Nicolas DeMenil

In 1856, the Chatillons sold the farmhouse for $18,120 to banker Eugene Miltenberger, a native St Louisan, and to Dr. Nicholas N. DeMenil, a Frenchman.  The house servers as a summer retreat for both families until 1861, when Miltenberger sold his interest to Dr. DeMenil for $10,000.

The house was completely renovated with a Greek Revival theme, and was transformed into the Mansion the DeMenils moved ....

Dr. DeMenil was married to Emilie Sophie Chouteau, great-granddaughter of Mme. Marie Therese Bourgeois Chouteau, the first white woman to settle in St. Louis and common-law wife of Pierre Laclede.  The DeMenils had two children; a daughter who died at a young age, and a son, Alexander, who grew up to become a prominent St. Louis businessman.  After Dr. DeMenil died in 1882, Alexander inherited the house, keeping the furnishings cherished by his parents.  He lived in the house with his wife until his death in 1928.  Then Alexander's son, George, moved into the house with his wife, Ida.

George and Ida DeMenil lived in the house for almost a year when, upset with all the new factories and smokestacks in the neighborhood, they moved father south in St. Louis.  The house was placed in the hands of caretakers, Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Kaiser.  The Kaisers cared for the house until the DeMenils sold it to entrepreneur Lee Hess in 1945.

Nicholas DeMenil was a French physician of noble descent. His grandfather, Nicholas, Baron DeMenij,, renounced his 1,100-year-old title at the time of the French Revolution. Dr. DeMenil came to St. Louis during an American tour and never left again, as he met and married Emilie Sophie Chouteau. Emilie Chouteau was the granddaughter of Auguste Chouteau. Chouteau was the clerk of the fur merchant, Pierre de Laclede Liguest. The two of them, with a crew, came up the river from New Orleans to establish a post for Laclede's fur trading company Maxent, Laclede and Company.

In 1763, Laclede found the site upon which he would establish the post, and in 1764, St. Louis was begun. Although a teenager at the time, Chouteau was given extensive responsibilities and remained close to Laclede. Madame Marie Therese Chouteau, his mother, left her husband in New Orleans. Upon coming to St. Louis, she reportedly formed an "irregular union" with Laclede. 1 ' (August's brother, Pierre, also came to St. Louis.) The family became one of the powerful early St. Louis families, and Chouteau Boulevard is an old and major thoroughfare.

Although there is no road named for them, the DeMenil's became a prominent St. Louis family. For with their respective, somewhat exalted, backgrounds, Dr. and Mme. DeMenil represented the American version of aristocracy. Not to rest on his (or her) name, Dr. DeMenil built a very prosperous practice and established the first successful chain of retail drug stores in the city and with the purchase of the Chatillon land, he began his investment in real estate and subsequent development.

When DeMenil bought the house, he and his wife were living in town on Seventh Street and they used the farmhouse as a summer retreat. In 1861, DeMenil bought the rest of the property from Miltenberger.' Henry Pitcher was commissioned to remodel the house. Pitcher (born 1814) came to America from England with his family when he was four years old. After traveling over most of the East Coast, he settled in St. Louis in 1838. From being a carpenter, he worked into being an architect and contractor. 1 -3Using the old house as a core, twelve feet were added to the western side bringing the wall directly to the street. The eastern addition contained three stories, a basement, and the two double porches. The carriage house may also have been built at the same time. 14 Work was completed in 1863, at which time the DeMenil family moved into the house. The Civil War had apparently made life in St. Louis uncomfortable as they were Southern sympathizers and Federal troops were stationed in the city. The window bars were supposedly installed as protection against the soldiers or the vagabonds of war.

The date of 1863 has been the source of controversy as it seems too late for the Greek Revival style. However, there are two equally valid explanations which defend the date. John Albury Bryan states that "architectural styles overlap in dates and no definite year can be said to mark the beginning of a certain style as late as 1869, Greek Revival buildings were still being built in Philadelphia and San Francisco." lb The other possibility is that Henry Pitcher used Henri Chouteau's house, built in 1832 at Eleventh and Clark Streets in St. Louis, as a model for the facade of the DeMenil House. lb Henri Chouteau was Mme. DeMenil's first cousin.

As previously mentioned, DeMenil was interested in real estate, and in 1865 he became actively involved in its development. At that time he leased part of his land (around Seventh and Cave Streets) to two men who wanted to start a brewery. (The area around Dehenil's house and throughout South St. Louis is interlaced with small caves perfect for beer storage, and in the nineteenth century, many such independent enterprises were started.) Soon the men needed money and DeMenil loaned it to them. In 1865, unable to pay their debt, DeMenil seized the property and brewery workings. As well as continuing to work the brewery called the Minnehaha Brewery he built, in 1879, a row of ten three-story residences containing seventeen flats and three stores on Seventh Street between Cherokee and Cave Streets. How ever, he was not terribly foresighted in his planning and found that he had ruined what was once a lovely view to the river with the coal sheds and smoke stacks. At this time he moved the "front" entrance to the Thirteenth Street side. In order to make the approach more formal, he added the balustrades on the porch and wing.

Dr. DeMenil died in 1882 and his only child, Alexander, inherited the entire estate. Like his father, Alexander was a doctor. He was also interested in literature and became a poet of local fame.'" (Among his poems is one defending his great great-grandmother, Marie Therese Chouteau, for her relationship with Laclede. The St. Louisans of the eighteenth century had thought nothing of the relationship as Mme. Chouteau was something of a local heroine. Victorian St. Louis, however, was easily scandal/ed by the affair.) When Alexander died in 1928, his only son, George, moved in with his family. But the area had deteriorated to such an extent that it was no longer a glamorous or even, respectable place to live, and they moved.

The house remained in the hands of custodians until 1940 when it was sold to Lee Hess, a pharmaceutical manufacturer, who converted the second floor into two apartments, one of which he and his wife occupied.