Merry Christmas!

An assortment of buildings at the Anheuser Busch brewery near the badmansard.com global headquarters. 

Mansard Steeple

Near timberlake manor drive in chesterfield. 

Chouteau Park

Structures at Chouteau Park.  I think my kids will dig the colorful climbing mounds.   Not something you see at every St Louis park. 

Hackamore Lane

Located in Sappington near Lindbergh High School. Kind of cute. 

Foliage

Ginkgo carpet in shaw.  Red maple in Lasalle. Both photographs snapped while carpooling.

Queeny park

Back in the 1960s and 1970s St. Louis County must have commissioned a lot of bad mansard skating structures. Here is Queeny Park. There is also Kennedy recreation featured on this blog a few months ago

Union trio

It sounds like a jazz group but really three bad mansards in Franklin county. 

Grants trail

7:30 am hockey practice at Affton so I took a morning walk on grants trail. Saw this mansard. Almost busted by homeowner taking a smoke break. 

St. John Nepomuk

Sometimes I go to mass at St. John Nepomuk. This little mansard was part of the original church property and attached to the school. It's very cheerful. 

Mansard in progress

South county Kennedy recreation center. 

Mardel

Mardel avenue in lindenwood neighborhood of st louis. The bottom half is so cottage cute with the flowers and cuteness. The top not so much. It's the butter-face of houses  

Nicollet Island, Minneapolis, MN

Pretty mansards and garages on Nicollet Island in the Twin Cities.  Nicollet Island is a tiny neighborhood island in the middle of the Mississippi.  I can't think of any Mississippi River island near St. Louis with houses.  The closest "island" we have here in St. Louis must be Bloody Island which I think is now one of the peers of the Poplar Street Bridge.  And I think Chouteau Island is a green way of some type.  In conclusion, Nicollet Island = super handsome mansards.

Way Homer

Homer Street in St. Paul, MN.

I hear the word Homer and I think of one of my favorite scenes from Raising Arizona.

Glen: Shit, man, think about it! I guess it's what they call a "way homer."

H.I.: Why's that?

Glen: 'Cause you only get it on the way home.

H.I.: I'm already home, Glen.

I'm back home but I have plenty of mansards to share from my twin cities trip.

Somewhere in south county

That could be a new hash tag , somewhere in south county #sisc. 

Church of the Nazarene

Near Watson road in Webster groves. I remember this church being built?  Renovated?   when I was in junior high school. 

I am Iron-ton

Another in the mansard drive through bank series. This one in the Missouri Arcadia Valley city of Ironton.

Philadelphia freedom!

 From my father in law while visiting my husband's super smart robot making nephew at U of Pennsylvania.

Street lawn

I love our street lawn. I think the area technically is city property but I take care of the planting and maintenance.  

Upgrayed river duh pair

While the kids are at swim team practice I try to run or walk on the river des Peres  trail. I like the recent upgrades to the path and landscape. Smooth and wide. 

Kirkwood road

These remind me of something my kids would build out of Lego's. We have so

much drawing us to kirkwood road:  dentist (patient since 1976), rink, Total Hockey, ginger bay salon gift card, sports authority, hobby lobby, target, TJ Maxx. This mansard was starting to blend into the background but now I think it's getting the attention it deserves. 

Tower Grove Park -

 Here's how you know you've lived in South St. Louis for a long time: when you not only can name all the pavilions in Tower Grove Park but you actually have a favorite (or two). For me my favorite large pavilion is the Sons of Rest and my favorite small pavilion is the little Chinese pavilion.

I love that when I'm invited to a party in TGP that I know not only the name of each pavilion but the location of the bathrooms, best parking and quickest way in and out of the park.  Each pavillion reminds me of events in my life.  The Turkish* Pavillion for Gus' first communion picnic.  The Old Victorian wading pool pavillion for kindergarten field day.  The Old Playground Shelter for the annual St. Vincent de Paul Society Easter eggs hunt. 

So imagine how excited I was that this school year our picnic was moved from the stone shelter pavilion to the Sons of Rest. Except for one thing I don't think any of us foresaw-  the foot traffic down Grand Blvd created a lot of extra "guests".  

I had no problem sharing the food and beer with the occasional hobo.  But wow- a couple of scary people crashed the party.  There was a woman who was so drunk her efforts to steal food off the vegetable tray resulted in a trail of cauliflower and carrots around the pavillion site.  

wrap up analysis:

Sons of Rest pro's:

• not near creek (kids usually get soaked playing in creek near Stone Shelter)
• beautiful, larger shelter 
• lights in shelter worked (seems like Stone never works)
• much closer to school and nearby neighborhoods so more families could walk to picnic
• closer to playground
• close to Grand (older kids walked to Tower Grove Creamery)

Son's of Rest con's:

• close to Grand, thus the random hobo party
• it was chilly; would have been nice to have a fire.  If I weren't so lazy I would have had organized the girl scouts to build a fire

*Am I the only one who thinks of Jason Statham, Transporter and Madonna when someone mentions the Turkish Pavillion?  If you're not following along, Turkish was a character in the movie Snatch played by Jason Statham, also of the excellent guilty pleasure movie series Transporter and Crank.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0208092/

Maison de Jeux avec Mansard

Playhouse with a mansard!  What lucky children in Nashville , TN to have this little playhouse.  Thank you reader Ruth for sending me the picture.

Sanders service

On Watson road near Lindbergh aka kirkwood road aka highway 61/67. 

Columbia

Here are a couple of pictures snapped in Columbia Missouri on our recent trip to Colorado. The first is in the Broadway diner.   When I was in school at Mizzou Broadway diner was at a different location on the intersection of Broadway and Providence. It has has been moved to the other side of broadway. 

The second is of a mansard we saw in Columbia but it could've been independence. Not sure. There is one mansard in Columbia which eludes me: the Columbia Tribune office is a big bad gold mansard. I need to get pictures ASAP

American legion fish fry - Soulard

The bad mansard family, who try to be good Catholics, had a nice time at the Soulard American Legion Hall fish fry. The legion put on a nice fish fry. Great fish and excellent green beans. Cheap pitchers of beer. As you can see the kids enjoyed running around on asphalt drinking soda.

I think there is another fish fry in April. The American legion fish fry is a nice alternative to some of the other fish fries in South city which do tend to get very large and crowded.  

We're also going to hit st Mary Magdalen and st agatha for more fish fries this lent 

Winter park

The Olympia hotel in winter park, Colorado.  The picture of my son on a snowboard is a bonus. 

Depressed in Festus

Totally depressing. A cold and dreary day in Festus Missouri taking a deposition.  No green anywhere. Just gray sky, dirty snow and bad brown mansard roof tops. 

Faker!

I found myself on Tamm Avenue taking my second daughter to one of her three basketball games. I found this faker mansard near St. James the greater Catholic school. Today we have bocce ball near St. Ambrose. We'll see what kind of bad mansard I find over there. I wouldn't find nearly as many bad mansards if i weren't driving to sports all weekend 

American family bad mansard

Go ahead. Sing the American family jingle to yourself but change the word insurance to Bad mansard.  This Alpine A-frame mansard sits at Lindbergh and Gravois.  It was certainly part of the Alpine mansard movement of the late 60s which also brought us the infamous "Brannon Avenue triple threat".

Mansards in the news

Here is a beautiful mansard in Soulard that made the news this past week with a natural gas leak that resulted explosion blowing the top off this lovely place. So sad to see this much of the building destroyed by thankfully everyone was evacuated in time and there was no injury. 

U-g-l-y

I found this on my camera roll but i can't remember where I found it. Very interesting, isn't it?

Deuces

Two of my favorite mansard houses in Soulard side by side