The Italians yet again

This little butterface is for sale. Here's the listing: link. It's a cute place but for its top facade. I like the floor plan and the details inside. Rip the siding off the mansard, paint the kitchen a nice avocado green and it's a nice place for under $90,000.

Thanks to my friend Patsy for sending me the picture. Patsy was the first mommy friend I made. It was March 2001 and I was eating brunch with my newborn and husband at the now defunct market/coffee shop Marche (on Park in Lafayette Square where the Chocolate Bar is now located).

Patsy walked up to me and said, "hey, a few of us in the neighborhood just had babies and we get together for playdates and the like." And so it was. A Lafayette Square playgroup.

Now Patsy is the co-leader of the Brownie troop. She nor I live in Lafayette Square anymore. She lives in the neighborhood where my kids go to school and I live in the neighborhood where her kids go to school. I need to go get a drink with Patsy at the Chocolate Bar- where it all started.

Save the Del Taco flying saucer!

Some short-sighted jerk wants to tear down this awesome building and make another ugly strip mall. If you're not in St. Louis, here's some background: the flying saucer was built in the 1960's a Phillips 66 and later a bank. In the 1980's it became a Naugles and is now a Del Taco. It's on the Saint Louis University campus. Drunk people have been getting late night food here for as long as I can remember.

Badmansard was a Naugles purist and went to the Maple-hood Naugles while in high school (photo below- now a Quiznos and a bad mansard). However, I went to law school at SLU and visited this site frequently. Let's not tear it down. It's a cool conversation piece.

Badmansard knows not every mid century modern can be saved, but we're smart enough to figure a way to keep this one. You can check out the facebook page here: LINK.

Lewd and Indecent Mansard Exposure

Gentlemen, meet the Queen of Hearts, Fenton's premium strip club. It's not full on strip club, but rather a pasty club meaning the girls wear nipple coverings. That plan may have backfired for the Queen of Hearts. I'm told they've had problems with local law enforcement and the St. Louis County Liquor Commission for failure to adhere (pun intended) to the pasties and going full-on nudie instead.

I could have taken a better picture but I had to get the Busch sign in the picture. Ya'll know I love my Busch memorabilia.

Found this mansard running on the Meramec Trail while my oldest daughter had a soccer thing at Fenton Park. She plays on one of those year-round "select" clubs. Fortunately, it's a south-city centered club and we practice at Nottingham school. I am lazy and competitive at the same time.

Excited for tonight- at the recent school auction a group bought a VW microbus architectural pub crawl. Yes, all that. A group of us are getting in two VW Microbuses for a tour of St. Louis architectural highlights and stopping at bars and restaurants along the way.

Finally, Queen of Hearts is a Juice Newton song before all else:

Badmansard weekend

Scenes from the badmansard weekend. Friday night we had a pool party for the 2nd and 4th grade GirlScouts atthe LafayetteSquare Bath and Tennis.

In our garden, the

Southern Magnolia re blooming. The bloom is lovely, but with the bloom comes shedding of big, crispy brown magnolia leaves. I pay the kids a nickel a leaf

to pick them up. THe other plant picture is my tree lawn (the strip of plantings betwe

en the sidewalk and

street). White Shasta daisy, purple sage, knock out roses.

Saturday featured a Crawfish boil. Good times were had by all. Fortunately, we put our collective parenting foot down and told the kids there would be no crawfish pets taken home from the party. And imagine my surprise when we arrived home- not soon thereafter the naked bike ride went by our house. In fact, there was a collision pile-up of nakeds!

Finally, Sunday was learn to play hock

ey at Affton, the only time we left the city limits. Gus calls this his hockey face.

Washington

I go to Washington, MO about 4 times a year. This is a public works building built a few years ago. I think it is attractive and blends in well with the downtown Washington area.

The mansard that almost killed me...

I run about 10 miles a week, divided between two 5 mile runs. This past Sunday, with temperatures in the upper 70's and humid, I decided to go for a longer run, just to prove to myself at age 40 that I could do it.

I run during the winter on the YMCA treadmills, frequently 7 miles. But running outside in the humidity for 7 miles is a little different. The first run in the summer heat is brutal, and upping my mileage by 2 miles was probably stupid. I ran from my house in Soulard all the way over Sidney, through Tower Grove Park to Kingshighway and then back. About 7 miles. By mile 6.25 I was about to die. I was on the stretch of Sidney between California and Jefferson and there were no trees, I was running uphill and kept looking for something that would give myself permission to stop running (red light, police barricade, chatting with a friends, ANYTHING!).

Saw a mansard in the distance. An oasis of sorts. A weird mansard next to the Bank of America at the city's most confusing intersection of Jefferson/Gravois/Sidney. I stopped and took a picture of a mansard.

This appears to be an art deco addition on the front. It is easy to miss because the house is hidden behind a tree. Goodness do I hate that door. After my badmansard break, I kept running and arrived home so sweaty that all the kids wanted to feel my calves because they were so wet and shiny.

Also featured is a great carriage stone on Sidney Street. I wonder if this is even a carriage stone, or a fancy hitch. A carriage stone is a big rectangle piece of marble or limestone plopped in the front of city homes, usually right by the front walk. The stones would allow the passenger of a horse-drawn coach to exit gracefully. They were installed when the houses were built, usually between 1870 and 1910. Once the automobile arrived people didn't need carriage stones anymore.

Some remain in place in the city of St. Louis in their original spot between the sidewalk and the street, others have been moved into gardens (they make great benches for kids to play and for grown-ups to read) and others were discarded (buried, put in the alley or broken into pieces). I am not sure I've ever seen a top part with a bar. Maybe there was a separate stone and this was the hitch. Or this could be the stone and the hitch together. I have no idea. Ideas regarding my miserable run and the carriage stone appreciated.