From two eBay listings are these postcard images of the Hotel Jefferson (since renamed the Jefferson Arms Apartments), located at 415 N. Tucker Boulevard and built in 1904. The hotel played host to President Woodrow Wilson and President Harry Truman, and it was the location of meetings and the hotel for dignitaries at the 1916 Democratic National Convention. Although the building still stands, according to news reports the interior of the building deteriorated after its conversion to senior apartments in the 1960s. It was purchased by the Pyramid Company in July 2006, which evicted the building's more than 500 apartment-dwellers. Redevelopment into condominiums failed with Pyramid in 2008, and the Jefferson remains vacant.
From an eBay listing is this postcard of the Washington Hotel (Apartments), designed by Eames and Young and built in 1902 at the northeast corner of Kingshighway and Washington Place. In its original form, it was a full service hotel (no kitchens in the rooms), but it is considered a forerunner of the luxury apartment buildings that soon dotted the Central West End skyline. It still stands, but its apartments now feature kitchens, among other amenities.
From the Historic American Buildings Survey, photograph taken in September 1936 by Theodore LaVack of the Adolphus Meier home at the corner of Ninth Street and Bremen Avenue. The Meier home was built in 1842 at the heart of what would become New Bremen, Mo., which was later annexed by the city of St. Louis.
The Walsh House, built in 1833 for Julius Walsh, was located at 2721 Pine Street.
From Commercial and Architectural St. Louis by George Washington Orear (1888). This scene depicts an "old stockade house" in the oldest portion of St. Louis, at Third and Olive streets.7 Vandeventer Place (Charles H. Peck House)
27 Vandeventer Place (John R. Lionberger House)
40 Vandeventer Place (Henry C. Pierce House)
51 Vandeventer Place (John D. Davis House)
64 Vandeventer Place (Henry C. Scott House)
72 Vandeventer Place (Dexter P. Tiffany Sr. House)
Vandeventer Place Gates
This view of Vandeventer Place (and, at the foreground, 87 Vandeventer) comes from the St. Louis City Development Corporation history site online. The end of Vandeventer on the west often showcased much smaller homes than on the east; this also was the last portion of the private street to be demolished in the 1950s by the city. 87 Vandeventer Place, the house at the corner of Vandeventer Place and Vandeventer Avenue, was built for Irwin Z. Smith, a local investor and real estate tycoon. Smith fathered a veritable tribe of children who went on to do good things in their community; according to various sources, he liked raquetball, hunting, and fishing.
This image of the Charles Henry Peck house is of unknown origin. It depicts 7 Vandeventer Place, a lovely Second Empire located on the north side of Vandeventer Place with its east boundary at Grand Avenue. 7 Vandeventer Place was built in 1872 for Charles Henry Peck, a capitalist in the sash, woodwork and door business. Peck was a charter trustee of Vandeventer Place, retired in 1875, and upon his death in 1899, he willed the home to his son Stephen, a real estate investor, who was not only a Presbyterian but also a Democrat (according to the Book of St. Louisans, 1906). More importantly, upon Charles Henry Peck's death, the trust governing Vandeventer Place dissolved.
From the Catalogue of the Annual Exhibition of the Saint Louis Architectural Club (1899). Here is the first mansion of John D. Davis, patriarch of the St. Louis Davis family (and father of John T. Davis, builder of 17 Westmoreland Place). John D. Davis had the home at 51 Vandeventer designed by the renowned Henry Hobson Richardson (it being only one of three residences Richardson actually designed for St. Louis). Richardson's penchant for massing along the lower level is apparent in this design. This particular Richardson met its end in 1958 with the city's plan for the juvenile detention center now occupying the block.
From the Catalogue of the Annual Exhibition of the Saint Louis Architecture Club (1899). This two-and-a-half story Elizabethan-style mansion was designed by Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge in 1898 for Henry C. Scott, a Confederate war veteran and St. Louis capitalist. The H.C. Scott mansion stood at 64 Vandeventer until the 1950s city acquisition.
From the Catalogue of the Annual Exhibition of the Saint Louis Architectural Club (1899). This photograph is a record of the richly decorated home of Dexter Pardon Tiffany, Sr., a St. Louis lawyer. The home, a splendid mixture of Romanesque, Tudor, and other styles, was designed by Grable, Weber and Groves. Tiffany came from a wealthy St. Louis family; his father was a real estate investor who committed suicide in 1861 after complaining about the bad economy in St. Louis resulting from the Civil War (leaving a $1,000,000 estate to his widow, and subsequently Tiffany).
From Catalogue of the Annual Exhibition of the Saint Louis Architectural Club (1899). In this splendid photograph, we see the 11th Street Realty Company Building at 1021 Washington Avenue immediately after being finished out. The building, designed by Isaac Taylor, is now known as the Bee Hat Building from its use by a hat company from the 1940s through the late 1990s. It was renovated in the early 2000s to become part of the vibrant loft district on Washington Avenue. From the St. Louis Business Journal in 2005:The building now does sport steam roaring lions, by the way. A fitting addition to the lovely terra cotta on the building.The sale of the Bee Hat building, which has been vacant for several years, took place at about the time the newspaper was going to press.
BHat Development, formed for the purpose of developing the building, plans to convert the second through seventh floors into 36 one-bedroom or two-bedroom apartments, ranging in size from 900 to 1,300 square feet and renting from $990 to $1,430 a month, said real estate appraiser Matt Burghoff, one of two partners in BHat Development. Burghoff said his partner prefers to remain anonymous. There will be space for about 30 residents' cars in the basement.
A restaurant will occupy 7,500 square feet of the building's 9,000-square-foot first-floor commercial space, with a boutique retail store in 900 feet. The restaurant owner is a well-established and respected St. Louis restaurateur, Burghoff said, but he declined to name either of the tenants, who have signed letters of intent to occupy the space.
Eleven terra cotta lion heads on the outside of the building are a signature feature of the structure. The heads were attached to the gutters and drained water to the street. BHat wants to link them up to steam lines and have each lion roar every half-hour or so, Burghoff said.
