# St Louis's Private Places

## St Louis, Missouri. 1851–1922

Though not unlike the tradition of London squares, St Louis's 'private places' are virtually without parallel in the United States, their nearest analogy being New York's Gramercy Park, where access is restricted to tenants of immediately surrounding buildings. But the private places go beyond, or at least depart from, both the London and New York models in their establishment within a city of clearly defined neighbourhoods or enclaves designed at a suburban scale. They typically consist of a broad boulevard, divided by a generous planting strip and marked at both ends by gates, that runs between large houses with common setbacks on small lots. Strict development controls were usually established by the street association.

S L Sherer, writing in 1904, summed up the virtues of the private places in St Louis: 'The idea of private places is one that promotes the union of house and garden essential to the art of living rightly. ... It imparts a measure of privacy to homelife ... and serves to protect a neighborhood from many annoyances that necessarily surround localities where restrictions do not pertain. And ... it encourages the building of houses of a higher standard of architectural excellence, and thus makes for a better life.'

Lucas Place, planned by James Lucas in 1851, was St Louis's first place, although it was Benton Place, built in 1868, that established the pattern for future plans. At Benton Place the road passes through a single gated entry and divides to encircle a lushly planted park surrounded by houses that are freestanding but decidedly urban, much like detached rowhouses with windows punched in the side walls. Only a few houses, such as the Peabody & Stearns's design built much later in 1900, depart significantly from the urban prototype.

Vandeventer Place, started in 1870, enriched the pattern with the addition of more suburban houses. Although the earliest houses on the street adhered to the urban model, later designs by Peabody & Stearns, Henry Hobson Richardson, and Burnham & Root broke free of the rectangular confines of that paradigm. Julius Pitzmann took the process one step further in his design for Compton Heights by capitalising on existing topography to create a winding street freed from the city gridiron.

Two other private places built in 1889, Westmorland and Portland Places, are among the grandest, exceeded only by Kingsbury Place and Washington Terrace, both developed the next year. All are marked by extraordinarily elaborate gateways and large

houses. Lewis Place, also of 1890, is entered through a grandly Roman triumphal arch, but its houses are more modest.

In this century, Henry Wright initiated his career as a planner by designing Brentmoor, a private place just outside the city limits. Towards the end of his life Wright reflected on his early work in St Louis in relation to his later designs: 'It was but natural,' he wrote, 'that my first commission for Brentmoor in St Louis

should turn its back upon the passing boulvard and face its houses upon a lovely ravine.'²

### Notes

1. In his article 'The "Places" of St Louis, A Form of the Suburban Community Peculiar to the World's Fair City', *House and Garden* 5, April 1904, pp 187-191.

2. Quoted by his son Henry N Wright in 'Radburn Revisited', *Architectural Forum* 135, July-August 1971, pp 52-57.

1 Eames and Young, Westmorland Place, houses, c 1890

2 Benton Place

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