West Cabanne Place opened as a private street in 1888. Conceived as a semi-rural retreat, the bucolic location attracted a disproportionate number of architect owners including Charles K. Ramsey, Theodore C. Link and Robert Walsh.

In 1977, Florence Shinkle from the Post-Dispatch penned the following description: "West Cabanne Place is . . . at the end of a grim, gray street where the police come frequently, the prostitutes occasionally, and the building inspector as seldom as possible. The drabness reaches to the base of the stone entrance columns guarding the private place, and there it stops. Beyond the pillars, as sudden and as unexplained as alchemy, the world glows green." It still does almost 20 years later thanks to the stewardship of devoted residents.