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1989: Categorizing House Rehabbers

Elaine Viets wrote for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for over twenty five years. She specialized in quirky vignettes from South St. Louis. Since then, she has become a prolific writer of crime fiction, featuring strong women with odd backgrounds. (Suggested: her Dead End Job series) In the research for these, Elaine often assumed the same low-level low-income positions that her protagonists held in the book) She now lives and writes in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. I emailed her for approval to repost an article she wrote about early rehabbers of the Square. In her reply she wished Lafayette Square well, and wrote that she’s always considered it one of the prettiest places in St. Louis.

On October 15, 1989, The Post-Dispatch published Elaine’s story, Categorizing Rehabbers in its PD Magazine. In honor of all those who swung a sledge-hammer or uncovered a hidden stairway in Lafayette Square, here is a repeat.

ALL REHABBERS seem alike – worried-looking, gray-skinned people. The worry comes from wondering what’s going to go wrong with your house next. That special shade of rehabber gray comes from plaster dust. That stuff is everywhere. You can’t get rid of it.
Rehabbers sound the same, too. We can go on about plastic plumbing and slate shingles until your eyes cross. But we really are different, just like snow flakes. Or, some kind of flakes. Lee the Rehabber, a real city expert, listed some of the kinds you’ll encounter.

The Restorer

”This person does everything to keep the house the same,” Lee said, ”right down to the original colors, furniture and curtains.”This gives you the weird feeling you’re in an old photograph.”In fact, a picture of the house taken a hundred years ago looks the same as a photo taken today.”Many Lafayette Square houses are in this category. These rehabbers reject everything from the 20th century, even its comforts. ”The kitchens and baths won’t be modernized. The only new things will be a refrigerator and a well-hidden micro-wave.’’ Deep in the basement, like a family secret, you’ll find a furnace and a water heater.

Tom Keay rehabbing in all directions at 1532 Mississippi Ave; 1977

The Updater

”These people try to keep the outside the same, except they use today’s colors.”You’ll see some startling effects. Sturdy old brick houses may be trimmed a delicate mauve and gray, like plow horses wearing plumes.The Updaters may appreciate the old touches, but they want a hot shower in the morning.”The kitchen and bathroom will be modern. If the floors are beyond restoring, they might carpet them. They’ll save the original woodwork. If the original floor plan is lousy, they’ll change it. ”This house won’t look like its 100-year-old picture,” he said. ”It will look better.”

The High Tech Rehabber

”These people usually buy rundown buildings that have little to save,” Lee said. ”They gut the inside, removing the walls, floors and woodwork.”The outside stays much the same. Inside everything is new. The people who used to live there wouldn’t recognize the place.”Considering who used to live there, that’s good. ”The result is a new home that looks old only on the outside.’’

The windowless shells and weedy lots of MacKay Place in 1972.

The Max Factor Rehabber

That’s an old rehabber term for a cosmetic job. ”These types come to the neighborhood in the first influx. They buy the better homes in good repair, they don’t gut them, and they finish them in a hurry.” The rehab looks beautiful: fancy wallpaper, nice woodwork, old chandeliers. But it’s a haunted house. It has the ghosts of the past. ”The old plumbing is about to rust through. The old wiring is waiting to blow a fuse when you plug in your hair dryer. The plaster ceiling, held up with a fresh coat of wallpaper, is about to drop in your Sunday dinner.”Max Factors are often sold to unsuspecting couples. They don’t understand that an old house with ”everything original” is not a find.

The Remodeler

”Whatever the house looked like before, it will be worse when they’re through,” Lee said. Remuddlers put aluminum siding over mellow brick. Drop 8-foot ceilings and cover up the ornate plaster. Remove the original woodwork. Panel with cheap pressed sawdust. ”The results are always the same. When they’re finished they’ve removed all the original beauty.’’

Lafayette Gothic. Sue and Terry Linhardt; 1973

The Odd Couple

Most people will rehab a house. Once. If they’re still married when it’s over, they’ll never even pick up a hammer again. But there are a few odd couples who are only happy living in plaster dust and painter’s drop cloths. When they get one house finished, they sell it and move into another mess. They’re so crazy, they can’t wait to do it again, right away. What do you call them? That’s easy – the nuts and bolts rehabbers.

Resources

Thanks to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for original text.

It took a certain kind of evangelism to attract others to the Square in the 1970s. Another gifted local observer, Linda Underwood, categorized the locals of that time. It complements this piece well: lafayettesquarearchives.com/1979-the-pony-was-the-people/

Note the photo above of 1532 Mississippi Avenue. The same home is now for sale, and you can see for yourself what over 45 years of rehabbing can do. https://www.redfin.com/MO/Saint-Louis/1532-Mississippi-Ave-63104/home/93697404

1913: Immortal Monkey Of The Square

Do you remember seeing advertising for a pet monkey in the old comic books?

Daredevil, Number 30; July, 1967. — Daredevil, Number 30; July, 1967

When I was a kid, I wanted a monkey, even if they were only sea monkeys. I didn’t know the sea monkeys were really brine shrimp, or that pet monkeys and alligators are only cute for a short time. They can become animals like you might see at a zoo. Like adolescent people, they sometimes grow to be surly, unpredictable and even violent.

1972: Lafayette Square’s Corner Place

Just to the north of the Lafayette Park Hotel stood a small single story building at the corner of Mississippi and Park Avenues. Its address was 1400 Mississippi Avenue. The earliest reference I see was from 1888. A popular corner place, It became a polling station for the 23rd ward, 123rd precinct of St. Louis:

1896: End Of The Lafayette Park Hotel

Tying loose ends

I’ve recently written about the old Lafayette Park Hotel. It dated back to about 1875, and rather mysteriously disappeared from view with the great tornado of 1896. Architectural historian Michael Boyd got me started when he asked if I could find anything related to its demolition. I searched high and low. Nope.

Here’s the first mention I could find of the building on Mississippi Avenue, just south of Park Avenue. It’s from August 29, 1875, a time when building activity was really taking off east of Lafayette Park:

1994: Ruth Weighs In On a Neighborhood Milestone

Back in 1995, first-wave restorationist and Lafayette Square MVP Ruth Kamphoefner composed a tidy summary of observations and cautionary tales from her 25 years in the neighborhood. It not only paid tribute to some outstanding doers, but feels nearly as appropriate today as it did then. I’m in awe of Ruth, and what she accomplished in her decades here. What I write is surely inadequate. She can better convey some of it for me. In her own words…

Early in the 1970s, so many people came to house tours that we had lines half a block long in front of houses. So many properties sold that we envisioned the complete restoration of Lafayette Square within a year or two.

“Pretty soon we won’t need to have any more house tours!” I gloated to Jerry Ferrell, LSRC president at the time.

Dreamer.

1859: Charles Gibson And Waverly Place

A description of Waverly Place by an enthusiastic real estate broker, on behalf of Charles Gibson. It appeared in the Daily Missouri Republican of June 23, 1859:

1979: The Pony Was The People

The LSRC neighborhood association turned ten years old in April of 1979. A resident wit and frequent contributor to the Marquis turned her attention to commemorating that anniversary. Linda Underwood lived for years on Whittemore Place. With her husband Gary, she was an early and frequent advocate for the neighborhood, involved in the day to day restoration of Lafayette Square. She did this with unfailing humor and the ability to take it all in stride.

Here’s a lightly edited and photo enhanced excerpt from her Marquis article, “You Think Lafayette Square Is Weird Today…Read On”

1893: Iron Men Of Lafayette Square – Christopher And Simpson

All the iron on Earth originated in large stars that existed before our Sun even formed. Iron is the final product of a star’s radioactive decay, which fuses hydrogen atoms to form ever heavier elements. When the hydrogen fuel is exhausted and sufficient mass accumulates in the core of the star, it no longer supports its own gravity, and explodes; or so I’m told. In that supernova explosion, huge chunks of iron can be thrown many light years into space. Such a chunk came to land in eastern Missouri’s St. Francois County and became Iron Mountain.

1988: The Hijacked Hibiscus

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported an interesting case, back in September 1988. This was straight from the mean streets of Lafayette Square. Bill Bryan of the P-D staff wrote a pair of brief articles, and this is a summary.

Jerry Patterson lived on the 2000 block of Lafayette Avenue. He phoned the police to report the apparent theft of a hibiscus tree from his back yard.

Officers responded to the call. They scoured the crime scene and determined that the plant in question may have been anemic. Dropping its dead leaves, it left a breadcrumb trail that might lead to the thief. They followed the shedded leaves to a residence in the 1700 block of Nicholson Place.

1994: Lafayette Square Street Names

What follows is a subset of a well-researched history of St. Louis city street names. Every name tells a story, and the byways of Lafayette Square are no exception. Please note my appreciation at the bottom, as a lot of good work went into this compilation.

(E-W) and (N-S) refer to direction each street runs.