News Release 257

HISTORIC PRESERVATION COUNCIL TO CONSIDER ST. LOUIS AREA NOMINATIONS FOR NATIONAL REGISTER MAY 16

Volume 36-257

Contact: Sue Holst

(For immediate release)

573-751-6510

JEFFERSON CITY, MO, MAY 9, 2008 -- The Missouri Advisory Council on Historic Preservation will consider nominations to the National Register of Historic Places during its quarterly meeting May 16 in Branson. The meeting, which is open to the public, will begin at 9 a.m. in the Bee Creek Conference Room, Second Floor, Branson Convention Center, 200 East Main St. 

Twenty-eight nominations are scheduled to be considered for listing in the National Register. Properties on the agenda include historic residences, commercial buildings, historic districts, and a Santa Fe Trail site. More than 1,200 historic resources are represented in the nominations.

The following properties in the greater St. Louis area are being considered:

Located on Kohl Country Lane near Gerald, Franklin County, the Christian and Anna Keller Farmstead is a significant reminder of the influx of German immigrants into mid-Missouri. Like many German immigrants, the Kellers moved to Missouri and purchased a farm in the early 1850s. Keller constructed the German bank house with internal smokehouse and food cellars between 1855 and 1860 of stone and diaspore clay brick quarried and made on site. In addition to the house, the 77-acre farmstead includes a late-19th century barn, and cistern well connected by underground pipe to the artificial pond, originally constructed in the 1850s.

The Webster Park Historic District in Webster Groves, St. Louis County, was designed by Elias Long in 1891 and promoted by the Webster Real Estate Co. The company's promotional brochure, "Webster: Queen of the Suburbs," advertised the subdivision but its title would also come to identify all of Webster Groves. The subdivision's layout shows influences of the picturesque movement in landscape design and its curvilinear streets and irregular blocks follow the natural contours of the land.  Deed restrictions that required houses of substantial size and cost assured quality design, but provided home owners with the freedom to choose their own architects and builders.  This resulted in an eclectic mix of high style houses. The earliest houses in the district date from the 1890s and are Queen Anne style. Revival styles from the early 20th century dominate the district, and good examples of Colonial, Tudor, French, and Spanish Revival can be found throughout. There are 249 historic resources in the district. 

In 1954, the Farm and Home Savings and Loan Association purchased the old Kinloch Telephone Co. building at 1001 Locust St. in St. Louis. What followed was the complete remodeling of the building to transform it from an elaborately detailed Victorian to a sleek modern commercial building. Farm and Home invested in the property to expand their regional headquarters. The modernization of the building was also seen as a good faith effort in the revitalization of downtown St. Louis.  Modernizations similar to that undertaken by Farm and Home occurred during a transitional period of the 1950s. By the 1960s, the push was not to remodel existing buildings, but to construct new, modern, corporate buildings.   

The Peabody Coal Co. National Headquarters on the St. Louis riverfront was constructed in 1958 as the executive office for two newly merged coal companies on the verge of vastly expanded production and sales. The Sinclair Coal Co. was the nation's third largest coal producer when it merged with smaller, struggling Peabody in 1955, and by 1961 the new company -- retaining the Peabody name -- had become America's largest.  The three-story headquarters building was the first new development along the new Memorial Drive (the Gateway Arch was still in the planning stage), as the St. Louis skyline became increasingly modern. Basically a retro-Art Deco style building (the Art Deco period had ended more than a decade earlier), local architect Ralph Cole Hall's Modern Movement design features geometric ornamentation with aluminum and granite facing, and a truncated southeast corner. Subsequently Mansion House Center, a high-rise apartment complex, was built around a large portion of the Peabody Building.

The Oehler Brick Buildings, 3542-48 South Broadway in St. Louis, are significant relics of the once-common craft of hand-pressed brick making, an industry that became dominated by machine presses and kilns. The Oehler family was one of the last manufacturers of hand-pressed brick in St. Louis. To supplement their income, the Oehler family built a small series of rental properties using their own hand-pressed stock.  The buildings on South Broadway constructed in 1887 and 1891 respectively, fronted the family brickyard. These buildings not only provided rental income but served as an advertisement for their wares. Unfortunately it was not enough and the business closed in 1895. Though many buildings in St. Louis were constructed of hand-made brick, the  Oehler Brick Buildings are the only documented buildings known to have been constructed from Oehler's hand-pressed bricks.

The Zebediah F. and Mary H. Wetzell House at 3741 Washington Ave. in St. Louis, exemplifies the Second Empire style of architecture briefly popular between c. 1870 and 1890. Wealthy druggist and wholesale dealer Wetzell commissioned the house in 1880. This surrounding area, now primarily commercial, was once a fashionable neighborhood of cohesive Second Empire residences. The Wetzell House is one of the few remaining Second Empire-style houses in Midtown and the only one that has retained most of its historic character-defining features.

The St. Cecilia Historic District in South St. Louis encompasses a large, primarily residential neighborhood that exemplifies development patterns and architectural trends following the opening of new streetcar lines in the late 19th century.  The 30-block district is perhaps best characterized by large numbers of houses, flats and apartments with shaped and flat front parapets and using varying amounts of enameled white brick, a local subtype sometimes referred to as "bakery brick" buildings. Nearly half of all the primary structures feature front parapets, many with flourishes showing off the mason's work. St. Cecilia Roman Catholic Church, constructed in1926, is a primary building in the district and the church complex -- which also includes a schoolhouse, rectory and convent --both influenced and reflects the neighborhood's development. The district contains 1,074 buildings of which 817 are counted as contributing.

Constructed in 1902, the Pendennis Club Apartment Building is representative of the bachelor subculture in St. Louis. Located at 3737 Washington Ave. in the Midtown neighborhood, the Pendennis Club -- a blend of the apartment building and the club building -- served as an exclusive home for a small number of wealthy, professional bachelors who wished to conduct their lives largely unfettered by mainstream society.  Bachelorhood emerged as a social movement in America in about 1890 and remained in vogue into the1930s. The inception and history of the Pendennis Club -- believed to be the only building of its kind in St. Louis -- closely followed these national trends.  Bachelorhood was criticized from the outset, and membership in the Pendennis Club dwindled until the three-story brick building was sold in 1937. Architecturally, the building features decorative terra cotta elements suggestive of the Classical Revival style, and subtle brick detailing. 

With its semi-circular shape and corresponding layout of classrooms, the design of Cook Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church, South in St. Louis strongly reflects the influence of the 19th century Protestant Sunday School Movement, in particular the original Akron Plan for church design.  Constructed in 1884, the Gothic Revival-style building is one of St. Louis's outstanding examples of a church with a central rotunda ringed by a series of individual classrooms designed to be easily converted from "open" for a collective experience to "closed" for uninterrupted class work. Located at 3680 Cook Ave., the stone and brick building designed by Thomas B. Annan also features a square side tower and is richly articulated throughout. The site includes a Tudor Gothic-style stone and brick parsonage, erected in 1905. After construction of the parsonage, the congregation changed the church name to Scruggs Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in honor of its primary benefactor, Richard M. Scruggs.  

Other properties that are being considered follow:

In addition to nominations to the National Register of Historic Places, the council will receive status reports on programs provided by the State Historic Preservation Office and discuss business related to its own function and duties. Council will also discuss coordination and preparation of Missouri's five-year statewide preservation plan. 

The Missouri Advisory Council on Historic Preservation is a 12-member group of historians, architects, archaeologists and citizens with an interest in historic preservation. The council is appointed by the governor and works with the Department of Natural Resources' State Historic Preservation Office, which administers the National Register program for Missouri. The council meets quarterly to review Missouri property nominations to the National Register, the nation's honor roll of historic properties. Approved nominations are forwarded to the Keeper of the National Register in Washington, D.C., for final approval.

For more information about the May 16 meeting or the council, call the State Historic Preservation Office at 573-751-7858 or the department toll free at 800-334-6946.

For news releases on the Web, visit www.dnr.mo.gov/newsrel. For a complete listing of the department's upcoming meetings, hearings and events, visit the department's online calendar at www.dnr.mo.gov/calendar/search.do.

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