Short Essays (500-1000 Words) Archives - Lafayette Square Archives

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

1880: Building Styles Of Lafayette Square

Lafayette Square bears historic designations from both the City of St Louis and the National Register of Historic Places. They bestow an enforced permanence to the look of the Square. Recognition of the authentic and increasingly rare Victorian Age style in our buildings ensures their survival. There are various forms and combinations of styles in our architecture, but following are four major types. Let’s say you have relatives or guests in from the suburbs. You want to give them the straight scoop on what the heck is a mansard. Here is a brief field guide.

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.

1860: Lafayette Square on First

A college game moves west

A little known aspect of Lafayette Park history involves its role in expanding our national pastime. In the 1850’s, the mansion of Edward Bredell Sr. stood directly across from the park on Lafayette Avenue. Edward Sr. made his fortune in mining and dry goods wholesaling. He later established the Missouri Glass Company as an enterprise for his son to manage. Edward Jr. attended Brown University, where he likely was introduced to New York rules baseball. Games involving balls and bats in various forms have been described as early as the 1820s, but the New York game was well defined and quickly gained popularity in that area

1894: Keep Off The Grass

In the Gilded Age of the 1890s city parks often hewed to the same starchy formality as was expected of a polite society. Lafayette Park was a strolling park, with pedestrians expected to keep to the graveled pathways. Those who chose to stray onto lawns and flower beds could find themselves confined to the police substation (today’s park house) for an hour, to ponder their errant ways.

This stuffy policy informs a poem which appeared in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat 130 years ago, in February of 1894. Reprinted for your enjoyment here:

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:

1914: The Tough Old Birds Of Lafayette Park

The prevailing economy in 1914 caused many tight purse strings around Lafayette Square. For the winter holiday season, someone decided to take the frugal approach. He or she procured a Christmas goose from the apparent bounty of Lafayette Park.

1884: Henry Vogel Cartoons The 314.

I reckon that many of you are aware of the Compton and Dry panoramic map of St. Louis from 1875. It provides minute detail of the entire city at that time, even rivaling what Google Maps provides. There’s been a good deal of conjecture about how Camile Dry and his team managed to accomplish this, but if done with observation balloons, it went completely unremarked upon by the press, which seems odd.

1903: Photos From Lafayette Park

Today’s feature is a recently discovered photo collection – about 45 images of Lafayette Park. They date from sometime after the great tornado of 1896. The trees were slowly reestablishing themselves by 1903. Although the twister took out virtually every old growth tree, some of the smaller ones bent enough to survive the storm. The loss of canopy provided an unintended benefit for today’s observers, however. We get a more unobstructed view of the streets and homes surrounding the park. Close inspection has its rewards.

Mississippi Avenue and Park Avenue; 1903

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”