Summer 2004-11

The Society of Architectural Historians Missouri Valley Chapter News Volume X Number 2A Summer 2004 Letter SHOREBY HILL: A ST. LOUIS COLONY Shoreby, an important part of this heritage, lies on the east side of the island near its southern end, rising gently to about IN RHODE ISLAND ninety feet above its many water views. It had been the by Esley Hamilton Greene family farm, 58 and a half acres with a house dating from about 1712, one of few on the island not to have been Before the era of air-conditioning, many of St. Louis’s burned by the British during the Revolution. The tract was affluent moved between June and September to such places also called the Quaker Farm, as the Greenes, Quakers as Kennebunkport, Maine; Wood’s Hole, Massachusetts; themselves, had turned the farm over to the Society of Charlevoix and Frankfort, Michigan; and Door County, Friends from 1840 to 1890. Wisconsin. At one time so many people from Pilgrim Congregational Church, on Union Avenue in St. Louis, The idea of creating an exclusive residential district on this summered together in Michigan that there was a Pilgrim, site apparently came from St. Louis businessmen Ephron Michigan, post office. This is a subject that deserves more Catlin and James Taussig. Catlin, whose family was from attention from St. Louis historians, and particularly from Litchfield, Connecticut, already had a cottage on the island. architectural historians, since these summer places reflect The two men organized the Jamestown Land Company and not just the patronage of St. Louisans but sometimes the devised deed restrictions just like those used in St. Louis to work of St. Louis architects. John Lawrence Mauran, for regulate the private streets. The lot owners would share instance, designed the public library at his summer home in maintenance of the roads and common grounds through Dublin, New Hampshire, in 1900, and as late as 1957 elected trustees empowered to collect fees. Development William Bernoudy designed a summer house for Thomas S. was limited to one private residence per lot, to cost a and Mary Hall in Northeast Harbor, Maine. minimum of $3,000 and be set back from the road at least 20 feet. No front fences were permitted, and front hedges The big surprise in William H. Jordy’s eagerly awaited book, had to be no more than 42 inches tall. Buildings of Rhode Island (one of the newest volumes in the SAH’s Buildings of the United States series) has been the identification of the Shoreby Hill section of Jamestown Island as a St. Louis enclave. It was developed by St. Louisans in 1896 and occupied within the next couple of years by at least seven prominent St. Louis families. You can see photos of some of Shoreby Hill’s houses on the website of the Jamestown Philomenian Library, jamestownri.com/library, which has an excellent section on local history. Further inquiry has led to local historian Sue Maden, who writes for the local newspaper, the Jamestown Press. Her article with Patrick Hodgkin, “The Birth of Shoreby Hill, a ‘Residential Suburb’,” includes a wealth of information, establishing that the development is really a St. Louis private street transplanted to New England and The Shoreby Hill Club, c, 1898, 75 Conanicus Avenue. Built as the Shoreby Hill Club, this building was moved to its present site in 1911 and became the Jamestown realized with a New England designers and contractors. Casino. It is now a private residence. Jamestown Island is in the middle of Narragansett Bay, Ernest W. Bowditch, the Boston landscape architect, about half way between the fashionable summering designed the curvilinear street pattern. (He laid out communities of Newport and Narragansett. Like them, University Heights Number One for E. G. Lewis a few years Jamestown developed as a summer resort in the late 19th later.) The Newport Daily News said it was “the first effort century, and the state preservation agency has concluded that at scientific and artistic treatment of a larger plot of ground it is the best place in the state “to see and appreciate the for select summer residences.” Street names are redolent of charm and sophistication of shingle style architecture.” New England’s 19th-century literary flowering: authors Emerson, Hawthorne, and Longfellow; and from disposed and had broad sheltering porches. As is happening Longfellow’s popular poem about Plymouth, the figures too often elsewhere, some of the cottages have recently been Alden, Priscilla, and Standish. The names Longfellow and painted lighter colors, and many of the porches have been Hawthorne also remind St. Louisans of Compton Heights, enclosed in whole or part. In general, however, the houses then a new development. Bowditch drew the streets so that are well preserved. The question of who designed them the historic Greene Farmhouse could be retained at 55 remains open. Rhode Island architect Creighton Withers is Longfellow Road. The Greene family cemetery, on the other known to have designed the Potter and Davis cottages, but hand, had to be transferred to the Island Cemetery in sadly, most of the architects have been forgotten. Newport. Here is a list of the main Shoreby Hill cottages associated Extensive grading of the site was undertaken in 1896 by with St. Louis builders, with biographical information about upwards of one hundred Italian laborers brought down from their builders and their homes in St. Louis: Boston, with horses and other equipment. The schooner Francis brought pipes for the water and sewer system, and 5 Alden Road, “The Red House”: Margaret Potter was the gardener William Bryan set out some 11,000 trees and daughter of John R. Lionberger and sister of Isaac plants. Roads were paved with macadam, and graveled Lionberger. With them, she and her husband Henry S. sidewalks were provided throughout. Bryan landscaped a Potter (1831-1918) commissioned three St. Louis houses park (now called the lower green) along the waterfront, and from H. H. Richardson in the 1880s. The Potter House was several lot owners farther up the hill set aside some of their at 5814 Cabanne at the southwest corner of Goodfellow. ground for a second park (the upper green). Margaret died there in 1906. Henry Potter began his varied business career in 1874 selling hay and grain and was The most contentious and probably the most expensive part president of the St. Louis Steel Barge Company at the time of the development was the bulkhead along the shoreline, of his death. Among his honorary pallbearers were his with a 50-foot roadway on top. Eventually the Land Rhode Island neighbors Edward Mallinckrodt and Ephron Company paid for the bulkhead, and the town council Catlin. appropriated $400 toward construction of the road. Before the end of the century a bathing pavilion and a 300-foot pier 11 Alden Road: James Taussig (1827-1916) was born in completed the development. Prague and came to St. Louis with the rest of his family following the failed revolution of 1848. His elder brother The Land Company built the private Shoreby Hill Club and William Taussig became mayor of Carondelet and later restaurant in 1898 on Priscilla Road. In 1911 it was moved president of the Eads Bridge company and the Terminal to 75 Conanicus on the waterfront and became the Railroad Association. In 1852 James married Magdalen Jamestown Casino (a term then used to refer to a private Dormitzer (1828-1912). Shortly thereafter he was admitted recreational building). It survives as a private residence. to the St. Louis bar and soon became one of the city’s most prominent lawyers. In St. Louis, the Taussigs seem to have Catlin and Taussig started the first two cottages late in 1897. lived primarily in residential hotels; they were at the Grand Catlin contracted with George Anthony and Taussig with R. Avenue Hotel in the 1890s and later moved to the Usona W. Curry, but Curry, who was building the bulkhead, found Hotel at Kingshighway and Waterman. that he had to sublet to another firm, Champlin and Wright. The St. Louis cottages, as the summer houses were called, 24 Emerson Road: Ephron Catlin (1840-1921) came to St. almost all had dark shingles contrasting with white Palladian Louis as a child. His father, Daniel Catlin, founded Catlin trim, and although picturesque, most were symmetrically Tobacco, later part of the American Tobacco Company, and his brother, also Daniel, continued in that business. Ephron, however, was associated with wholesale pharmaceuticals and banking. In 1880, he married Camilla Kayser, whose sister Justina was the wife of his brother. Their daughter Emily in 1903 married Arthur Shepley, whose sister Mary was the wife of Isaac Lionberger. The Catlins built 15 Vandeventer Place and lived there throughout their lives. Houses at Shoreby Hill, Jamestown, Rhode Island, from Buildings of Rhode Island, 2004. Newsletter two Summer 2004 Camilla died there in 1937 at the age of 86, the oldest that material. I still have everything since 1995 and much of resident on the street. my past personal city stuff at my current office, but as I may be hunting new office space must soon deal with that – five 40 Emerson Road: Marion Scott Lionberger, the sister of double plan files full and many legal files - in the basement Margaret Potter, married John David Davis (1851-1917) in here. 1877. He became a prominent lawyer and corporate board member. The Davises built 51 Vandeventer Place in 1881 When the Mercantile pulled up with a tractor trailer truck I and in 1912 moved to 4 Brentmoor Park, by Cope & laughed, and when they pulled out with it full, I gasped at all Stewardson, in the newly opened Clayton development.

Load more