The “ Places ” of St. Louis 
ENTRANCE TO WESTMORLAND PLACE 
Eames £jf Young, Architects 
ENTRANCE TO PORTLAND PLACE 
Theo. C. Link, Architect 
way originated in the demand for greater 
privacy than that afforded by the usual public 
street frontage, along with the desire for a 
more attractive environment of houses whose 
cost is restricted to a sum that ensures build¬ 
ings of a desirable type. The realization of 
such a plan, where certain features are en¬ 
joyed by the residents in common, pre¬ 
supposes an adherence to the communal 
principle to the extent of employing garden¬ 
ers, watchmen and caretakers, whose services 
are shared by the residents and recompensed 
upon the basis of feet frontage. Such other 
responsibilities as are incident to the mainte¬ 
nance of the place are assumed by the com¬ 
munity of owners, who do for the individual 
what the individual would find it inconve¬ 
nient to do for himself. 
The idea is one whose advantages are ap¬ 
parent, and evidently appealed to the dis¬ 
tinguished horticulturist Henry Shaw, who, 
at the time he 
laid out Tower 
Grove Park, set 
apart a strip of 
land two hun¬ 
dred feet wide on 
either side of the 
park which was 
intended for 
residential sites, 
but which was 
never utilized 
for that purpose. 
The several 
small places that 
adjoin Lafayette 
Park, but more 
especially Benton Place, dating from 1868, 
were probably the first beginnings of the 
“ Place ” that subsequently was developed 
on a more elaborate and larger scale, although 
the designation was applied as early as 1853 
to localities that were merely streets, notably 
Lu cas Place — now a relict of departed 
grandeur, but still not without a certain 
charm for its many old mansions that are 
reminiscent of the less strenuous life of ante¬ 
bellum days. 
The first place to be given a layout ap¬ 
proximating the present type of place was 
Vandeventer Place, laid out in 1870; but 
owing to its then remote location its devel¬ 
opment was retarded until a much later 
period. It is a rectangular tract of land 422 
feet in width by 2245 feet in length, inter¬ 
sected by an avenue, and having a central 
mall or parking 50 feet wide, encircled by 
driveways 30 feet in width. Twenty feet 
from the inner 
line of the side¬ 
walk plot, which 
is 12 feet wide, 
are placed the 
houses which 
face those on the 
other side of the 
mall. The style 
of the houses re¬ 
flects the archi¬ 
tectural taste of 
their respective 
periods, and 
vary greatly in 
the merit of their 
designs, as might 
VANDEVENTER PLACE LOOKING ACROSS THE MALL 
to grounds of H. day Pierce, Esq. 
