Boxy but good

I saw this little guy on 9th Street in Soulard across from 9th Street Abbey.  I can't decide if it's infill or a rehab.  I guess that's the sign of either a good rehab or good infill if you can't tell the difference between the two.  I thought to myself, "boxy but good."  That comes from Crazy People.  Dudley Moore rebrands Volvo as boxy but good.

But the neighbor to the south?  Condemned.  You don't see that much anymore in Soulard.  I'm guessing because the course of bricks above the door appears to be falling in front of the entryway.

Old North

 Audrey had a girl scout project in the Old North community garden this morning.  Going on at the same time was the lively Old North 14th Street Market with produce, people and music.  Great to see Old North continuing its upward momentum.  I am confident that in 10-15 years we'll talk of Old North just as we talk now of Soulard, Lafayette Square and Benton Park.

That's why these bad mansards are so sad.  Houses just like them are lovingly rehabbed all over the near south side.  But Old North is only where Soulard and Lafayette Square were in the 1980's.

Sad/Happy

Some things over the Memorial Day weekend made me sad, like this little mansard buddy near Ohio and Sidney in St. Louis near St. Francis de Sales.  It's owned by Stanfield Investments and delinquent in taxes.

But the remainder of the weekend was filled with visually pleasing things.  Our girl scout troop had planned to go to the Junior Jamboree at Forest Park.  That event was cancelled due to low registration likely due to the fact the Girl Scouts had no publicity for the event, especially when compared to the PR overkill they are doing on the Big Day for Girls on September 22.  We are probably skipping the Big Day for Girls.  The 100 birthday bash was traumatizing and I am not sure I can handle that kind of crowd again, especially on a precious Saturday. 

Back to the picture.  Our troop (now Juniors!) went to Forest Park anyway with absolutely no plan.  And it was a good day.  We fed the ducks, played on the playground, took the Metro bus around the park and hung out at the History Museum where low and behold we had a campfire in front of a VW bus.  

And lots of other good stuff- bike racks, hydrangea, digging rocks.

These bike racks have been popping up everywhere.  I think they are handsome.

OMG.  Is there anything better looking than this year's hydrangea?  I have NEVER seen them this colorful.

BBQ at the neighbors where the local kids ruined a lovely landscaped garden by digging rocks to haul around in dumptrucks.  Sorry Jen!

Hot mansard

It's hot here in St. Louis.  94 degree high today.  It was sunny with a nice breeze and seemingly low humidity.  All makes for a great Memorial Day weekend.  Perfect for hitting the pool.  

I hope this Benton Park mini-mansard has a better way of staying cool than the screens and teeny-tiny box fan.  All-brick houses in this heat are like pizza ovens and give off heat even after it cools down.  To test the effect, try walking by the brick wall on Broadway near the Anheuser Busch brewery.  It jumps about 10 degrees near the brick wall on a cool night.  

Sunny Side of the Street

A sunny day made more delightful by the discovery of a sunny mansard with a bad green top and then a trip to the zoo with my favorite 5th grader and preschooler.  

Children #1 and #4 were on a zoo field trip together.  The 4/5th graders are 

'buddies' to the little ones in the Montessori preschool classrooms.  With 2 of my kids going to the zoo it was clearly one of those field trips I was going to be chaperoning.  I tried to cram in a million errands before reporting to school by 9 for driving duties.   As I made my way down Pestalozzi I spotted this yellow and green disaster.

I am getting a little sad this special school year is coming to a close.  It was neat to have a 1st year preschooler, a kindergartner, a 3rd grader and a 5th grader.  I'll never have that line up again.  

Sunny Side of the Street is one of my favorite Pogues songs.  It's even a little cheerful.  Click here

Mimi (in jumper) and her friend Beatrice.  I call them Miatrice.  Some trivia for you- B's sister is also a Mimi (her real name is Mildred whereas my Mimi is a Magdalena).  B's dad and I went to law school together and my father in law (Mimi's grandfather) went to grade school with Beatrice's grandfather at Holy Redeemer in Webster Groves.  

Benton Park évasion de feu

That's Benton Park fire escape. This neglected but lovely friend sits on Utah in the southern part of Benton Park. You can barely see its facade due to the fire escape, brick veneer, grates, bad door, plywood and overgrown vines (are those trumpet vine? euonymus? it doesn't look like ivy).

It's for sale and evidently this place is so bad it takes 4 realtors* to try to move the place.

It does have great potential so I hope it finds a buyer.

*spell check wants me to capitalize realtor. Tell you what- I'll capitalize realtor once we start capitalizing other relevant professions like Art Director, Lawyer, Police Officer and Garbage Collector.

And here are the mansards of Old North

Obviously I took some pictures of some Old North mansards. Here is quite a range of potential- what can be done and what needs to be done. I'd be interested to hear how many of the falling down buildings are owned by Paul McKee and his many entities.

How hoosiers do a mansard

It took me a few seconds to figure out the problem with this Benton Park 2-family at McNair near Gravois, across the street from Hodak's Fried Chicken. This mansard is totally white trash (or, as we'd say, hoosier). So bad, in fact, that I started thinking and talking like a hoosier.

I says in my best South City voice, "Where da third floor windows?" And then I thinks to myself I think I seen that the third floor facade is vinyl siding or some type of corrugated steel.

I *imagine* this was botched by a hoosier-turned-rehabber too cheap to properly shingle the third floor. Our rehabber used to be a roofer but he got drunk and fell off a roof a few years back. At the time, he was getting paid under the table and wasn't an actual employee of the shady contractor who brought him onto the job for $100 and a case of Busch and a bottle of Jack. The roofer tried to get workers comp from the contractor. Continuing in my imagination, the ALJ considered our roofer to be a statutory employee of the contractor but assessed a 50% safety penalty for being drunk so pretend roofer didn't actually get any money. So, he turned to rehabbing on the south side used some scrap metal to rehab this place. None of this happened but that is the level of workmanship of the facade.

But, remember a lot of roofers are drunks so be careful who you hire.

And don't shingle your third floor with siding.

That joke isn't funny any more

This sad, sad little thang is at Pennsylvania and Chippewa. Despite the freezing temps, I pulled over and took a picture. And this unhappy, depressing Smiths song went through my head.

A song about parking on the side of the road and laughing at people (well, their houses). A bad mansard CLOSE TO HOME (this house is a few miles from my own; I think this was in Marine Villa).

I don't think Morrissey was thinking about bad mansards when he and Johnny Marr wrote That Joke, but I still felt slightly ashamed taking this picture because this little guy is in such bad shape.

park the car at the side of the road

you should know, time's tide will smother you
and I will too
when you laugh about people who feel so very lonely
their only desire is to die
well, I'm afraid it doesn't make me smile
I wish I could laugh

but that joke isn't funny anymore
it's too close to home
and it's too near the bone
it's too close to home
and it's too near the bone

So there you have it. A mansard that tore at my heart and made me feel shameful. A house that is so very Smiths-y. South City St. Louis is quite far away from Morrissey's hometown of Manchester, England, but somehow I can imagine him and this house understanding each other.

an aside: I did see a solo Morrissey perform at the Orpheum in 1998 (guessing on date). He was pissed at the venue and even madder when all people wanted to hear was Smiths songs. He performed for 40 minutes, told the audience St. Louis sucked and stormed off the stage. And folks thought it was still awesome. After we left, my husband got drunk sick in the St. Charles alley at 11st Street. As he puked, he reminisced about how much the Smiths had meant to him as a younger man.

Please don't do this

Marine Villa, I think. I'm running out of mansard pictures and found this in iphoto.

Could have been a peach of a place but it's been ruined by Permastone and bad replacement vinyl windows on top. At least, I think that's Permastone. I'm going to feel really bad if that's not Permastone and instead an 19th century attempt at a Richardsonian 2nd Empire Mansard.

Does the mansard even matter?

Here at on Gravois at Ohio is the 1 Night Stand. One stop shopping for:

• Lottery tickets
• Awful permastone facade
• Bud Light
• Karaoke
• Packaged liquor
• "Coldest beer"
• Latin Rite Mass (St. Francis DeSales is across the street)

Combien de maisons?

Driving down Sidney today on the way back from Tower Grove Park. The fire department had Sidney closed off, forcing me to detour and, voila, find this doozie.

Very strange double wide unit, 3 story mansard to the left, sans mansard to the right. Originally, was this one house? Two houses? Where did the other mansard roof go? What's with the portion of the sad building that juts out? Does the decorative detail at the top continue all the way across? John and I debated this.

He says/she says:

John: This was two buildings joined by bricking the gangway that would have existed between the two buildings. It looks like there are side entrances so it's unlikely that center door is the original. Also, the foundations are different and there appears to be brick 'seams' on either side of the center window, suggesting the center section was bricked in later.

Kristan: I think it was a huge house with one mansard roof and for some reason (tornado?) the right side came off. It was rebuilt with just one side. After all, why would you brick in a gangway and add a second floor? WHat do you gain from that, another 20 square feet? And if the early homeowners bricked over a gangway, wouldn't the brick be much, much different? I also think the frieze above the windows continues across the entire building.

At Ohio and Shenandoah. I guess I could look up the city records or look closer at the basement level. What do you think?

Mansard a Manhattan

This sad mansard is in the super cute City of St. Louis border neighborhood of Elldendale. I met my mom and her husband at Piccadilly's for lunch to pick up my older daughters. Piccadilly's is a nice little place, by the way. Service is a little slow, but it's a pleasant wait. Food is good. Beer is cold. Ellendale is the neighborhood east of McLains, the dive bar at Big Bend and Oxford.

I'm a little embarrassed that until today I did not know this little cute neighborhood was in the city. I always assumed it was Maplewood. I grew up in Brentwood and Webster Groves and drove down Big Bend 10,000 times and never, ever knew the city of St. Louis was so close.

That brings up another topic. I was talking to a city friend who explained some people she knew in the county (mostly far west county and St. Charles) refused to come to the city. I've never, ever encountered that with my Webster/Kirkwood/Glendale/Rock Hill/Brentwood/Ladue friends. I think the city and the inner portions of the county share a lot of attributes: big trees, pretty houses, neat neighbords, gridded streets and railroads.

Minnesota Twins

Minnesota Avenue near highway 55 off of Bates.

Two mini-mansards with bizarre vinyl siding additions. It took me FOREVER to track these down. I saw these from highway 55 for more than a year but never could get the car onto Minnesota to take a picture. Finally got it, although I stopped traffic on Minnesota and got some real mean looks from vehicles waiting behind me. Don't mess around with folks at Bates and Minnesota.

J'ai regret

So sorry I've been lazy at keeping up bad mansard. February is Mardi Gras month and we host a party for about 150 the Friday before Ash Wednesday. About 2 weeks of setting up and another week of putting the house back together. The party went well as far as I remember, but I lost track about 2 hours into the party when I declared, "F. it, it's my party, and I'm gonna keep drinking..." Here's a picture of me when I've been overserved. I'm doing the Der Komissar dance in my kitchen.

I present a baby mansard row of houses to ponder. Two replicas, one original, and one bitching yellow camero. Thanks to a reader (Matt?) for sending me the Google streetview picture of the mal ensemble. Appropriately, the bitching camero was also on Google streetview.

Tip: if you're going to build a new 2nd Empire next to an old 2nd Empire, please get the ceiling heights and scale correct. The replica dwellings look like section 8 dwarf housing.

Buon Natale!

Shaw Avenue on the Hill. For those not from St. Louis, the Hill is St. Louis' Italian neighborhood known for its strong sense of community, Zoysia sod, great food and cute shot-gun houses. This one? The mansard isn't so cute, nor is the satellite dish. I do always appreciate Christmas spirit with the reindeers, lights, etc.

Cosmetic Makeovers, Hannibal Edition

Today's mansard looks pretty good until you look closely- some windows are boarded and tuckpointing is desperately needed. I've written extensively about the sad state of Hannibal's historic district. There just don't appear to be enough folks in Hannibal who appreciate historic housing who have the money to rehab Hannibals' incredible housing stock.

Who's the chic? That's the new Bravo Housewife of Orange County, Alexis. Click here if you want to dumb yourself down and read more about the Real Housewives (I admit I watch). Alexis grew up in Hannibal. Clearly she's had some work done (giant boobies!). Wouldn't it be nice if as much rehab went on in her hometown.

Mon coeur est triste

My heart is sad. So much is wrong here- roofing material, windows, meter by the door, paneling, Home Depot door, etc.

2511 Salena in Benton Park must be part of another property because the address does not show up in the Assessor's data base.

Looks like copper around the top. At least it hasn't been stolen.

sad? bad? mad?

Another from the Lost Mansards of Downtown Hannibal series.  Is that permastone on the facade?  I suspect there's a cute little house hidden under there.  

So I was talking to some Hannibal folks about the struggling state of its historic housing.  My sources tell me there just aren't enough people with the money and good taste to properly rehab downtown Hannibal.  To which I blurted out, "don't you have any gay guys?"   Evidently not.  

I told my source not to lose hope in beautiful little Hannibal.  St. Louis almost gave up on Soulard and Lafayette Square 35 years ago.  Look at these neighborhoods now, rehabbed one sad mansard at a time.  

Mansard help!

This is 2162 Geyer in the McKinley Heights neighborhood at the intersection of Geyer and Missouri.  Waverly Place Associates (maybe affiliated with YEHS?) has owned the place since 1985.  This mansard looks to be well-secured and dry; someone seems to give a semi-shit about it.  

I think this place would be a fan-freaking-tastic if rehabbed.  Looks to be about 4000 square feet.  Nice little corner lot with part of an extra lot.  Intact cornice, brackets, molding, etc.  Anyone know more about this house or its owners?  What's with the little side door?  Sorry, J'ai plus questions than answers.  It's an intriguing grande mansard.