The Architectural Legacy of Henry Shaw

Many people have had a positive impact on St. Louis, but few can compare to that of Henry Shaw (July 24, 1800-August 25, 1889). Shaw was born in England but arrived in St. Louis via New Orleans on May 3, 1819. St. Louis had been founded 50+ years before his arrival but the population by 1810 was only 1,600.

Shaw’s marker on the St. Louis Walk of Fame sums up his contribution:

Henry Shaw, only 18 when he came to St. Louis, was one of the city’s largest landowners by age 40. Working with leading botanists, he planned, funded and built the Missouri Botanical Garden, which opened in 1859. Shaw donated the land for Tower Grove Park and helped with its construction. He wrote botanical tracts, endowed Washington University’s School of Botany, helped found the Missouri Historical Society, and gave the city a school and land for a hospital. Of Shaw’s gifts, the Botanical Garden is best-known. Said as early as 1868 to have “no equal in the United States, and, indeed, few anywhere in the world,” it epitomizes the legacy of Henry Shaw. 

In addition to the Missouri Botanical Gardens institution, Tower Grove Park, and numerous trees, Shaw left a great architectural legacy of buildings he commissioned, here are a few:

Here’s more detail on the city townhouse:

This tall three-story townhouse was originally built for Henry Shaw in 1850 at the southwest corner of Seventh and Locust Streets. Shaw, who had made his fortune in mercantile pursuits and real estate, had retired by that time and had completed his new country home at Tower Grove the previous year. For his city home, Shaw chose a design by architect George 1. Barnett that was inspired by a Florentine palace. After Shaw´s death in 1889, and according to a provision of his will, the house was razed and relocated on the grounds of his Missouri Botanical Garden, where it now houses offices and related activities of the Garden. The house´s downtown site became the location of the Mercantile Club, later Compton Building, in 1893. (source)

Today the site has been a surface parking lot for decades, the Mercantile Club was razed before 1958.

All of these buildings were designed by George I. Barnett, a fellow Englishman 15 years younger than Shaw.

Barnett designed hundreds of buildings in St. Louis, many in Greek Revival, Italianate, and Gothic design. Barnett did not deviate from classical designs, and his portfolio was largely responsible for establishing Classicism as St. Louis’ dominate architectural influence. His works included houses, churches, commercial, and civic structures. Among his best known structures are renovations to the Old Courthouse, the Missouri Governor’s mansion, the structures of the Missouri Botanical Garden, Tower Grove Park, and the Southern Hotel.

Obviously Shaw liked Barnett’s work, most likely Barnett liked having a steady stream of commissions from a prominent & wealthy member of the community.

— Steve Patterson

Reflections on the Great Flood of 1993

Twenty years ago today we saw record flooding in the St. Louis region:

The Mississippi River at St. Louis crested at 49.6 feet on August 1, nearly 20 feet above flood stage and had a peak flow rate of 1.08 Million cubic feet per second. At this rate, a bowl the size of Busch Stadium would be filled to the brim in 69 seconds. (source) 

Here’s a more detailed look at flooding that year leading up to August 1st:

At St. Louis, the first spring flooding on the Mississippi River was recorded April 8, cresting at .2 feet above flood stage and lasting only that day. The Mississippi rose above flood stage again on April 11 and stayed above flood stage until May 24. The city got a respite as the Mississippi stayed below flood stage May 24 to June 26. On June 27, the Mississippi again went above flood stage and didn’t drop below flood stage for the year until October 7—a total of 146 days above flood stage. The Mississippi River was above the old record flood stage for more than three weeks at St. Louis from mid July to mid August. Prior to 1993, the historic flood of record on the Mississippi River at St. Louis had been 43.2 feet, recorded April 28, 1973. That record was broken July 21, 1993, with a level of 46.9 feet and broken again 11 days later with a record stage of 49.58 feet on Aug. 1. St. Louis is located near the confluence of the Missouri, Illinois and Mississippi rivers, all of which were in flood at the same time. (source) 

In the  two decades since, Chesterfield’s Monarch Levee was rebuilt and substantial commercial development has happened within the Chesterfield  valley. For example. THF’s Chesterfield Commons:

And now we have two competing outlet malls opening very close to each other on land flooded 20 years ago. In the market for a new Bentley, Maserati, or Aston Martin? Head to STL Motorcars showroom in the floodplain, at 1 Arnage Blvd.  Not even close to St. Louis, but it sounds better than Gumbo Flats Motors on Floodplain Ave.

— Steve Patterson 

VA Hospital Should Expand East To Grand Boulevard

Yesterday I explained that John Cochran Veterans Hospital Wants To Expand South Into Grand Center, Raze Historic Palladium Music Hall. This would involve taking an active union hall, a popular restaurant that just rebuilt its building, and the historic Palladium. It would also require the city to vacate a public street: Enright.

It would also leave John Cochran Hospital set far back from Grand, in stark contrast to urban buildings to the north and south along Grand Blvd. My solution then, is to look at expanding the hospital out toward Grand Blvd, rather than to the South.

Of course, after the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, the front would need to be a blast-resitant design. They’d need less room for surface parking and valet service if they actually embraced public transit.

Directions to the hospital takes you to the driving directions page.  If you look for it you’ll see the on public transportation page which says:

Public transportation is available at both divisions. The Grand Boulevard bus will take you to the John Cochran Divsion [sic]. The Jefferson Barracks Division may be reached by using either the Broadway or Lindbergh bus. For more information on public transportation for the bus lines or for Metrolink rail service please contact Metro St. Louis at (314) 231-2345 or visit their web site at *Metro St. Louis.

* Link will take you outside of the Department of Veterans Affairs Website. VA does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of the linked websites. The link will open in a new window.

The above should be written as something like:

Both divisions can be reached via public transportation. The John Cochran Division is served by the the following routes:

• #70 Grand*
• #97 Delmar* (1 block south)
• #94 Page* (3 blocks north)
• #10 Gravois-Lindell* (5 blocks south)
• MetroLink light rail (Exit Grand Station, transfer to the northbound #70 Grand MetroBus)

The Jefferson Barracks Division may be reached by using either the #40 Broadway or #48 Lindbergh MetroBus routes.

For more information on public transportation for the bus lines or for Metrolink rail service please contact Metro St. Louis at (314) 231-2345 or visit their web site at *Metro St. Louis.

* Link will take you outside of the Department of Veterans Affairs Website. VA does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of the linked websites. The link will open in a new window.

That little bit of extra information might convince someone to use transit rather than drive.veer

Back to expansion, there might be legitimate reasons why adding to the south makes a lot of sense in terms of internal flow, but it is also possible they never considered adding out front rather than to the side.

— Steve Patterson

John Cochran Veterans Hospital Wants To Expand South Into Grand Center, Raze Historic Palladium Music Hall

The Veterans Administration operates two facilities in the St. Louis area:

The VA St. Louis Health Care System provides inpatient and ambulatory care in medicine, surgery, psychiatry, neurology, and rehabilitation, and many other subspecialty areas. It is a two-division facility that serves veterans and their families in east central Missouri and southwestern Illinois.

The John Cochran Division, named after the late Missouri congressman, is located in midtown St. Louis and has all of the medical center’s operative surgical capabilities, the ambulatory care unit, intensive care units, outpatient psychiatry clinics, and expanded laboratory.

The Jefferson Barracks Division is a multi-building complex overlooking the Mississippi River in south St. Louis County. It provides psychiatric treatment, spinal cord injury treatment, a nursing home care unit, geriatric health care, rehabilitation services, and a rehabilitation domiciliary program for homeless veterans. (source)

The John Cochran facility, located in midtown, was built in the 1950s, on the site of the once-opulant Vandeventer Place private street:

Founder, Peter Lewis Vandeventer, came to St. Louis in the 1860s with brothers William and Henry Barnum Vandeventer. Peter Lewis Vandeventer and Henry Barnum Vandeventer were Wall Street stockbrokers with a firm located at 6 Wall St., New York City. They made their money from selling stocks and took the train west to St. Louis to invest it in land.

Peter Lewis Vandeventer died in 1879, during the development of Vandeventer Place, a gated, luxurious private place in the neighborhood with stately mansions and a beautiful fountain as its centerpiece. His Missouri estate was managed by several corrupt lawyers, who stole much of the money from the sale of the lots at Vandeventer Place. His family remained in St. Louis for some time after his death, living in Vandeventer Place in a large mansion.

Vandeventer Place met with its demise in 1947, when the eastern half was demolished for the Veterans’ Administration’s new hospital. The western portion was demolished about ten years later, when the City acquired it as the site for a children’s detention home. The fountain and east gates survive in Forest Park. (Wikipedia)

The formerly secluded street on the western edge of the city had fallen out of favor among the wealthy, they sought to buy or build mansions even further west in the city or into St. Louis County.  John Cochran Hospital has always remained within its original 11+ acre site of Grand on the East, Enright (formerly Morgan) on the South, Spring on the West, and Bell on the North. Granted, the VA has various surface parking lots beyond this.

Now the VA is looking to expand , funding for a new tower was included in a 2009 spending bill:

A $44 million appropriation included in a new $447 billion spending bill approved by Congress this week will provide seed money for a 262,000-square-foot hospital tower for the midtown facility.

[snip]

The proposed VA medical center expansion will feature a larger emergency room, wings for spinal cord injury and mental health patients needing immediate medical treatment, more private bedrooms and better room structures for medical equipment and records. (stltoday.com)

Why hasn’t this moved forward in the last four years? If you’ll recall, John Cochran VA soon had some very bad PR issues:

• June 2010: VA hospital may have infected 1,800 veterans with HIV
• February 2011: Surgeries are suspended at Cochran center
• April 2012: Issues go unsolved at St. Louis VA medical center

Then in June 2012 an expansion story ran once again:

An expansion is planned for the John Cochran VA Medical Center, but it could affect a new, widely popular soul food restaurant. The expansion would increase the facility by 60 percent. The “Sweetie Pies Upper Crust Eatery” sits on land that is being looked at for the expansion project. (Fox2: Could VA Hospital Expansion Force Sweetie Pies Upper Crust Out?)

So they want to expand South to Delmar, closing Enright and razing some buildings. What impact would this have on Grand Center? What buildings would need to be razed? Is there a better option for expansion?

Only four buildings are on the thin block bounded by Enright, Grand, Delmar, and Spring:

1. a vacant former gas station already owned by the VA,
2. Laborer’ Local 42 union hall,
3. Sweetie Pie’s Upper Crust,
4. Vacant former HHV Thrift Plus (aka The Palladium, Club Plantation)

Here’s a look at these four:

Interesting, 66 years ago the VA wanted a hotel and a club razed or they wouldn’t build and “the VA itself is prohibited by law from buying the block because it is not contiguous to its hospital site.” Not sure when the hotel was razed, but the club remains — for now.

So we have a newly built & popular restaurant that faces Delmar, a 1970s union hall and a historic 1912-13 musical hall facing Enright, all in the path of the Veterans Administration.  The VA owns the tiny 1950 gas station, the other three are privately owned.

Tomorrow I’ll suggest how to expand the VA hospital while also improving, not hurting, Grand Center.

— Steve Patterson

New Construction Should Have Urban Form, Not Have A Forced Historic Style

The issue of form & style is a hard one to address, but this is exactly where I think St. Louis has failed over the years. The form of buildings, how they relate to the street/sidewalk, has been totally ignored.

Here’s how it often plays out in St. Louis: One story building set back surrounded by parking on a block with 2-4 story buildings built up to the property line. No problem, just be sure to wrap it in red brick with some stone elements so it fits in. Frustrating!

The other view taken in some neighborhoods is the new infill building, in the above scenario, should be detailed from the period of the neighbors on either side so the untrained eye wouldn’t know it was built 100 years later.  Also frustrating, they wouldn’t have done this 75 years ago…or 64 years ago.

If the Wellston Loop in 1949 had a design code based on the one used by many St. Louis neighborhoods this structure, which I love, wouldn’t have been permitted. That is the problem I have with how we tend to define “fits in.”  Granted, this would be shocking to see on Park Ave in the commercial area east of Lafayette Park. Was it shocking to Wellston Loop shoppers in 1949? Very likely, but freezing an area in whatever period can be the opposite — boring or even offensive.

I don’t have the answers, I just think we need to give more attention to form and less to particulars of style.

Here are the results from the poll last week:

Q: New construction should…

1. …have an urban form in whatever style the owner desires 34 [41.98%]
2. …replicate period of surrounding buildings in some historic districts 24 [29.63%]
3. …look like older buildings, so a lay person might think it is an old building 7 [8.64%]
4. …NOT be a replica of an older style 7 [8.64%]
5. Other: 6 [7.41%]
6. …have any form (urban/suburban) in any style the owner desires 3 [3.7%]
7. Unsure/no opinion 0 [0%]

And the six “other” answers provided by readers:

1. New construction should entice people/business to want to be in and/or around itAdd as a poll answer
2. This guestion isnt a very good one for a poll steve-o
3. Needs to be complementary to existing architecture.
4. modern and fit/funtion well on its site
5. The owner should decide what his new building will look like. MONEY TALKS!
6. not as simple as the other choices – more dtls req’d

Thoughts?

— Steve Patterson

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