Live like a chancellor for the price of a tenured professor—that’s how real estate agent Brian Elsesser is pitching the four-bed, four-bathroom, 3,300-square-foot home that just hit the market in Bellerive Acres.
The house has for 51 years been the official residence of the chancellor of the University of Missouri-St. Louis. The university is moving to a housing stipend system rather than having the residence at 9 Bellerive Acres be part of the compensation, UMSL spokesman Steve Walentik confirmed.
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Elsesser says that this represents the “chance of a lifetime.”
“Chancellors are a little bit like emperors,” he jokes. “They get the finest.”
Constructed in 1925, the house was built on the third hole of the Bellerive Country Club. When the country club moved west, the UM System purchased the land in the 1960s to construct the school. They bought the house in 1975. Chancellor Kristin Sobolik, who stepped down in July, was the most recent tenant.
About the sale, Walentik tells SLM, “UMSL has been evaluating its real estate holdings since 2020 as part of its broader focus on its core campus and long-term sustainability. The Bellerive Acres property has served the university in support of its leadership and institutional functions for many years. But as part of its ongoing review of university resources and priorities, UMSL has determined that the property is no longer essential to its long-term plans and that disposition is appropriate.”
There is currently a system-wide policy requiring chancellors to live in university-owned housing. Walentik says that rule is in the process of being revised.
The house features terrazzo floors and fine mill work. The brick on the outside is what’s called “drunken brick.” Most brick in St. Louis is monotone, neat and linear. Drunken brick, however, is whimsical and uneven, as its name implies. Some bricks pop out, others recede. It’s unusual enough that Elsesser says he’s only represented two houses with drunken brick in the past decade.
Also, the house’s basement includes a bar and pool table. In other words, it’s a party house. Former Chancellor Tom George was known to throw some blowouts.
The university has pumped six-figure sums into the house in recent years, including a new roof, balcony, and kitchen.
“If you picked this house up and moved it to Wydown on Clayton, It would be $3 million,” says Elsesser. The property is currently listed for $589,900.
