An earlier essay in this series dealt with the colorful history at the northwest corner of Mississippi and Park Avenue. https://lafayettesquarearchives.com/1951-an-anchor-on-the-corner-in-lafayette-square/. Next door is a large and deep three story brick home on a double lot. To its immediate west is another distinctive home, so close as to nearly adjoin. There is a backstory to both, although this essay focuses on 2007 Park Avenue.
Another successful Germanic immigrant
A native of Austria, William Skrainka moved to St. Louis as a young man and became both a stone merchant and quarry owner. As early as 1870, his business appeared in Goulds Business Directory at the NW corner of Dillon and Park Avenue.
By 1875, Skrainka was in the building materials business with partner Claus Veiths, at 501 N. Levee Street. That year, William began construction on a house at 2007 Park Avenue in Lafayette Square. The family moved in during April of 1876.
An 1878 business directory found the Skrainka firm under the topic “stone contractors” at the northwest corner of Locust and 6th Street. The listing has William living with his wife Mary and son Fred at 2007 Park Avenue.
He and his wife controlled the properties at 2007 and 2011 Park Avenue from 1876 through 1912.
The Skrainkas at home
In 1883, in addition to a Skrainka location at Locust and 6th, a Gould directory places his business at South 18th Street and Gratiot. This quarry, an easy reach from Lafayette Square, features in the 1875 Compton Dry Pictorial Map. The family also owned a large diabase (an igneous form of basalt useful for building foundations and roadbeds) quarry near Fredericktown, Missouri.
By 1888, Wm. Skrainka and Company included sons Morris, Frederick and Louis. The family enterprise at that time engaged in “grading, curbing, guttering, macadamizing and crosswalks.” Its business address was 404 Market St, Rm 308, and the residence for William, Mary and Fred remained at 2007 Park Avenue.
By 1892, the Gould Blue Book, which located the family at 2007 Park the year before, had nothing on any of them. G.J. and Lina Helmerichs owned 2007 Park Avenue and it was home to them and a Miss C. Kleinschmidt. This remained the situation through 1894.
Skrainkas on the move
The new resident was owner of G.J. Helmerichs Leaf Tobacco Company at 56 Chestnut and 67 Market Streets. His trade was nearly exclusive with the heavily German folk of South St. Louis, as shown by frequent advertising in German American papers like this 1859 Westliche Post:
In 1893, William, Mary and Fred lived at 3100 Pine Street. A year later, William died in St. Louis of Bright’s disease at the age of 79.
Two years later, Mrs. William Skrainka and Frederick resided at the Hotel Beers. This was a swanky establishment on the corner of Grand Avenue and Olive Street. It burned down in 1931, and is today the site of the Kranzburg Arts Center
2007 Park was then occupied by just Mrs. Helmerich and Miss Kleinschmidt, and they remained through 1897.
The Skrainkas kept moving. In 1897, Fred, Louis and Morris Skrainka were all listed at 319 N. 4th Street, and two years after that, Fred resided at the West End Hotel, staying there through 1912.
In the 1904 Gould Business Directory, Skrainka Construction Company listed Louis as President, Frederick as Vice President and Morris as Secretary. Their mother Mary Skrainka lived at the West End Hotel.
On Dec 19, 1906, Mary Skrainka died in Berlin, to where she had travelled in search of medical therapy.
Not Mr. Vanderbilt; Dr.Vanderbeck.
A well known maternity physician, Cornelius C. Vanderbeck moved to St. Louis from Philadelphia, where he edited and published The Philadelphia Druggist and Chemist periodical. In 1890, he authored The Ladies New Medical Guide – An Instructor, Counselor and Friend. Vanderbeck ran a sanitarium on Franklin Avenue in St Louis by 1898, and was a frequent lecturer on health topics in the city.
In 1908, Dr. Vanderbeck established a private infirmary and maternity hospital at 2007 Park Avenue.
2011 Park Avenue, next door to 2007, was originally built in the late 1860’s for Johannes Ludewig, a wholesale furrier. It was home a decade later to George Muller, longtime owner of a saloon on North Third Street. His upscale watering hole was a favored meeting place for politicians and retired “colonels” over a generation.
In 1912, Vanderbeck sold 2007 Park Avenue and then rented it back. He used the proceeds to expand operations to 2011 Park Avenue. Vanderbeck bought that three story home from jeweler F.W. Drosten for $8,000. Now Vanderbeck’s offices, clinic and residence were in 2007 Park, and a a fifteen bed “private infirmary” operated next door. This arrangement lasted until 1920. The two buildings connected by a second floor breezeway. Evidence of the passage still remains in both houses.
It can be inferred that much of Vanderbeck’s work was charitable on behalf of unwed mothers. Frequent want ads in the papers advertised both for nurses and adoptive parents.
From maternity to eternity
Allen and Bessie McLaughlin bought 2011 Park Avenue in February of 1920. Their family ran a funeral home at 2007 Park Avenue until 1922. When C.C. Vanderbeck died in 1932, with funeral arrangements handled by McLaughlin Funeral Home. Next door, 2011 Park Avenue later converted to a hotel operated by B.C. McLaughlin.
Obit from 1922. Funeral at 2007 Park Avenue.
When the McLaughlin Funeral Home moved to 2301 Lafayette Avenue, 2007 Park Avenue became, like many large residential properties there, a rooming house. At one time it hosted a beauty parlor on the first floor. A faint image of the words ‘Beauty Shop’ are still visible occasionally in one of the original front windows.
A climb back to respectability
2007 Park languished as a rooming house from the 1940s through the 1960s. It’s good that the exterior was built for the long term, as that may have proven its saving grace. It sat before the main gates of beautiful Lafayette Park, but the neighborhood itself had fallen far from its Victorian glory.
St. Louis Globe-Democrat; March 1962, from an article entitled, “Neighborhoods of Distinction.” In the background are 2011, 2007 and 2003 Park Avenue.
Doug and Carol McDaniel moved into 2007 Park Avenue in 1973, and stayed for two decades. They cleared and landscaped the lot next door, overhauled the house, reconfigured walls and removed bathroom fixtures and a couple of kitchens.
May, 1975, with 2003 Park Avenue torn down and lot ready for improvement. Gates to Lafayette Park in background.
A small house at 2003 Park Ave was demolished and merged into the adjoining lot to create 2005 Park Avenue. Although extensively improved, it remains a legally buildable lot.
Rooming house to B&B and back to home
When Mike and Kathy Petetit purchased the house in 1997, they set about converting it to the Park Avenue Mansion B&B. It was a popular spot for weddings, receptions, honeymoons and neighborhood card tournaments for the following two decades. They sold the property in 2018 and retired to a single story home with pool in the Arizona desert.
When Mike and Patricia Jones bought 2007 Park Avenue that year, they did what people do with the big old rambling historical buildings in the Square. They tore apart and redesigned the kitchen, a bedroom and a bathroom. No matter how much one puts in, more is always indicated. A growing need for tuck pointing, rebuild of the fish pond and a new roof combined with Covid to keep the property from visitors and guests. This conspired to send the Joneses westward, into a new single story home in 2022.
2007 Park Avenue remains a key building among the mansions fronting Lafayette Park. The park dates to 1836, and the homes surrounding it mostly went up in the 1870s and 1880s. French Second Empire details like the mansard roof, tall arched windows, double sets of doors and extensive use of iron remain prevalent here, as in the immediate area.
Like the Lafayette Square neighborhood that surrounds it, 2007 Park Avenue is rich in history and protected as both a city and national historic district. Through generations of dedication to it, the home has kept with the times while maintaining its heritage.
Note: When we sold our home on the Square, our realtor created a video walk-through. If you’ve ever been curious about the innards of a house with this much exterior, you’re welcome to take a virtual tour, here: https://saint-louis-real-estate-photography-llc.aryeo.com/sites/YBMAJGW/unbranded
