A Look at St. Louis' Rare Carpenter Gothic Houses (2024)

The Gothic Style, with its towering spires, stained glass windows, and soaring vaults, seems well known to many St. Louisans. The Medieval-era style, which originated at the Abbey of St. Denis in France in 1144 AD, provides the inspiration for dozens of churches across the St. Louis region. Houses of worship such as St. Francis de Sales or Most Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Churches provide a sense of place and focal points for neighborhoods and even whole quarters of the city.

The Gothic Revival Style in St. Louis was the perfect counterpoint to the much more common Romanesque Revival Style popularized by Henry Hobson Richardson, a Harvard-educated architect whose relatively short life (47 years) belies his influence on the American built environment. The Romanesque Style, essentially a medieval attempt to replicate the architecture of the Roman Empire, featured huge, hulking barrel vaults; thick, stout walls; and relatively small windows, belying its builders’ relative inexperience in complex masonry construction. The Romanesque Revival was certainly popular throughout America, but due to its image as an inherently “German” style, it probably appealed to many of the St. Louis businessmen who hailed from that culture. As German political power aggrandized throughout the 19th century, expatriates in America embraced their homeland’s rise, and architecture was certainly one way to show that optimism.

Perhaps German nationalists possessed a slightly more problematic relationship with the Gothic style, with its origins at St. Denis. Abbot Suger, a French monk, pioneered the style, probably influenced by the pointed arches seen by Crusaders in Muslim architecture of the Middle East and southern Italy. But in addition to the distinctive pointed arch, stronger than the traditional Roman arch, the Gothic style also featured flying buttresses, which leapt out from the sides of the church, channeling forces from the weight of the vaulting down to the ground. Consequently, the walls and vaults of the church could be taller and airier, with huge stained glass windows replacing the masonry of the walls. While plenty of churches in St. Louis are Romanesque Revival, the city has embraced the Gothic Revival since at least the early to mid-19th century, and even to the present day, if to a lesser extent than the glory days around the decades on either side of the turn of the 20th century.

What is often forgotten, however, is that the Gothic Revival saw expression for residential architecture, but at a much lesser extent than the Romanesque Revival embodied in mansions such as Thomas Annan’s 1890 Samuel Cupples House. Eschewing the expensive stonework of its medieval counterparts, the Carpenter Gothic Style took advantage of technological advancements in wood milling, opening up elaborate decorative details to the middle class, while simultaneously simplifying the often-complex Gothic Revival for a more cost-effective expression of the style. Board and batten siding, consisting of vertical boards sealed with small piece of wood or “battens,” protects the exterior wall from the weather. Interestingly, while wood can be carefully curved to create a pointed arch, Carpenter Gothic frequently simplifies the distinctive windows by just utilizing two straight boards to create the lintel.

Amazingly, St. Louis has at least four well-preserved Carpenter Gothic style houses left in the city. Since the style was popular around 1840-70, with at least one appearing on the 1875 Compton and Dry View of St. Louis, they easily rank as some of our oldest houses. Likewise, since the building code required that houses be built of brick after the disastrous fire of 1849, the fact that three of the four houses are constructed of wood balloon framing can allow one to assume they were built before their respective neighborhoods were annexed into the City of St. Louis.

Take, for example, the stunning house in the Shaw neighborhood, sitting on the back part of the lot between two later apartment buildings. It appears in the 1875 Compton and Dry View, nestled in a grove of trees in Henry Shaw’s newly laid out subdivision north of Tower Grove Park, and contains the requisite high-pitched roofs common in the Gothic style, along with several pointed windows. Most likely, the house also featured elaborate wood trim that was often removed due to deterioration. This house dates to at least to the 1870s, and probably much earlier. This location may have been in the within the range of Civil War era fortsso a date before 1865 is not secure.

Down south in Carondelet, there stands another example of the Carpenter Style on a corner lot. Looking at its alignment on the property, the house most likely predates the platting of the neighborhood around it. What is special about this house is that the millwork is either extant or has been carefully replaced. This house is perhaps the best example of the style in the city, and its date of construction is probably before 1870, when Carondelet joined the City.

Moving up to the West End neighborhood, the third example has a unique story. The first floor, with rubble wall construction, hails back to the year 1829, when it was constructed by the Baron de Hodiamont, making it by some measures the oldest surviving house in the city. Its upper floors, built around 1871, espouse the Carpenter Gothic with board and batten and fish scale siding, along with high-pitched roofs and eaves. Well-preserved, it now stands among early 20th century mansions and apartment buildings.

The final example is an outlier, sitting abandoned amidst vacant lots in the JeffVanderLou neighborhood. While it is constructed of brick, the house shows the clear characteristics of the Gothic Revival, with a pointed window on the second floor. Likewise, the overall massing of the house, along with its steep roof line, points to the style. Sadly, it is now vacant, trashed and deteriorating. While the other three are safe in good hands and well-maintained, this rare example is threatened. Due to the small number of houses surviving in the Carpenter Gothic in St. Louis, the preservation of all examples should be a preservation priority. Surely someone can find a use for the JeffVanderLou house.

Chris Naffzigerwrites about architecture atSt. Louis Patina. Contact him via email atnaffziger@gmail.com.