This flounder house in Benton Park West near the corner of Iowa and Pestalozzi is one of the oldest buildings in the neighborhood, and dates to about 1860, or potentially even earlier. The neighborhood was originally settled along Gravois Road, as it was one of the first roads to lead out of the city, and at one point it had been used as an Indian trail. German settlers started to buy up the inexpensive and plentiful land to the south of Soulard in the late 1850s, as the city limits had recently been expanded to Grand Ave. One of the types of architecture that was commonly built in the early years of the neighborhood was the flounder house, which is designated by its roof that slants to one side and has a flat wall with no architectural features on the taller side. The reason for this type of construction was to allow for the house to be built in close proximity to its neighbors, without the issue of having water runoff onto their property. Most of the Benton Park West neighborhood was rural at the time of the use of flounder houses, between 1850 and 1880, so only a few of the oldest houses in the area were built in the flounder style. The majority of the development in the area was a result of the expansion of streetcar lines along Gravois, Jefferson, and Cherokee in the late 19th century, which brought about an explosion in population in the area between 1880 and 1920. Today, Benton Park West is mostly filled with housing from this time period, although a few houses from the mid 19th century can be found scattered throughout the neighborhood.
