Photographs of Demolished Buildings

Left Placeless

by Michael R. Allen

The western edge of Carondelet was disconnected by the construction of Interstate Highway 55 in 1961, and was subsequently absorbed into the Holly Hills neighborhood despite retaining strong architectural similarities with its old body. While decades of highway-traveling St. Louisans see the highway as a natural western boundary to Carondelet, the common fields of the village Carondelet stretched as far west as the road that became Grand Avenue. These fields lay largely undeveloped until Carondelet was annexed into St. Louis in 1870, and found a focal point when Carondelet Park was plotted in 1875. The area south of the park gained many of the features of old Carondelet, with hilly terrain dotted in medium-density frame homes and brick bungalows.

Later additions to this area built it up further with sturdy buildings, mostly one and two stories. In the early years of the 20th century, flat-roofed homes with shaped parapets were prevalent. The builders were familiar Carondelet contractors, including William and Theodore Degenhardt, whose family lumber business had ballooned into a real estate force in Carondelet at the turn of the century. By the 1920s, Spanish Revival and Craftsman bungalows filled in the remaining vacant lots. A few homes rose in the years after that on lots where very old frame homes collapsed, rotted, burned or simply fell from favor. Many of these buildings were concentrated on City Block 3026, bounded by South Grand on the west, Loughborough on the north, Blow on the south and the former Alaska Street -- later part of a Schnucks grocery store parking lot -- to the east.

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