Modeled after a French chateau famous for its surrounding vineyards, this Ladue manse includes rooms with great views
By Renée Stovsky
When E.M. Forster’s George Emerson gave up his quarters at the inn so Lucy Honeychurch could enjoy the vistas of Florence, Italy, the result was a fabled romance: A Room with a View.
Here in St. Louis, it’s almost as easy to fall in love with this sophisticated French chateau in Ladue, designed by distinguished local architect Ralph Cole Hall and completed in 1971 for Tom and Trent Phelps. Situated on more than three acres with formal boxwood gardens, woodland retreats, limestone terraces and a secluded swimming pool, it offers multiple rooms with views.
Most romantic is the elegant foyer, copied from the interior of the Chateau de Fonscolombe, with its window-like glass and wood framework, which leads to the gardens, framed by lush perennial plantings of peonies, shrub roses and hydrangeas. The airy, formal salon, with its 11-foot ceiling, Versailles-patterned wood floor and marble Louis XIV mantel, has a huge window overlooking the gardens and multiple French doors opening to the limestone terrace. A casual library, with rough-hewn plaster walls, distressed woodwork and ceiling beams, offers glimpses of the property’s woodlands, heavily planted with hostas, may apples and more. All five of the second-floor bedrooms—several with window seats—afford vistas as well.
The home’s interior also offers breathtaking design elements. Hall, trained in the tradition of Beaux Arts eclecticism (his work can be seen in the Art Deco and Neoclassical features of the Chase Park Plaza Hotel), emphasized symmetry, proportion and decorative detail to retain formality and decorum in both his public buildings and private residences. This 8,000-square-foot home—the last one he designed—features a wrought-iron spiral staircase, plaster-cast cornices, a sawn marble floor, imported French chandeliers and sconces, and seven fireplaces, some with original Hall-inspired mantels.
A pavilion addition designed as a two-bedroom guest suite by Richard Cummings and built in 1989 mimics the main house’s architecture with a foyer, high-ceilinged salon, fine flooring and classical detailing—not to mention its own rooms with panoramic views of the gardens and terraces.
Address: 61 Overhills, Ladue
Asking price: $3,250,000
Agents: Susan and Jay Meier, Edward L. Bakewell, 314-721-5555, www.bakewellinc.com
