Tasteful Friends: meet me in St. Louis?

Good Lord that is one boring grey yawn. He may be a weird albino, but Anderson Cooper knew how to trick out a firehouse.

Sorry, boys -- I don't think it comes with the firemen.

Still interested?

Is this a rescue house?

I like it. I don’t love it. According to the photographs they appear to have spared no expense refinishing some of the spaces. But these are contrasted with spaces that they didn’t refinish and just seem to paint, or clean. So it’s a weird mishmash.

I would change the paint color of some of the interior, but overall I like it.

I actually like how the back garage opens into the space.

I hate sliding doors.

WIth R5. I really like it except for the overuse of gray which R1 noted.

$1.65M seems a lot though. You are paying for the novelty of course, but still.

The rooftop patio is nice, but for that much money in St. Louis I would want a yard with some big old trees.

Imagine the utility bills for a place that cavernous.

For the same price you could get a painted lady directly on Lafayette Square with small front and rear yards.

Address @OP is a @2 blocks from the park.

Who would pay $1.7 million to live in St. Louis?

I love everything about that place. I've also heard that St. Louis is a very liveable place.

Where’s the pole?

I wondered the same thing!

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, this entire neighborhood was scheduled to be bulldozed for construction of Interstate 755. Luckily residents along the entire route protested and eventually the plan was dropped.

Unfortunately they weren't able to stop construction of Interstate 44 which cuts off Lafayette Square from neighborhoods immediately to the south, as well as disrupting other neighborhoods like Compton Heights, Shaw, Tiffany and The Hill.

Meh .... Too dangerous

Compton Heights?!

I can live in the flats of Compton just fine.

[Quote] I've also heard that St. Louis is a very liveable place.

You don't want to live in St. Louis.

Looks like the lair of a torturer and serial killer who has a mild-mannered day job persona.

“0hh, Mister Neeeeeeeeeeerluuuueeeeeeeyyyeeeee…!!?!

I have a sudden urge to make homemade ketchup!

The ground floor ceiling seems very, very low. How did a fire truck fit in there?

[quote] they appear to have spared no expense refinishing some of the spaces.

Looks like they spared some expenses on this room.

[quote] I hate sliding doors.

Actual, proper, sliding doors (like pocket doors) are a very nice and expensive detail. What's in this house are cheap-looking barn-style doors.

I see the appeal, but in the end it's down to two very specific markets:

1.) the St. Louis tech titan house for a 40-pushing-50-something man to fill with strange 'You'll never guess how much I spent on this!' man toys and a dozen matching oversized Chesterfield sofas, a cigar room, and a wine tasting room;

2.) the rich artist who wants an expansive studio/gallery/living space to be very assertively arty and expansive and throwing big parties.

I like big open living spaces, but for $1.65M in St. Louis, this isn't luxurious enough to have a big cavernous space with Home Depot finishes above a large studio space that will always smell of paint or be filled with the dust of a sculptor. And I have no idea how many tech titans St. Louis has who want to play out 'Industry' fantasies.

If I had to live in St. Louis, I would take two-thirds of that money and buffer myself against the indignities of St. Louis with a much more conventional but luxurious house on a beautiful private street in the Central West End. It's only 69% the size of the firehouse conversion, but still big at nearly 5000sf, and the plan and detailing is flexible enough to adapt the spaces to different uses and tastes. De-papering that floral bathroom and re-painting that black/green living room, it would be a beautfiful house with only better furniture and art. With the $561,000 I saved, I'd buy a place in Europe and spend half the year there to put a better face on living half my life in St. Louis.

I'm not paying that much to bear the consequences at the St Louis metro area's historic mistakes. What a fucked up place.

I like it, but I would get rid of that ugly garage door on the front and change it to a multi-paned window. I'm okay with all the grey, but I would put some serious splashes of color all over the place.

Number one?

I'm not a fan of these modern, white and glass centric, open floor plan places. I know some people love it, no thanks.

The data at R30 is last year's data. Things have changed a bit since then. These are the top 20 cities with the highest murder rates in 2024. Some cities have moved way down the list in the last year. St. Louis is still #1 however.

Murder Rate (per 100k)

St. Louis, MO 69.4

Baltimore, MD 51.1

New Orleans, LA 40.6

Detroit, MI 39.7

Cleveland, OH 33.7

Las Vegas, NV 31.4

Kansas City, MO 31.2

Memphis, TN 27.1

Newark, NJ 25.6

Chicago, IL 24.0

Cincinnati, OH 23.8

Philadelphia, PA 20.2

Milwaukee, WI 20.0

Tulsa, OK 18.6

Pittsburgh, PA 18.4

Indianapolis, IN 17.7

Louisville, KY 17.5

Oakland, CA 17.1

Washington, D.C. 17.0

Atlanta, GA 16.7

Too big. Why so many bathrooms.

I once had a job offer in St. L but was put off with by the humidity, the lack of good close-by getaways, and the limited number of truly walkable, affordable neighborhoods. You really need a car there.

City wide homicide rates are of limited use--these crimes usually tend to be localized within cities and easily spill into suburban areas--the distinction between city and suburb is increasingly blurred in many areas.

St. Louis....blech.

Ralston-Purina?

It’s Nestlé now. SL is but a stepping stone to a happy expat life in Switzerland!

Look at how many murders in Pittsburgh — like a failed state.

Just one more reason to avoid the flyover sewer.

R25, it's completely staged. It's staged with really cheap furnishings and decor. Target has nicer decor than what is used in this firehouse

St. Louis, MO 69.4

Baltimore, MD 51.1

Holy shit, it's worse than Baltimore? I almost got murdered in Baltimore. It's a COMPLETE SHIT HOLE. And evidently as bad as it is, it's not even as close to being as bad as St Louis? I can't imagine anything worse than Baltimore. And I've lived all over NYC during the 80s & 90s

Very cool but all that cold, ugly grey would have to go and some of the flooring looks a bit rough and dangerous.

More and more strongly all the time I realize that if you relocate you need to be very sure you want to live in the *place*, not only the building you’re considering in that place, however quaint the building is or however much exposed brick it has.

I’m buying what I could afford to buy in a town I don’t like. I regret being here but the reason I chose to be still holds: I couldn’t afford to buy in either of the two places I’d have liked to live.

If I had $1,000,000+ to spend on a home, I wouldn’t need five seconds to consider whether or not St. Louis was the place I wanted to move to.

Ouch. The St. Louis murder rate is 11,094% higher than my city.

More like beat me in St. Louis OP