A look back at Compton Hill, one of the most exclusive neighborhoods following the Civil War

Although Midtown and Lafayette Square might have been more well-known, many notable St. Louisans decided to build their mansions by St. Louis' then-new reservoir.

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Before there was Compton Heights, there was Compton Hill. Far out in the countryside near the intersection of Grand Boulevard and Lafayette Avenue was the new reservoir for St. Louis, commanding dramatic views of the city quickly growing several miles to the east. While Midtown and Lafayette Square might have been known as the exclusive neighborhoods following the Civil War, some of the city’s most famous residents chose to build their mansions on the heights that became known as Compton Hill in the 1870s. And later, the area slightly to the north of Lafayette Avenue would become known as a thriving African American community. It's not as recognizable as The Ville or the Mill Creek Valley, but it's still resilient today.

The area in question was in the St. Louis Commons, roughly bounded by Compton Avenue to the east, the large lots of Russell Boulevard on the south, Grand Boulevard on the west, and Eads Avenue on the north. The rural community began as the South Compton Hill Subdivision, developed by a widow, Ariadne Miller, in 1859. The City of St. Louis itself parceled out the large lots on the south side of what is now Russell Boulevard in 1860; the park was created by ordinance in 1867. The Compton Hill Place Subdivision came next in 1868. The developers were three partners: Felix Coste, Charles Hornbostel, and Robert Heinrichs. Coste was president of the St. Louis Building and Savings Association in the 1867 St. Louis City Directory. 

Hornbostel owned a food wholesalers’ business up Second Street from Adam Lemp’s brewery, selling everything from Italian wine to pasta, according to an advertisement in the German language newspaper Neuer Anzeiger des Westens. Heinrichs may have been a pharmacist. It was common at the time for businessmen to invest in purchasing quadrants of land in the St. Louis Commons directly from the city, which had inherited the land from the French colonial era. Fresh off his success designing Benton Place in 1868, Julius Pitzman then subdivided more of the neighborhood in 1873 in his Compton Hill Subdivision.

The famous reservoir, which still serves St. Louis, began its life with the awarding of the contract to the firm of Richard Murphy and J.W. Henderson. The size of the contract was national news: a newspaper in Alexandria, Virginia, reported the price at $291,875. On July 3, 1868, Murphy and Henderson took out an advertisement in the Globe-Democrat looking to hire 200 men to begin construction of the massive reservoir, stating that work would last over a year. A perk of employment, the advertisement stated, was the honor of working in the healthiest place in the city. The elevation and distance of the reservoir—and being upwind from the coal smoke of St. Louis to the east—surely made working conditions pleasant. It drew wealthy homeowners to the new subdivisions around the giant rectangular pools of water. The city conveniently sold ice to nearby residents off the top of the reservoir in the winter.

Because the subdivisions were so far out in the country, the streets were not standardized with the grid further to the east until the late 19th century. Compton Avenue was originally Kansas, Geyer was originally Delaware, Russell was Pontiac, and Compton Hill Place was first Thomas and then Louisiana. To the west, Henry Shaw’s subdivisions of his vast landholdings spread out toward his botanical gardens. Shaw Place was a group of rental homes modeled off his memories of houses in England. The Compton Heights subdivision, designed by Compton Hill resident Pitzman, would not be laid out to the south and east until 1889. However, Pitzman did create an earlier subdivision called Southeast Compton Hill in 1873.

One of the most outstanding residences that appeared on Pictorial St. Louis, just north of the reservoir, was the residence of Charles Helmers. He worked as an architect, active in the city after the Civil War, and his house might very well have been designed by his hand. He also may have designed a house in Vandeventer Place for Smith P. Galt to the north on Grand Boulevard in Midtown. As was typical of many houses out in the countryside after the war, it was in the Italianate villa style, with an asymmetrical massing, dominated by a tower designed to help draw hot air up out of the house in the summer. Henry Shaw’s Tower Grove House is an excellent surviving example of what was once a collection of several dozen such houses, almost all of which are now gone or heavily altered beyond recognition. Helmers’ house eventually passed into the ownership of George Hoyle, whose children presumably can be seen out in front of the house in the photograph circa 1900. Records from the St. Louis Water Division in 1915 show a purchase of land from Hoyle, and most likely at the point the house was demolished in order to secure site control of property around the reservoir. The stately Italianate villa’s former location is now Interstate 44 just east of the Grand Boulevard overpass.

James Eads, the famous engineer who had begun his self-taught career along the Mississippi, also called Compton Hill his home, just north of Lafayette Avenue in his elaborate Italianate mansion showing the influence of Renaissance architecture, including Michelangelo. Eads Avenue and Park are remnants of where his estate once lay. Like many of the country estates, the house sat in the middle of several acres, and as the subdivisions around the house filled in, it converted to institutional uses after the death of its original owner. Saint Louis University owned it for a while before it was demolished. John Roe’s residence on Lafayette Avenue is another example of an Italianate country house sitting in a large acreage. It is important to realize that many of these houses were still standing in the childhoods of St. Louisans alive today.

The Second Empire began to appear in the spacious lots of Compton Hill, as well. In fact, if one looks closely at Pictorial St. Louis, the lots on the south side of Russell Boulevard were once filled with mansions in that French-inspired style. The Magic Chef Mansion, famous today for its architecture, is actually the second house to stand on that lot. The August Nedderhut House on Lafayette Avenue is now gone, but a house just to the west is similar in design and still stands. It should also be noted that many smaller houses were built in Compton Hill that survive.

The rural environment of Compton Hill was rapidly fading; however, the area around the reservoir was filling in, and the multi-acre lots were now becoming valuable to real estate speculators. Compton Heights was platted according to Pitzman’s designs in 1889, and the style of architecture common after the Civil War was replaced by new, more German forms in the 20th century. The famous tower would be built by the reservoir in 1899. To the north, a thriving African American community was developing in Compton Hill near the railyards of the Mill Creek Valley. Next week, we will look at their story.

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