Tag Archives: Lucas Place

Campbell Kids » The Campbell House Architects

Our house. A very very very fine house.

» THE SETUP

For years, we did­n’t know who the archi­tect of Camp­bell House was. It was assumed that the devel­op­er used stock archi­tec­tur­al plans, or William Ful­ton — an archi­tect who designed build­ings for James Lucas — was respon­si­ble for the design. Now we know who the archi­tect (in this case, archi­tects) real­ly is.

While dig­ging through the St. Louis Coun­ty Cir­cuit Court Records at the Mis­souri State Archive, we found a mechan­ic’s lien for our prop­er­ty, dat­ed July 14, 1851. On the lien, the archi­tects are list­ed along with their fees. The image is below, but here’s a transcription:

[From] Messrs. Don­ald­son & Hall
To Edgar & Walsh
1851 July 14
To sketch ground plans & front elevation
for two hous­es pro­posed to be erect­ed in Lucas Place.….$5.00
To draw­ings for two hous­es designed to
be erect­ed in Bremin [sic] & view­ing grounds of same.….$15.00
To plans and full inspec­tions for two three story
hous­es with fin­ished base­ments, sta­bles, etc.
com­plete for Lucas Place includ­ing detail or
back­ing drawings.….….….….….….….….….….….….….…$25.00
To alter­ations in same sub­sti­tut­ing plane
for orna­men­tal fronts, and mak­ing same
three sto­ry with­out base­ment fin­ish .….….….….….….…..$5.00
[Total] $50.00
Rec’d Payments

[Note: The doc­u­ment ref­er­ences two hous­es. This is cor­rect;  Edgar and Walsh were hired to design 20 Lucas Place (Camp­bell House) and the house next door at 22 Lucas Place.]

The mechan­ic’s lien.

The archi­tects — Joseph C. Edgar and Thomas Waryng Walsh — worked togeth­er for three years, between 1850 and 1853. Dur­ing this peri­od they com­plet­ed five pub­lic build­ings includ­ing Dis­ci­ples of Christ Chris­t­ian Church on Fifth Street [demol­ished], Old St. Vin­cen­t’s Catholic Church in Cape Girardeau, and the Kirk­wood Hotel [lost to fire in 1867].

The Old Cour­t­house was built in the Greek Revival style in 1839, twelve years before Camp­bell House.

What did Edgar and Walsh build for us? A con­ven­tion­al town­house in the Greek Revival style, a look that was pop­u­lar in New York and Philadel­phia in the 1850s. Three-sto­ries with a two-sto­ry floun­der (rear wing of the house, usu­al­ly con­sid­ered the “work­ing area” or a space for ser­vants), Camp­bell House has a full base­ment, sev­en lev­els on five floors and approx­i­mate­ly 11,000 square feet of space. (That’s a lot.…the aver­age Amer­i­can home is 2,700 square feet.)

Since the Camp­bells lived here for 84 years, they changed a few things. They added a large kitchen on the back of the house. They enclosed a side porch to make the Morn­ing Room (a small sit­ting room). In 1867 they added a floor on top of the two-sto­ry floun­der to cre­ate three more rooms.

The Eugene Field House was the sec­ond-to-last house in Wal­sh’s Row of twelve attached homes. Note the place­ment of the build­ing right next to the side­walk with no room for a front yard. The Eugene Field House was saved from the wreck­ing ball when the oth­er eleven homes were demol­ished in 1934.

Camp­bell House and the rest of the hous­es on Lucas Place were sig­nif­i­cant because the design of the hous­es and they way they were arranged on their lots were dif­fer­ent than any­thing else St. Louis had seen. Pri­or to Lucas Place, most homes in St. Louis were attached, row-style and were built right on the side­walk with no front yards, very much like the Eugene Field House. Camp­bell House has a front yard and, even though it was built in a town­house style, it was four feet away from its next door neigh­bor. (The Camp­bells had an emp­ty lot on the oth­er side.)

» ACTIVITY: MY HOUSE
Suit­able for grades K‑5

We live in all sorts of dif­fer­ent build­ings. Some of us live in a house, oth­ers live in an apart­ment and some kids even live on wheels! Today, let’s pre­tend we’re archi­tects and draw our own hous­es with ele­va­tions and floor plans. An ele­va­tion is a draw­ing of one side of your house, like this:

Front, rear and cut­away ele­va­tions of Camp­bell House.

Floor­plans are a map of the rooms of your house, like this:

Floor plans of the first (top) and sec­ond (bot­tom) floors of Camp­bell House.

To get you start­ed, click here to down­load and print a blank floor plan, then click here to down­load and print a blank ele­va­tion plan.

First, draw the floor plan of your house, using the blank plans you just print­ed and col­ored pen­cils, mark­ers or crayons. Be sure to label each room: kitchen, liv­ing room, bath­room, your bed­room, and any oth­er rooms you have. If you have a sec­ond (or third!) floor in your house, draw a sep­a­rate floor plan for each floor. Not all rooms are per­fect­ly square or rec­tan­gu­lar, so draw the rooms true to their shape. It may help if you sit in the mid­dle of each room and can see how all the walls come togeth­er. Make sure you include door­ways and windows!

When you fin­ish your floor plan, use the print­out of the ele­va­tion plan to draw an ele­va­tion of the front of your house, com­plete with doors, win­dows, steps and any dec­o­ra­tions that may be on the front of it. Is there a garage attached to your house? Is your house made of brick or wood or stuc­co? Include as many details as you can that make your house special.

After you’re done with your ele­va­tion and floor plans, have show and tell with your friends to explain the rooms of your house and what you like best about each one. When talk­ing about the ele­va­tion, be sure to tell your class­mates what makes your house unique and dif­fer­ent from all the oth­er hous­es or build­ings on your street.

If you want to share what you did, email files over to shel­ley [at] campbellhousemuseum.org, and we’ll share your draw­ings on our blog! We hope you enjoy mak­ing draw­ings of your house, and be sure to check back in two weeks for anoth­er fun activity!

Lucas Place in a nutshell

Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Andy with the crew at 14th and Locust, the orig­i­nal loca­tion of Gov­er­nor-then-Sen­a­tor Polk’s house. Andy is hold­ing a pic­ture of the house.

A cou­ple of weeks ago, we con­duct­ed one of our Lucas Place Walk­ing Tours, and we had a load of fun shar­ing the his­to­ry of our neigh­bor­hood with such an enthu­si­as­tic group. Why, you may ask, would any­one be inter­est­ed in the his­to­ry of this old street? Easy: Aside from its sig­nif­i­cance as the first exclu­sive neigh­bor­hood in St. Louis, the peo­ple who lived here were some of the most influ­en­tial in the region. Much of the his­to­ry of St. Louis is entwined with the peo­ple who lived here.

Back­ground

Cue this song.

In 1850, sib­lings James Lucas and Ann Lucas Hunt (sound famil­iar?) planned a res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment on farm­land they had inher­it­ed from their father. This new “sub­ur­ban” neigh­bor­hood was west of the city, and it stretched along what is now Locust Street between 13th and 16th Streets.

How was this new ‘hood exclusive?

  • They were expen­sive. $100 per front foot. Lots were at min­i­mum 25 feet wide, and nobody bought just one lot. This price exclud­ed all but the wealth­i­est of buyers.
  • It was remote, about 1 mile west of the Mis­sis­sip­pi River.

  • Lucas Place, cir­ca 1875.

    Deed restric­tions were on the prop­er­ty, and this was unusu­al back then. Among them:  hous­es were to be built 25 feet away from the street, thus pro­duc­ing front yards (hous­es were typ­i­cal­ly built right on the side­walk), and the fol­low­ing busi­ness­es were pro­hib­it­ed: gro­ceries, apothe­caries, restau­rants, and theatres.

  • Lucas Place was off­set from the exist­ing street grid with Mis­souri Park at the east end of the street, thus serv­ing as a bar­ri­er between the ele­gant homes and the hus­tle and bus­tle of the city.
  • Lots were a gen­er­ous 155 feet deep. (That’s only 5 feet shy of the width of a foot­ball field.)
  • “Place” instead of “avenue” or “street” implied an impor­tant des­ti­na­tion, which rein­forced the exclu­siv­i­ty of the homes and residents.

The tee­ny-wee­nie Lucas-How house at 1515 Lucas Place.

Build­ings

Our Camp­bell House was the first one built on the street in 1851, and it was prob­a­bly the small­est one in the neigh­bor­hood. Homes on the north side of Lucas Place were much larg­er. Case in point, #1515, the Lucas-How res­i­dence. It sat across from Robert and Vir­gini­a’s, and it was rough­ly twice as large as Camp­bell House. We have a gen­er­ous 10,000 square feet, and the Lucas-How house was prob­a­bly about 20,000 square feet. (For com­par­i­son, new homes built in 2010 came in around 2392 square feet.)

Lucas Place was the place to be, and it rep­re­sent­ed the beau­ti­ful side of our fair city. So it should come as no sur­prise that when­ev­er impor­tant guests were in town, they were parad­ed through the neigh­bor­hood. The homes of some of the most influ­en­tial men and women in St. Louis were big and pris­tine with immac­u­late­ly main­tained yards, and the whole street was lined by MARBLE side­walks. (Real­ly.) Lucas Place was a sight to see.

View of Lucas Place dur­ing a parade in 1895.

In addi­tion to the res­i­dences, some busi­ness­es that were not pro­hib­it­ed by the deed restric­tions were on the street, includ­ing the orig­i­nal home of the St. Louis Art Muse­um and Mary Insti­tute (now called Mary Insti­tute Coun­try Day School.) The first pub­lic high school west of the Mis­sis­sip­pi sat behind Camp­bell House at 15th Street and Olive, and Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty was two blocks away on Wash­ing­ton Avenue.

Who

Aside from James Lucas (#1515) and sis­ter Ann Lucas Hunt (#1706), some big muck­ety-mucks were Camp­bell neigh­bors, including:

  • Hen­ry Hitch­cock, the first dean of Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty. (#1507)
  • Amadee Valle, Mis­souri con­gress­man and friend to Abra­ham Lin­coln and Hen­ry Shaw. (#1516)
  • Gen­er­al William Har­ney, the com­man­der of the Army’s Depart­ment of the West dur­ing the Civ­il War. (#1428)
  • Trusten Polk, Gov­er­nor of Mis­souri (1856) and U.S. Sen­a­tor (1857–1863). (#1400)
  • John How, May­or of St. Louis, 1853–1857. (#1515 before James Lucas moved in.)
  • Hen­ry Kayser, city engi­neer who designed St. Louis’ first plumb­ing and sew­er sys­tems. (#1420)

View from Camp­bell House at the inter­sec­tion of Locust and 15th, look­ing east on Locust. Cir­ca 1920.

Demise

The deed restric­tions expired 30 years after the land was ini­tial­ly pur­chased from the Lucas­es. Since many of the hous­es were built in the 1850s and 1860s, the covenants were expir­ing in the 1880s and 1890s. This is when hous­es were con­vert­ed to busi­ness­es and board­ing hous­es, and the wealthy res­i­dents moved to more fash­ion­able neigh­bor­hoods far­ther west, includ­ing Port­land Place, Lafayette Square and Van­de­ven­ter Place.

The park bar­ri­er between Lucas Place and the rest of the city was removed in the 1890s, and Lucas Place was renamed Locust Street. The area evolved into an indus­tri­al neigh­bor­hood, with ware­hous­es and fac­to­ries replac­ing the hous­ing stock. Camp­bell House remained as the last home from Lucas Place.

Here are a few more notable images of Lucas Place.…

Before: The Kayser House, #1420. It was built in 1864.

After: The Kayser House short­ly before it was razed in the 1930s.

Camp­bell House, cir­ca 1930.

What’s new at CHM

Ran­dom fun­ny his­to­ry thing. Yep, the CHM blog is back. (For more on these uber­cool posters, here’s the full sto­ry: http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/story-of-the-historically)

It’s been awhile since we’ve been on here, but let’s just say the super fan­cy new look of our blog — cour­tesy of the awe­some nin­jas at Think Tank — has inspired us to get back to it.

What have we been up to? One word: Loads.

Between inten­sive research and a cal­en­dar chock-full of spe­cial events, we’ve been busy lit­tle bees at the Muse­um. Here’s what we’ve been up to:

  • You know the names McCaus­land, Clay­ton and Mar­shall, don’t you? Not only are these the names of streets that are for­ev­er linked to the land­scape of St. Louis, but all of them are relat­ed to the Camp­bells. More on this over the next week or so as we fin­ish writ­ing the story.
  • Research con­tin­ues on Eliza Rone, the slave Robert eman­ci­pat­ed in 1857. We have now found her grave and we are learn­ing more about her and her exten­sive fam­i­ly in Kansas City.
  • More Camp­bell loot was returned to the Muse­um. This time, were­ceived a vase that Hugh Camp­bell gave to the cook, who gave it to anoth­er ser­vant upon her wed­ding. After we acces­sion it (i.e. hoity-toity museum 

    Our new (sort of) vase!

    term that means to make a new record for the item and for­mal­ly bring it into inven­to­ry), we are going to do a blog post all about the piece, com­plete with fam­i­ly pictures.

Are you look­ing for things to do over the next cou­ple of months? Check out our events page, but here’s a quick low­down of what’s happening:

  • Lucas Place Walk­ing Tour AND a trip to the Schlafly Tap Room. Sat­ur­day Octo­ber 1 (that’s this Sat­ur­day), 2:00–4:00 PM. Back when the Camp­bells moved into this house in 1854, Lucas Place was THE place to be. Direc­tor Andy Hahn will take the group through the house, then we’ll hit the street where he will point out where the big names lived as well as oth­er sites includ­ing the orig­i­nal St. Louis Art Muse­um and the loca­tion of the first doc­u­ment­ed roller coast­er (!). After the tour is done, we’ll stop at the Tap Room where one beer is includ­ed in your tour tick­et price. Host­ed with Land­marks Asso­ci­a­tion.  Tick­ets are $25.00; only $20.00 if you are a Camp­bell House or Land­marks mem­ber. Tour is fill­ing up quick­ly, so call us at 314/421‑0325 to reserve your spot!
  • Psy­chic Par­ty, Sat­ur­day, Octo­ber 8th from 6:30 to 9:00 PM. Yes, you read that right. Is the house haunt­ed? We’ll nev­er tell, but come to fes­tiv­i­ties to find out for your­self.  We’re throw­ing a par­ty the way the Camp­bells did: gourmet food in the din­ing room, an assort­ment of French wines in the kitchen and the house is open for explor­ing. Two psy­chics will be on-hand for pri­vate tarot card read­ings on the third floor. Host­ed by our very own Tim Rohan, this par­ty was a hit last year, so make your reser­va­tions soon by call­ing 314/421‑0325. Tick­ets are $50.00, and wine, beer, heavy hors d’oeurves and a tarot card read­ing are includ­ed in your tick­et price.
  • Twi­light Tour, Thurs­day, Octo­ber 13 from 5:30 to 8:30 PM. We offered our first Twi­light Tour this week, and one guest said, “THIS is the way to see a muse­um.” We could­n’t agree more. Come down to the house to enjoy wine and a selec­tion of hors d’oeurves while you explore the house and gar­den. At 6:15 we will begin an evening tour of the house, a unique expe­ri­ence that — lit­er­al­ly — show­cas­es the hand­some home in a whole new light. Tick­ets are $20.00; only $10.00 for Camp­bell House mem­bers. Please call us at 314/421‑0325 for reservations.
  • Mem­bers Par­ty, Sat­ur­day, Octo­ber 22 from 3:00 to 6:30 PM. It’s our semi­an­nu­al mem­bers par­ty, so come down to the house for refresh­ments and our spe­cial Anniver­sary Cel­e­bra­tion to com­mem­o­rate the Muse­um Store’s 20th year. We will be offer­ing 20% off all items in the shop, so you can stock up on some ear­ly hol­i­day gifts.
  • Hol­i­day His­toric House Tour, Thurs­day, Decem­ber 1st. Details will be post­ed as soon as they are available.

Thanks again for check­ing out our new blog, and stop in often to learn about muse­um news and events.