By Martha K. Baker
Photographs by Ashley Heifner
“You can’t get there from here” is not just a joke told about a Vermont farmer. For years, the line also applied to the Richmond Heights neighborhoods of Sheridan Hills and Clayton Road Terrace. You could see those little houses from U.S. 40/64 or Interstate 170—they were right over there—but you couldn’t figure out how to get in. The residents liked it that way, because folks who entered on McMorrow came to visit, not to detour from busier roads.
Residents now live close to their own MetroLink station. The good news is that walls provide visual breaks and sound barriers, and the “kiss and drop” lane reduces other traffic issues of concern to these enclaves. The bad news is, you still can’t get there from here, which is also good news to neighborhoods self-defined, in part, by their seclusion.
Roots: Richmond Heights’ historic neighborhoods include white Hampton Park (Hanley Road at Clayton Avenue) and black Bennett Avenue (near Laclede Station Road), which was founded by Dr. Thomas Rusan and wife Georgia as a place for African-American professionals to live. The former neighborhood is listed on the National Register of Historic Places; the latter’s nomination to the register is being prepared.
Closures: Before Layton’s Restaurant closed last year and Howard Johnson’s restaurant a couple of decades before that, that site on Clayton Road was Nelson’s Driving Range, says historian Joellen Gamp McDonald.
Local Myth: It’s said that Robert E. Lee named Richmond Heights for his beloved Richmond, Va. Didn’t happen. Lee came here as an Army Corps of Engineers surveyor before the Civil War but the town wasn’t named until the late 1890s, probably by real-estate developers marketing the area before the World’s Fair.
Gusher: Richmond Heights boasts 550 or so businesses. Sales taxes, mainly from The Boulevard, The Galleria and Richmond Center, gush into a general fund that pays for trash, recycling and yard-waste pickup, not to mention twice-a-year street vacuuming.
Popular Demand: A whopping 97 percent of voters said yes when asked to approve a
sales tax to build Richmond Heights’ community center, completed in December 2000. “That [percentage] set a state record,” says David Reary, building/zoning commissioner. “The Heights has indeed become the city’s living room.”
Nicknamed “the 40 Thieves,” 40 of the homes in Richmond Heights were built with materials scavenged from the World’s Fair.
Landlocked: Richmond Heights (pop. 9,600) is enveloped by the city of St. Louis and the suburbs of Maplewood, Ladue, Clayton and Brentwood.
Openings: Across from the Saint Louis Galleria, The Boulevard–Saint Louis, billed as the first “lifestyle development” in the metro area, continues to burgeon, with luxury apartments joining boutiques and restaurants in a self-conscious imitation of a European village.
Urge to merge: The cities of Richmond Heights and Clayton have been studying the possibility of merging since July 2005. If effected, the merger would result in a combined population of more than 25,000.
Local celebs: Rams footballer Marshall Faulk lives in Richmond Heights, alongside the ghosts of pilot Charles Lindbergh, engineer Leif Sverdrup and sportscaster Jack Buck.
Hoops: The best place for a pickup basketball game is on the courts of the A.B. Green Athletic Complex (Dale at Laclede Station).
