City District

      The Central West End (CWE) includes most of the city's private streets and luxury apartment buildings along with some of the finest commercial and religious architecture. While there is neither one prevalent style nor dominant building type, an overall richness of detail and quality of construction create a strong sense of prosperity in the district.

       Although a few buildings date to the 1880's, the first construction boom began in the 1890s as the upper and middle classes continued their cyclical moves to the edge of the developing city. The District's first generation of residents belonged to elite clubs, owned automobiles, advocated public playgrounds for less fortunate and worked politely for women's suffrage. Their children attended Mary Institute, Smith Academy and City House; families spend vacations on the east coast or in Michigan. Home to most members of the "Big Cinch," the men who made big money and controlled city policy, the Central West End epitomized the reality of the American Dream in the Midwest.

Kingsbury Place

City Landmark: February 1973

       Entered through the most regal of private streets gates (a 1900 design by Barnett, Haynes & Barnett with bronze statue by Clara Pfeifer), Kingsbury Place is less grandiose than envisioned by its promoters and first few owners who selected the city's premier designer of Monumental Beaux Arts to create an architecture symbolizing great wealth. Two of the palatial houses designed by Barnett, Haynes, & Barnett (#7 from 1902 and #3 from 1905) have been demolished; #11, designed in 1902, is extant.

       Houses in the western block where lots are narrower were generally designed by less prominent architects who also received commissions on nearby Windermere Place. Not as consistent in architectural significance as Fullerton's Westminster Place, Kingsbury Place is blessed with a central planting strip -- a feature common to several of the private streets laid out by Julius Pitzman. (Pitzman moved from Compton Hill to #6 Kingsbury in 1912.)

Fullerton's Westminster Place

National Register: April 10. 19804300 and 4400 blocks of Westminster

       Exclusively the work of St. Louis architects, Fullerton Place houses date from 1902 through 1909. Of the sixteen firms represented, Grable, Weber & Groves; Barnett, Haynes & Barnett and W. Albert Swasey were responsible for forty-one of the originally fifty-seven designs. (Six houses have been demolished.) Deed restrictions imposed in this private street developed by General Joseph Scott Fullerton included a minimum construction cost of $10,000 with twenty-five feet established as the required setback from the street.

     The vast majority of the houses were designed in variations on Georgian, Romanesque and Renaissance Revival themes ranging from studied formalism to Baroque and Mannerist whimsey. A wide palette of brick and stone colors enhanced by fine wood and terra cotta ornament also contributes to the vibrancy and sustained interest on the street. Located too close for comfort to the once-lively Gaslight Square and subjected to Ward boundary vagaries and down-zoning, Fullerton Place experienced hard times in the late 1960s and early 1970s when many homes were converted to rooming houses. Inclusion in the Central West End Historic District in 1974 has helped promote and protect this valuable part of St. Louis' architectural heritage.

Eliot House

City Landmark: September 1973

     Home from 1905-1919 to Henry Ware Eliot and wife Charlotte Stearns Eliot and the occasional residence of their son, T.S. Eliot, the youngest of seven children, had left from Harvard before his parents moved to this 1905 house designed by Montrose P. McArdle, St. Louis. Henry Eliot was president of Hydraulic Press Brick Co. and son of William Greenleaf Eliot, the founder of Washington University. Charlotte, a well-educated woman, was a life-long poet who encouraged her son to follow a literary career.

National Register: December 29, 1975

      A monumental urban space focusing on Kingshighway that includes one of the finest collections of early 20th century American institutional architecture in the country. Although six different firms contributed pieces of the tout ensemble, the eight buildings are unified by fine materials, judicious siting and construction dates between 1901-07.

Temple Israel

City Landmark: January 1972

       Corinthian order Roman Temple of Caen stone built 1907-08 from plans by Barnett, Haynes & Barnett, St. Louis, as the second home for the Reform congregation organized in the 1880's. Israel House, a companion education and community facility, was designed in 1936 by Benjamin Shapiro, St. Louis. The congregation moved to St. Louis County in 1964.

St. John's Methodist Church

City Landmark: January 1972

       Limestone classical revival church built 1901-03 from plans by Theodore C. Link (St. Louis) as the third home for the congregation organized in 1868. The Education Building with Singleton Chapel to the west was designed by Wilbur Trueblood in 1928. New interiors from 1945 include a window above the reredos by Siegfried Reinhardt, St. Louis; other new windows from 1967 by Rodney Winfield, St. Louis. The congregation has elected to remain in the city.

Tuscan Temple

City Landmark: January 1972

      Doric order Greek revival temple of grey brick built 1907-08 from plans by Albert B. Groves, St. Louis. The portico was deliberately designed to enhance the Kingshighway vista even though the main entrance is on Westminster Place. Home of Tuscan Lodge No. 360 A.F.& A.M.

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Gaslight Square
More to come...!