building at 4250 Clayton Avenue has very subtle streamline detailing with a ribbed concrete band running across the first floor windows and entrance canopy. The same detail runs along the heads of the second floor windows as well.
The entrance at 4235 Clayton featured a simple black glazed tile surround that had a slightly Moderne feel. The rest of this portion of the building was completely devoid of ornament.
As of this evening, about a third to half the complex has been cleared. The buildings were clearly in a condition where they could be renovated, but their lack of architectural significance or any obvious other distinction would make them difficult to list on the National Register, which would make them eligible for tax credits. If BJC's new 200,000 square foot building comes to fruition then I would not fret over the loss of these buildings. This is the opposite of the situation that occurred last year at Forest Park Boulevard & Vandeventer, where CORTEX demolished a prominent building that could have been listed and had no clear plan for the site.
Directly across Clayton Avenue from the current demolition site sits this building. Its facade appears to be Mediterranean Revival style (although altered), which is somewhat odd for the building type in an industrial area. The City's property database shows it as two buildings with one half from 1910 and one from 1931. My guess is the east half is older since Mediterranean Revival was not popularized nation wide much until the 1920's. The building is not owned by CORTEX.
Last week I learned that what remains of the Winkelmann House at 1930 St. Louis Avenue is being demolished. According to the City's property database, a demolition permit was applied for on June 22nd. Demolition of the remains of the one story west wing, added when the home was converted to a funeral parlor, has mostly been completed, leaving only the beautiful circa 1873 stone facade of the original home standing. Michael Allen of the Preservation Research Office told me that Paul McKee, the buildings owner had given the St. Louis Building Arts Foundation two weeks to come up with a plan to salvage the facade, without chipping in any funding, of course! There have been discussions of producing measured drawings to market the facade for re-use.
Below is a photo from January 2, 2007, just after the cancer of brick theft, which would consume most of the structure, had first attacked the funeral home rear garage addition. Coincidentally, one of Paul McKee's many shell companies had taken ownership in 2006. No attempts were made over the five years of slow degradation to secure the home or prevent further attack on the structure. After the stone facade is salvaged, crated and taken away, nothing will be left but a vacant plot of land and an asphalt lot. So much for Regeneration!
Last night around 3 am, the Grand Livery & Boarding Stable at 3441 Juniata, just east of Arkansas Avenue, was destroyed by fire. The Post-Dispatch reported that the three alarm blaze spread to an adjacent four family building, gutting one apartment, at least two garages an several nearby cars. By the time the fire was put out, there was nothing left but piles of rubble.
The faded painted sign from the building's early days was barely visible on the parapet. For a livery stable, the buildings construction date of 1908 was comparatively late considering that automobiles had become fairly commonplace by the 1920s. According to a 1903 Sanborn map, the block where the livery stable was located had not yet seen any building construction, nor had several other nearby blocks of this area of Tower Grove East. In recent years the building had been used as an auto repair shop.
At one time livery stables were a fairly common sight in the City, although not many are left today. Jest a few years ago you might remember that SLU demolished a livery stable at 3401 Locust for an enlarged surface parking lot. The City's oldest livery stable was located at 310-314 Walnut and had been converted to a parking garage by the time it was demolished. There was even a livery stable at the corner of 9th & Pine Streets, where south half of the Paul Brown building is located.
The Grand Livery & Boarding Stable was located on a block that is now all residential and had great potential for conversion to lofts, offices, or both. Now it will likely sit a vacant lot until there is demand for infill construction.
The stretch of Taylor Avenue between Delmar & Page is a stark wasteland of mostly vacant lots and surface parking lots. Compared to other nearby north-south streets and the east west residential streets, Taylor is especially desolate. Seven Twenty Five Liquor, a small drive-up store at Taylor & Enright is one of the few surviving businesses.
At Taylor and the old Hodiamont streetcar right-of-way a suburban style church is set back behind a deep lawn on the large property that was once the location of Missouri Baptist Sanitarium, the precursor of today's Missouri Baptist Hospital.
The intersection of Taylor and Lewis Place to the west & Finney to the east is one of the few bright spots along this stretch. Like a miniature Arc de Triomphe, the 1894 gate by Barnett, Haynes & Barnett stands guard at the east end of historic Lewis Place. Across the street is an attractive small historic building that houses a neighborhood tavern but sits isolated as an island at the corner of a large surface parking lot of Ranken Technical College. While it seems to have lost its cornice the building, the building appears relatively well maintained.
One block further north at the intersection of Taylor & Newberry Terrace was a lovely large stone residence with a corner turret. The home was later converted to a funeral home with a rear wing, entrance and circle drive off Taylor. Several years ago a small section of the front masonry wall between two second floor windows collapsed. As you can see, while creating a large opening, the collapse did not pose major structural issues for the rest of the building and was easily repairable. A bearing wall running down the middle of the second floor supported the third floor and roof structure.
The building held the corner of a fairly solid block that is a mix of historic homes and recent infills, many built by Ranken students. The front wall was apparently not the first exterior masonry issue for the home. A building permit was applied for in October 2002 to repair an exterior masonry (presumably the area of unpainted brick just behind the turret) wall at the cost of $4,000.00. A few electrical permits were also applied for through June 2004. In 2007 ownership changed from private hands to the City's LRA. On 4.28.11 the owner became Ranken Technical College, and in June 2011, a demolition permit for the entire building was applied for with an estimated cost of $38,500.00.
A close-up of the turret with the date of the home's construction: 1892
Today the corner is another vacant lot on this dreary stretch of Taylor.
