urbanSTL

True, nothing says St. Louis like a 2 or 4 flat.



One of my favorite St. Louis houses is what I jokingly call a "one family flat". Do you know what I mean? It has the same style as a typical 2 flat, but only one floor and for one family. They seem common in St.Louis and not so common in other cities. Perhaps it is a St. Louis version of a shotgun, but with a decorative front and flat roof. Sometimes the front is more ornate than you would except for such a modest little house.



Adaptability is a great feature of the typical St. Louis flat. Because of pocket doors & corridors, the rooms can be used as needed. The first room is usually a living room, the second room can be used as a formal dining room or second parlor, or for a bigger family, closed up and used as a bedroom. Very clever and adaptive. Often the kitchen is just a room with a sink, you bring your own appliances, cabinets (hoosier cabinets, etc.) This makes the kitcen very adaptable, too. However, nowadays, many of them have been updated with built-in cabinets, etc.

I always thought that St. Louis could pioneer the concept of "single-family lofts." All these brick flats are rock-solid, so gut the interior and it'll essentially be four walls with an open floor plan. With all the old decrepit dwelling units in the city, this has to be an appealing idea. Think about it-- most of these flats are two stories. Just rip out the upper floor and replace them with an open mezzanine. Lots of sunlight shining through those big windows, a nice big porch... it's a no-brainer! And it seems like it would be relatively inexpensive to do. And I definitely think they should be marketed as such -- SINGLE FAMILY LOFTS. Four walls. One building. One loft. How cool is that? Can anyone tell me if this is already being done in the city?







Who wouldn't want to live in one of these if the interior was open and spacious, with all the modern amenities and the sun shining in those big beautiful arched windows? I mean, St. Louis would really be on to something...

I'm not sure I'm entirely in favor of converting all of the old "flats" into single family units. If you mean some of them, okay, just not all. A city of single family housing with a few pockets of towers sounds pretty dull. Density is not a four-letter word.



People were "piled" in the city in the thirties, forties, and into the fifties not because of the pervasiveness of the flat lifestyle, but because people had less money, larger families that included extended relatives, and because the automobile had not quite taken off as the default mode of transportation. I think smaller, relatively more affluent families would find (especially two family) flat living comfortable.

Steve, I don't disagree with you at all! I am not suggesting converting all the flats into single family lofts-- I was referring to the ones that are too far gone to save the interiors. Rather than gutting them and filling them with drywall, just leave the floors open. I think it's a great way to lure young buyers into fringe neighborhoods (a la Old North St. Louis). It's a lot of space, very cool, very modern, yet it preserves the buildings which give the neighbhorhoods their character. We all know there are countless blocks of dilapidated multi-family housing structures throughout the city, and gutting them seems like a relatively affordable way to save them! I see this idea working well along Delmar and Olive near Gaslight Square. Lots of old run down flats to reclaim, and it's close enough to thriving neighborhoods that urbanites looking for the next up-and-coming nabe will invest there.



As for the well cared-for flats in the city-- hell no, don't touch 'em! They're the meat of our city.

I understand now and would agree that this is a novel approach to reclaiming neighborhoods from decay and crime. Pioneering

Gasm, I have seen a 2-family flat converted to a one-family house and creating a two-story living room. It was years ago on one of the state streets. And it was before the loft craze, so it wasn't fitted out as a "single-family loft", but as a contemporary single family house of the time. I was a cool house. I think it would be even cooler today, because of the modern design currently available in kitchens, etc. And an excellent reuse of a building that might have been razed otherwise.

Great thing to do if you can find a gutted shell cheap.



Regarding intact & well maintained flats: I used to hear that if you buy a 4-family flat, you could live free. The three rentals would cover your mortgage while you live in the 4th unit. Is that still true? If you could stand being a landlord, sounds like a good investment.

Expat, I believe that is still true. For instance, if the rent on each unit was $600, you would bring in $1800 a month. That should be enough to cover your mortgage, taxes and expenses. You might even make a little money if you play your cards right. You could almost do this if you have a nicer 2 family.

kc has the gingerbread style in south kc, and to a far lesser extent, a few flats. most of the very few that were even built at all were ground up by interstate highway construction.

^It seems that every city has its own version of the storybook houses. The interesting thing is how they vary in each city. It is interesting that KC & STL developed different styles in nearly every type of building.



Does anyone have pics of flounders? That is a housing style not found often in midwestern cities outside of St. Louis or any city for that matter.

Expat wrote:Does anyone have pics of flounders? That is a housing style not found often in midwestern cities outside of St. Louis or any city for that matter.

Expat -- what is the "flounders" style? Can you describe it? I've never heard that term before. (Is that a reference to a Dutch / Northwestern European / Flanders influence?)

A "flounder" looks like half a house. It is really a single house built to look like half a house. Named for the flat fish with both eyes on the same side. Historians may correct me, but at one time people outwitted the tax collecters by building half houses and therefore paying half the tax. That may be urban myth. You will find them in old neighborhoods like Soulard, and I suspect other old nabes like Old North & Hyde Park. I read somewhere they can be found in Alexandria, Virginia and Old St. Louis.

Flounder houses are quite common throughout Benton Park and Soulard, and I imagine the Near North Side as well. I've also read that this style is quite unique to St. Louis.

Expat wrote:A "flounder" looks like half a house. It is really a single house built to look like half a house.

Oh! Yes, I've seen that -- I just never knew it had a name other than "half-house." Actually, I was interested in a smallish one in Soulard when we were house-shopping, but my tall husband ruled it out on the grounds that he was too tall for the steeply-sloped second-story loft bedroom.

Thanks new-to-STL. That is a good example and confirms the tax loophole explanation.

ah yes, i've seen those in ONSL, now i know the story...or at least the legend. interesting.

I live in a "flounder" house on Missouri just south of Cherokee. There are several in my neighborhood (Marine Villa), in fact there is even one with a gambrel roof as opposed to the usual shed roof. My dad lived in the flounder on Mississippi Ave. overlooking Lafayette Park as a child. My grandpa paid $6000 for it in 1956- how I wish my family still had that house! They are usually some of the oldest houses in the neighborhood too, my flounder was built c. 1865.



Anyway, I love my flounder, but they are modest and small. Mine is about 1100 square feet.



As far as the "gingerbread" houses, the book A Field Guide to American Houses has a picture of one (from St. Louis of course) and calls it Tudor Revival. But they have elements of some of the storybook houses that originated around LA. The little I know about the storybook houses is that they were built in the 1920s and 1930s and were heavily influenced by hollywood sets and Disney cartoons. Like Tudor Revival they are influenced by medieval architecture, but they are much more whimsical, exaggerated and cartoonish. I've heard the term Disneyesque applied to them. If you google "storybook houses" you'll find some really great pictures of houses that look like they are straight out of Snow White with wonderful thatched roofs and exaggerated turrets. They even went so far as to build them with fake problems, like sagging roofs and missing bricks.

They even went so far as to build them with fake problems, like sagging roofs and missing bricks.

It's funny that you mention that, because my neighbor's house at the corner of Tholozan and Macklind seems to represent this style. The house looks more like a cottage than it resembles any of the other houses in the neighborhood, and the brickwork is intentionally "imperfect." It's a very odd house, but kind of cool at the same time.

^Interesting. I'll have to go by and check that out. I am in LOVE with those kinds of houses!

DeBaliviere, that house on Macklind is awsome! Truly unique. Anyone who hasn't seen it should go by and check it out. I've never seen another like it. I mean, its not just that the brickwork is a little "imperfect", its more like someone stuck the whole dang thing in an oven, and it "kinda melted a little bit". I've driven past it hundreds of times, and still I marvel.



And that cute little dog in the backyard is quite a character himself!

I believe a city judge owns that particular house.



Rich by lindenwood park.

Being just up the street from the house I have always lived in, I have always marvelled at that house. I was talking to a brick layer about a month ago, and he said that house is know to every brick layer in the region and they all love it. I'll have to take some pics for those that are not able to see it.

Ntbpo, the "scarecrow" sculpture was removed a few months ago. Sorry.