Daily Dose of Blairmont 20

Left and right:

• 2540-2542 Hebert Street (VHS Partners, January 2007)
  
• 2546-2548 Hebert Street (Sheridan Place LLC, January 2007)

September 2006: the right-hand house is very clearly occupied, and in pretty good shape.


November 2007: less than a year after its purchase by Blairmont, all that has changed. It's vacant, and brick rustlers -- or maybe just vandals -- have destroyed the east wall and left the house a ruin.

Boy, what an amazing coincidence that is!

Update: Both houses have been attacked a second time. 2540 is completely destroyed; 2546 is reduced by about 1/3rd.


May 2008

Links:

• 2548 Hebert at the City Assessor's database
  
• Aerial view from Maps.Live.com
  
• More on Blairmont

Daily Dose of Blairmont 19

• 1602 N. 14th Street (Blairmont Associates LLC, May 2001)

November 2007

Here is where fear and despair butt heads with hope.

1602 N. 14th Street faces the Mullanphy Emigrant Home, a building of enormous historical value to the city, at the south end of Old North St. Louis. The former Emigrant Home suffered a partial wall collapse in 2006.

If Blairmont or a sister company owned the Mullanphy, it would have been rubble long ago. Blairmont would have let it sit for months unsecured, unprotected, and unsupported, a hazard to local residents. The City of St. Louis would have had to condemn the building, then front the money and labor to demolish it, and send Paul McKee the bill.

Fortunately, Blairmont does not own the Mullanphy Emigrant Home. It was purchased by a neighborhood renovation group, who are campaigning hard to raise money, labor and material for its repair and eventual restoration. It may take time, and it definitely will take much help, but the building has a fighting chance.



Across the street, however, is another story. Purchased by Blairmont in 2001 or earlier (one of their earliest buys), the little red house at 1602 N. 14th Street is now vacant, boarded, tagged by graffiti artists, and deteriorating.

What will its future be? Under Paul McKee's ownership, it has no future. Is this what the hard work of ordinary locals deserves in response?

Links:

• 1602 N 14th at the City Assessor's database
  
• Aerial view from Maps.Live.com
  
• More on Blairmont

Daily Dose of Blairmont 18

• 2933 Montgomery Street (Sheridan Place LC, January 2007)

February 2008

Call it the heartbreaker house.


7
Purchased by Blairmont and promptly emptied, this charming little cottage was decorated with signatures and a message of farewell by its former residents: "The Walker family would like to thank you for 51 years."

Claire Nowak-Boyd captured the painful reality of it far more intimately and passionately than I can convey. There is little I can add, besides photographs.





Update: The memorial to the house's long life has been painted over.

May 2008

Is it just good old-fashioned neighborly maintenance? No, I don't think so. If it was, they could have found time to paint over the gang/memorial graffiti just around the corner on Bacon Street, but it's still hanging around:




No, it looks a lot more like an attempt to hide the fact that real people lived here, that this was somebody's home.

Links:

• 2933 Montgomery at the City Assessor's database
  
• Aerial view from Maps.Live.com
  
• More on Blairmont

Daily Dose of Blairmont 17

Left to right:

• 3224 Magazine Street (Dodier Investors LLC, July 2007)
  
• 3226 Magazine Street (VHS Partners, October 2003)
  
• 3228 Magazine Street (privately owned)

Blairmont's been sitting on the center unit for over four years now. Even if the private owners wanted to sell or renovate, what's the incentive when an enigmatic corporation owns the rest of your building, and is letting it fall to ruin?


February 2008

But look at the building! What a city to have lived in, where such a density of housing was worth building, and with such fine masonry detailing. What a place it must have been in its prime, what a neighborhood!

People still pay a premium to live in such neighborhoods -- in New York, in Boston, in San Francisco. St. Louis would do well to watch their examples.

Links:

• 3224 Magazine at the City Assessor's database
  
• Aerial view from Maps.Live.com
  
• More on Blairmont

Elsewhere in the demolition world...

Need a break from Blairmont decay?

Have a look at 56 Houses Left, whose author is lovingly and meticulously tracking the demolition of the early-1960s Carrolton subdivision, bought out by Lambert airport for runway expansion. The author is a former resident of the subdivision.

Daily Dose of Blairmont 16

• 2407 Coleman Avenue

Well! I guess maybe "VHS Partners LLC" does board up its properties properly sometimes!



Or... um... uh....


...maybe not.

The swiftness and devastating extent of the damage points toward brick rustling as the culprit.

Links:

• 2407 Coleman at the City Assessor's database
  
• Pre-collapse aerial view from Maps.Live.com
  
• More on Blairmont

Daily Dose of Blairmont 15

• 2309 University Avenue (Blairmont Associates LLC, November 2005)

January 2003


March 2007

The Blairmont house is the stone-clad one in the background. Time has been rather spectacularly unkind to its neighbor at 2313.

If you pan around the aerial view linked below, you'll noticed several other previously-featured Blairmont properties in close proximity to this one, including the ruins of a totally destroyed house. The remaining residents of this area might well fear for the future of their neighborhood.

Links:

• 2309 University at the City Assessor's database
  
• Aerial view from Maps.Live.com
  
• More on Blairmont

Daily Dose of Blairmont 14

• 2202 Hebert Street (vacant lot - Blairmont Associates LLC, March 2005)
  
• 2204 Hebert Street (alley house - MLK 3000, LLC - October 2006)
  
• 2206-2208 Hebert Street (front houses - N & G Ventures, LLC - June 2006)

March 2007

What a strange amalgam! The back-of-the-lot house is 2204; the taller house in front is 2006; and the shorter house up front is... 2206-1/2 and 2208. Very odd. Stranger still, the back house is not listed at all in the city's records, with the lot noted as vacant. It's a database error unless it's been demolished since November, which, hey, I guess is a likely possibility.

Blairmont's ownership of the structures is equally convoluted, with three different shell companies hiding the fact that it all belongs to one entity.


The alley house is unusual in itself, as most have been demolished; it's rarer still in that it doesn't directly abut the alley -- instead it has its own little back yard.


The street houses show the evolution of the area's architectural tastes. It would appear the whole unit went up at once, three conjoined townhouses. But the owner of one got a taste for more space and stylish mansard roofs, and built out the attic story into a full third floor.

All look to have been occupied right up until Blairmont purchased them. And that vacant lot? In 2003, it still had a house on it.

Links:

• 2206 Hebert at the City Assessor's database
  
• Aerial view from Maps.Live.com
  
• More on Blairmont

Daily Dose of Blairmont 13

• 2506 University Street

February 2008

What's the story here?

What happened to the last residents of this sharply painted little cottage, purchased by "MLK 3000 LLC" in September 2006? Were they rushed out in such a hurry that there was no time to take down the Christmas decorations?

Links:

• 2506 University at the City Assessor's database
  
• Aerial view from Maps.Live.com
  
• More on Blairmont

Daily Dose of Blairmont 12

• 2341-2343 University Street

June 2002. Photograph by Kevin Keiffer.

Sometimes, a house is more than just a house.


March 2007. 2341 is on the right.

Sometimes, a house is part of a streetscape, part of a cohesive sequence of buildings that relate to one another and reinforce each other's designs. In the densely built environment of a historic city neighborhood, this is particularly true. Just as a full set of teeth forms a beautiful smile, so too does a complete set of buildings create a pleasing streetscape.

It is a terrible thing when a building is lost from such a sequence -- the equivalent of punching out a tooth.

What, then will become of this row if 2341 University is allowed to continue sitting vacant, as it has for many years? Blairmont Assoociates Ltd. purchased it in May 2006, and have done nothing to improve the building's condition or help guarantee its survival.


March 2007. 2341 is in the center.

Will this row, like so much around it, become nothing more than a memory, leaving no trace of what this neighborhood once was?

Update, July 23, 2008: The worst has come to be; the tooth is being punched out. Michael Allen reports on the demolition of this lovely building.

Links:

• 2341 University at the City Assessor's database
  
• Aerial view from Maps.Live.com
  
• More on Blairmont

Daily Dose of Blairmont 11

• 1512 Montgomery Avenue

If I were this house, I'd be very, very nervous.


Left: March 2003; right: March 2007

It wouldn't simply be the fact that I'd developed a noticeable tilt. Nor would it be the encroaching suburban-style development along W. Florissant Avenue to my east, including the Church's Fried Chicken parking lot directly abutting my property line (the presence of which just might have something to do with why that tilt developed in the first place.)



No, if I were this house, what would really have me fearing for my life was the fact that in August, 2005, I was purchased by Blairmont Associates Ltd. Co, boarded up and left uninhabited. For houses my age, in my neighborhood, that's a proven kiss of death.



Update, August 20, 2008: As reported by Ecology of Absence, the house's east gable collapsed into the adjacent parking lot during a recent storm. Thankfully, nobody was killed.

Links:

• 1512 Montgomery at the City Assessor's database
  
• Aerial view from Maps.Live.com
  
• More on Blairmont

Daily Dose of Blairmont 10

This trio of houses stands on Sheridan Avenue, south of Cass in the southern reaches of the JeffVanderLou area. Can you guess which one doesn't belong to Blairmont?

Left to right:

• 2910 Sheridan Avenue
  
• 2916 Sheridan Avenue (N & G Ventures, LC, August 2005)
  
• 2918 Sheridan Avenue (N & G Ventures, LC, April 2006)

The intact, maintained, occupied house, the one without any raggedy brickwork or broken windows, is owned by another local real estate company, called JVL Renaissance 1 LP. Like Blairmont, they own a lot of property in this area. Unlike Blairmont, they don't try to hide it under multiple shell company names. Also unlike Blairmont, most of their properties, from the outside at least, are in good condition, and have people living in them.

Oh, sure, they own a couple of board-ups, too. It's probably inevitable in this area. But considering they don't seem to be actively kicking out tenants, or letting brick rustlers destroy their buildings, or hiding who they are, or buying up every property they can lay hands on, or letting innumerable historic buildings turn into ruins.... I'm willing to cut 'em a little slack.

Links:

2916 Sheridan at the City Assessor's database

Aerial view from Maps.Live.com

More on Blairmont

Back online

I had some blog troubles for a bit. If you're on a blog feed and this is the first Built St. Louis post you've seen lately, then things were screwed up for a while, and should be fixed now.

If that's the case, please have a fresh look at the blog. I'm updating daily at the moment and will be doing so for at least another week, focusing on the properties owned by Blairmont Associates LLC and various other Paul McKee-held companies. Many historic buildings are being destroyed as a result of these companies' actions, and it is urgent that the spotlight remain on them.

Daily Dose of Blairmont 9

Such a beautiful, distinctive intersection this was! At a turn in the street grid, where Glasgow crosses St. Louis Avenue, the city's builders put forth their best efforts, simple but strong and handsome buildings vying to outdo one another in their elegance.

As of 2008, Blairmont has destroyed all these buildings.

From left to right, we have:

• 2845-2847 St. Louis Avenue (VHS Partners, August 2004)
  
• 2854-2856 St. Louis Avenue (VHS Partners, November 2005)
  
• 2858 St. Louis Avenue (VHS Partners, November 2005)

March 26, 2007


November 25, 2005

The little turreted flatiron building was a keynote for St. Louis explorers, the kind of building that makes a wandering architecture fan stop the car and pull out the camera, then brings them back to the spot again and again. Its neighbors across the street provided an elegant background for it.

The two neighbors suffered brick rustler attacks in 2007, losing parts of their back sides. The thin Italianate building was demolished in February 2008; its broader neighbor was already gone.


May 6, 2007


February 11, 2008

The whole intersection was a minor crescendo, part of a swelling movement toward Grand Avenue to the west, a lyrical moment among the already rich background of the city's vernacular buildings. But the moment is gone, the symphony torn apart and stomped upon.

Links:

• 2854-2856 St. Louis at the City Assessor's database
  
• The turreted flatiron building at the City Assessor's database
  
• Aerial view from Maps.Live.com
  
• More on Blairmont

Daily Dose of Blairmont 8

• 2727 Samuel Shepard Drive

March 2003

Oh, this place. Man! At the time, it was the most ruinous building I'd ever seen in my life, and it just blew my mind. How could such a fine and noble building come to this state?

The house stood just beyond the eastern fringes of Midtown. It's right around the corner from the old Scott Joplin House; the Department of Natural Resources owns most of the surrounding lots.

The property belongs to "N & G Ventures LLC", who purchased it at the end of 2003 -- a few months after these photos were taken. Guess we can't blame all the problems on Blairmont!

It stood this way for another couple of years, but has since been demolished.

Links:

• 2727 Samuel Shepard at the City Assessor's database
  
• Aerial view from Maps.Live.com
  
• More on Blairmont