Claude Juppier House

This Second Empire house at the corner of Crittenden and Wisconsin Ave in Benton Park was built in 1865 by Claude Juppier in the Second Empire style, making it one of the first of its kind to appear in St. Louis. Unlike most of the other modest sized houses that surrounded it, the Juppier house sits on a large plot of land with the house in the middle atop a hill. This indicates that the house was built before most of the other residents got to the area, and before the street was graded. Juppier was a stone mason, and likely constructed this house himself, as the late use of the limestone lintels suggests. Along with his neighbor, Joseph Louiseau, Juppier was a member of the French colony known as the Icarians, who settled in Nauvoo Illinois in 1848, before moving to Cheltenham in 1856. After the utopian society collapsed, several members moved to Benton Park. Shortly after moving to the area, Juppier was also enlisted as a reserve troop in the Union Army during the Civil War, at which point he was 47 years old. After the war, he also joined the German Mutual Fire Insurance Co, as a board member, a position which he held into the 1880s. After his death in 1884 at the age of 70, Juppier‘s land became the focus of a legal battle over property tax assessments, as the city was trying to increase the taxes based on the construction of a new alley behind the house, but in the long run, it was ruled that the property could not be reassessed based on the new alley being constructed behind. The house, which was one of the largest in the neighborhood, outside of the mansions on Second Carondelet Ave, was later turned into rooming houses in the mid 20th century, as Benton Park became a les desirable neighborhood to live in, along with most neighborhoods in the urban core of the city at the time. However, in recent years, the house was converted back into a single family home, and sold as one of the most valuable houses in the neighborhood.