The Stone House Lives

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stone-house-01

Where North Highway 67 ends
North St. Louis County, MO

This is a picture of the very last house on the south side of Hwy 67.  It’s past Jamestown Mall, but several yards before the mighty street comes to a whimpering end before a forest.   I always thought this little stone house – built in 1948 – was so charming and so intriguing.  There’s no front yard, but a little over 2 acres of backyard.  But the feature that always caught my imagination was the outdoor terrace created in the space between the house and tiny garage.

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I was both fascinated and jealous when passing by and catching someone using that special spot; how lucky were they?

In 2007, it became apparent the place was empty, and considering how developers were angling to obliterate every inch of greenery for a slight variation on the same retail they had just 15 miles down the road, I figured this place was toast.  But when driving by yesterday, I saw two men working on the house.  They were installing the new fascia you see in these photos.  And then I noticed it was a new roof, as well, and that the LLC who bought the place would only do something like that if they planned to sell it as a viable, 1,389 s.f. home that someone would be happy to live in.

Consider that homes even more substantial and younger than this get sold as teardowns, and understand why my heart burst with happiness over the sight of men fixing this house for its future.  They think it’s perfectly natural to save and re-use this little stone house, those lovable, wacky kids!

6 thoughts on “The Stone House Lives

  1. I saw that last weekend. Drove by and saw only a For Sale sign where the house once was, and I was devastated! Thanks for caring enough to note it’s absence with a scream of NO!

  2. drove by it today and I have the worst news… It’s gone. I fresh dirt lot. I screamed “NOOOO!!!” as I passed it. I’ll miss that little house.

  3. I grew up in the subdivision right behind this house. During one of the many times it has been empty over the years, my husband and I snuck inside and were delighted to find the most wonderful 1950s pink-and-black tiled bathroom. A lot of the interior has been neglected and is pretty run down, but that bathroom still shines!

  4. Toby,

    That house looks very similar to the house that I live in. I live in NW UCity off 82nd street almost to Page ave. My street (Montreal) and the one just to the north (Paramount) is the Waltondale subdivison. Built in 1947, most of the houses on these two streets are “slabrock” construction, with a few brick ones thrown in. Schuermann Building and Realty company were the builders. There is an almost identical neighborhood just to the north and east of here west on Alert, just west of Hanley rd north of Page. The houses are just a tad larger though. I think they might have also built that neighborhood. I wouldn’t be suprised if Schuermann built that one on 67.

  5. Damn! I would NOT have wanted to do the masonry on that! That’s pretty freakin’ imposing.

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