One of The Last Farms in Chesterfield

Will this farm be turned into a subdivision one day? I hope not since it sits right on Clarkson Road, reminding everyone how much better the county could have turned out.

Centaur, Revisited

I made it back out to the hamlet of Centaur, which is now being swallowed up by suburban development. It's slow, I should say, as this McMansion has been under construction now for years, and seems abandoned. I finally figured out where the quarry is; it is now fenced in as private property, but you can clearly see the hole in the cliff.

The old town store and post office sits in much the same state as I saw it two years ago.

The school house has been restored, and now looks great. I find this little town infinitely fascinating; the standard narrative of the history of St. Louis County is one of growth, but it bears mentioning that some parts have actually seen their population decline greatly, from a previous life as a quarry town or rural stopover deep in the wilderness.

Old Slave Road, Revisited

I drove back by Old Slave Road, and was surprised to see that the road is now signed with its historic name, as well as its modern name, Spiceberry Lane.

The Tallest Building In Chesterfield?

1,000th Post: Sprawl and the Continuing Threat to Our Natural Environment

For my 1000th post at Saint Louis Patina, I considered having a "greatest hits" or featuring my favorite St. Louis buildings and neighborhoods. Then I realized I had already done that back on my third anniversary, which was only a couple of months ago in May. I realized I needed to focus on something else, and my idea was hatched last Sunday when my parents and I went out to see the destruction firsthand in the new right-of-way for the expanded 141. Several of my mother's teacher co-workers had commented on their dismay at the loss of so many trees at the intersection of 141 and Ladue Road so we decided to see for ourselves. As we came over the hill on eastbound Ladue towards the intersection, a collective gasp escaped all of our mouths.Due to stimulus money becoming available, the State of Missouri is proceeding with the final leg of the expansion of 141, or Woods Mill Road as it's called up this way. It's a process that has taken at least the last twenty years, when the first section, through Valley Park was completed. 141 has been choked with traffic for at least the last thirty years, if not longer, so one could argue that expanding the highway is merely accepting the reality of the situation--there are far too many cars on far too narrow of a road.Certainly no one would disagree that the intersection of 141 and Ladue didn't need some sort of improvement; the flooding that occurred because of the nearby creek has claimed far too many lives over the years. I fully support a new bridge and intersection that doesn't flood when it rains.But I can't help but express sadness at the destruction of so many trees, in what was once a rural, agricultural area of the county.Perhaps the State's rebuilding of 141 to Olive was inevitable; the traffic volumes at present seem to have demanded a solution. But I must admit that the whole 141 expansion has left me wanting. What was intended to be an alternative to 270 is a series of short sections of freeway punctured with stop lights, and arbitrarily low speed limits set not for safety but for revenue in the suburbs the road passes through (Yeah, I'm talking about you, Manchester). If so much had to be destroyed to build the road, at least the road should have been as well-built as possible.What I cannot fathom is the decision by St. Louis County to continue 141 north of Olive to connect with the Maryland Heights Expressway. There has never been a road there, and there doesn't need to be. The real reason is Maryland Heights' desire to develop the Howard Bend area, one of the last agricultural flood plains in the county. As Westport Plaza empties out, the suburb has decided to build its replacement in the floodplain, instead of taking the time to renovate and refurbish the aging Westport, which is still an architecturally interesting example of a mixed-use early 1980's development. What it comes down to is sprawl, and the Balkanization of St. Louis County that forces the tiny principalities--er, municipalities--of the region to fight over a finite number of tax dollars.We cannot continue to spread out our population at a greater rate than the population growth of our region. The metropolitan region is at least 17 times large geographically today than it was in 1950, but it is only 2.5 times larger in actual population.We cannot continue to waste our resources on expanding a region that cannot support the infrastructure required to get people from sixty miles outside of St. Louis to their jobs in downtown. We just can't support that. Everyone complains about road conditions, and chalk it up to "government waste" as the reason, but the reality is that there is no money to fix roads with such a small, dispersed tax base. We must begin to design our region to be more manageable fiscally. The continued march of the suburbs into our nation's food producing agricultural heartland is foolhardy, and will ultimately result in the decline of our country as America becomes reliant on foreign imports of food--something America has never had to do until now.

Yes, yes, I know, you don't want to live around those people, but your wasteful way of life is killing America. Houses are not McDonald's wrappers; we have to start taking better care of what we already have, and we cannot simply abandon neighborhoods when the houses get "too old." We must return to the City, and reuse the land that is currently sitting dormant. Thousands of acres in the heart of the City sit ready for new houses and businesses, but yet we continue to destroy our natural environment on our edges instead. How much more wasteful will America get?See the official websites for the two halves of the project here: for the 141 extension from Ladue to Olive, click here; for the "Page Olive Connector" project, click here.

Historic Chesterfield, Part #2

The Mertz Cabin above is an early example of a log cabin the Chesterfield area; while log cabins may seem primitive, in reality they required a fair amount of ingenuity.Above is the Davis House, where my parents' good friend Laurain David lived for many years until she passed away at the age of 90 several years ago. She told my parents tales of when all the roads in West County were gravel, a surprisingly short amount of time ago. Her house dates from the 1840's and was moved from across Olive Street Road to the park. Laurain never like the color the park had painted it; it was always white when she lived in it. The sunflowers below are not nearly as tall as mine, but they have bigger blooms. Everyone loves barns, and the Sellenriek and Schlueter Barns are great examples of the all-important structure in agriculture.I still find the occasional barn scattered here and there throughout West County, and they are increasingly becoming a rare commodity as they succumb to old age and disrepair.

Historic Chesterfield, Part #1

Who says Chesterfield has no history?! Faust Park, in the St. Louis County Parks system, has assembled a coterie of some of the most significant and interesting houses from West County, primarily from the Chesterfield area. The Conway House, seen above and below, is a great example of an early 19th Century farmhouse, complete with authentic garden plantings around the yard.The Warmbrodt Summer Kitchen has been added to the Conway House complex and painted to match. A common myth is that the kitchen was separate to prevent fires. In reality, it was to keep the heat of the kitchen away from the house in the summer. In the winter, the heat was welcomed into the house.The Hoch House, seen below, is a perfect example of German brick construction, at home as much in the county as in the inner neighborhoods of St. Louis. The Hochs owned a local brick business and general store.Finally the Alt Schoolhouse is a nice example of an early school off of Reinke Road originally.

Interesting Church, Village of Green Trails, Chesterfield

I don't know anything about this church, other than its location. It's in the middle of the Green Trails subdivision in Chesterfield.Green Trails was an early 1980's attempt at mixed-use development, with houses, churches, businesses and offices all commingled together. It's still an odd sight to see a gas station in the middle of a subdivision.

Carillon, Logan College of Chiropractic

Logan College of Chiropractic has some cool buildings, including this funky 1970's carillon tower.

St. Louis County Balkanization, Zoning and In-Fill Battles Continue

This post could perhaps alternately be entitled "Four Corners," because it is very much the story of how four corners can have so different fates. Starting from top to bottom:

1) The site of a large house that has sat empty for seven years, in Ballwin.2) Picardy Estates, a subdivision of attached homes in Chesterfield.
3. Marquette High school in Chesterfield as well.4. Finally, a bank in Clarkson Valley.
If the reader has been paying attention, he or she will note that three different suburbs control the intersection of Clarkson Road and Kehrs Mill Road, two old farm roads laid out in the 1840's or 1850's and never designed or platted to successfully channel large amounts of suburban commuter traffic.The corner in Ballwin, now the site of a large house and thick forested growth, is now slated to become a Schnuck's grocery store. Why? There are many issues, most notably the blatant decline of the city of Ballwin in the last ten years. The aging commercial strip along Manchester Road is obsolete and so choked with traffic as to be one of the most horrible places to drive, let alone walk, in the entire St. Louis metropolitan area--if not in the entire United States. The second issue is large chains seeking to poach off of their competitors' customers, successfully or not. The Clarkson corridor is flooded with grocery stores, and Schnuck's is undoubtably jealous of more upscale Dierberg's, Whole Foods and Straubs getting a piece of the action while Schnuck's sits on a run-down and decrepit store on Manchester.
The city of Ballwin, doomed by its suburban sprawl model, is grasping at straws as it attempts to revive its tax base and steal revenue from its neighbors. Chesterfield Valley, in all of its venal banality, is actually a more pleasant place to shop than Manchester Road, and increasingly smaller suburbs such as Ballwin must break its own laws in a frantic attempt to chase the almighty tax dollar.How can this be done better? Easily, with the combination of the 91 municipalities into preferably one, or maybe at the most twenty larger suburbs that are more economically viable. We see the desperation of tiny--no, minuscule--municipalities in North County and their speed traps, and we see the desperation of older suburbs such as Ballwin look on as their poorly built strip malls vacate and flee to the newly built north of Chesterfield. Then, just maybe, if we can come together and put our own individual desires behind us, we will see an end to the balkanization of our metropolitan area.

Centaur and Old Slave Road

Far out in western St. Louis County are the remnants of past industries, towns and plantations. The hamlet of Centaur, now just a part of Chesterfield, is one such example of a place where people lived and worked in greater numbers than now. See it from the air here.The large building sitting near the tracks appears to be an old station or hotel that is still in relatively good condition. According to the Chestefield city website, the town was founded around the Centaur Lime Company, now long defunct.And finally, perhaps the most mysteriously named road in St. Louis County, Old Slave Road. Most logically, the name--which is not signed at the road's intersection with Wild Horse Creek Road--denotes a place where a plantation existed or freed slaves once lived.Something tells me the inhabitants of the road nowadays are a little embarrassed of the name, hence the lack of a road sign. You can see it from the air here.

Chesterfield Commons

I was stranded for six hours in the bane of my existence, Chesterfield Commons, while my car was having some installation work done at Best Buy. Those subwoofers that I always wanted are now fully installed, and prepared to annoy everyone in a four mile radius. I took the opportunity to photograph what has been described as the longest strip mall, or "lifestyle center" as they now call them now, on the planet.Supposedly the parking lot is the largest in the world as well, though I have to say I think the Indianapolis 500 probably has a larger parking lot, or even the Pentagon or Meadowlands Sports Complex in New Jersey. Regardless, it is disgusting to behold, in all its blacktop banal glory.The car is king--no emperor--out here in Chesterfield, as illustrated above in the tiny right of way for pedestrians in front of Sam's Club. Below is one of the most dangerous intersections in the metropolitan area not just for pedestrians but for motorists. I literally had to run across this street to avoid getting hit. "Pedestrian" is code word in Chesterfield for "poor" and much like the Marquis de Evremonde from Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, people don't break for poor people out here. "Pedestrian" is also codeword for "non-white" out this way.Below is one of those megaplex movie theaters, you know, the one no one really likes going to because of the interminable long lines and overpriced concessions. Remember the neighborhood movie? Oh, that's right, they're going the way of the dodo.This picture cracks me up; no one actually rides their bike out here--it would be suicide. I suppose they're attempting to harken back to the Leave It To Beaver days when children could actually safely bike somewhere. I could have sworn these were red a few months ago.Below is a fountain that no one can enjoy, let alone visit, because there really isn't any safe way to get there on foot. Likewise, people are too busy avoiding crashes on the roads to look at them anyway.

Above is what I really hate about the Chesterfield Valley--pseudo-historicist architecture. The name of the restaurant doesn't really matter; certainly it is mass produced and served to people in troughs like cattle. The whole complex is literally surrounded by a moat; Chesterfield Valley, also known as Gumbo Flats, is a flood plain of course, and is marshy most of the year. I like the implications of the fortress mentality that these uncrossable drainage canals convey.


Below I caught a vehicle rolling the stop sign, oblivious to the possibility that someone might actually be using it. Not that anyone ever does, though.
More crappy, pseudo-historicist architecture masquerading as French Provencal cottages.
The worst part about this gargantuan development is that it was built way too quickly and way too cheaply. In twenty years, these buildings will be in awful, rundown condition. Already, the signs of over-expansion are showing in this row of crappy, dollar store and thrift stores. I thought this was ritzy Chesterfield!?The best part about it is that you, the America taxpayer, get to pay for its rebuilding in ten or fifteen years when it floods again like it did in 1993! And now that I think about it, that's rather convenient, isn't it? Build structures that will only last until the next deluge, and then build brand new ones with federal handouts? Brilliant!