Hickory Street Italianate Row Houses

These Italianate Row houses on Hickory Street in Lafayette Square were built in 1879, at a time when the flat roof was beginning to replace the pitched roof in most architecture around St. Louis, marking a change in style that differentiates early buildings in St. Louis from those that were built after the city had been well established. Middle class residents of the exclusive Lafayette Square neighborhood would live in Italianate style row houses, such as these, as they featured a stone fronted facade and had a more decorative cornice and doors than a typical working class row house, such as what would be found in Benton Park during this same time period. Earlier on in the history of St. Louis architecture, most buildings had the pitched roof seen here, as it was the most effective way to handle runoff at the time. However, around 1880, new gutter technology and new roof building materials such as tar allowed for flat roofs to be developed, which allowed for more living space on the top floor, which had often been used for an extra room in earlier houses, although not with these particular examples. What indicates that this is near a period of transition is the appearance of Row houses that date to the early 1880s, which are similar in design, with the only major difference being a flat roof. Perhaps due to their size, these Row houses have fared well through the decline of the neighborhood, and still remain in good shape today, providing a good example of the architecture being built right before the transition from the pitched roof to the flat roof.