This flounder house on Southwest Ave in the Ellendale neighborhood is a particularly early structure for the area near the city limits, dating to around 1870. The use of the flounder design may seem unusual for a house built so far from the urban core of the city, as this area was actually beyond the reach of the 1875 Compton and Dry map, and likely in St. Louis County at the time of construction, but it sat directly along Old Manchester Road. Originally, Manchester Road took a different route than it does today, starting at Market Street and Compton Ave, and continuing down present day Market Street until its intersection with Vandeventer. The road continued down Vandeventer up to its intersection at Southwest Ave, where it continued until reaching the intersection with Manchester Road in Maplewood. By 1875, “New Manchester” had been plotted along a much straighter path, allowing for a more direct route than the older winding road. However, many of the earliest developments in the southwestern part of St. Louis occurred along or near the old route, which was originally used by Native American tribes, and later by early settlers. Today, the house stands out among the wooden frame houses of the 1890s and Craftsman houses of the 1920s, as an outlier from many years earlier.
