Recoup DeVille Motor Hotel: No need to demolish historic building

A major political force within St. Louis wants to demolish a viable piece of architecture for parking, and an apathetic community is allowing it to happen--it’s an oft-repeated scenario in our city, and the fact that it is happening again is no surprise, but nevertheless, borders on the ridiculous. Though this sad story generally brings to mind turn-of-the-century office buildings falling for massive parking garages downtown, this chapter is different. Currently, the powers that be have turned their sights on an example of the most vulnerable of architectural styles--the Central West End’s mid-century modern DeVille Motor Hotel.

Until recently, this building on the northeast corner of Lindell and Taylor served as housing for lower-income seniors and was named the San Luis Apartments. Its owner, the Archdiocese of St. Louis, has now moved its residents elsewhere with the intention of clearing the site for a surface parking lot. To do so would not only create a massive and unattractive void in the center of one of the city’s most impressive streetscapes, but would result in the wasteful destruction of an impressive, if underappreciated, piece of architecture.

Designed by New Orleans architect Charles Colbert in 1959, the building was the fourth in a series of DeVille motels nationwide. Colbert, then a professor at Tulane, had designed the first in New Orleans in 1953, winning him awards and national acclaim. Two more motels followed in Shreveport, Louisiana (1955) and Denver (1959). By the time of the St. Louis DeVille’s opening in 1963, Colbert had been elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and was serving as dean of the School of Architecture of Columbia University in New York.

Described as “sparkling” by the St. Louis press, the $5 million DeVille Motor Hotel was designed to complement Lindell Boulevard’s impressive collection of early 20th century apartment towers. Colbert clad the distinctive E-shaped structure in grey concrete and crystal quartz aggregate panels which enclosed 226 guest rooms, 180 parking spaces, meeting rooms, and a lounge. His design was wholly unlike most other high-rise buildings erected in the city at the time. Looking at St. Louis University’s Marchetti Towers and the Mansion House Apartments downtown shows how much more imaginative the DeVille was in shape and form; its clean modernist lines coupled with soaring white columns bring to mind the “ready-to-take-off” feel of the fanciful Googie architecture of the West Coast.

Wide-spread appreciation for mid-century modern architecture has been steadily growing. As time separates us further and further from the 1950s and 1960s, landowners and speculators nationwide are reevaluating the worth of buildings which seem commonplace and, as a result, expendable. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has lent its support to countless preservation and citizens’ groups struggling to keep mid-century buildings from the wrecking ball. In St. Louis, Washington University professor Eric Mumford highlighted our city’s significant contribution to the mid-century modern movement in Modern Architecture in St. Louis in 2004, and within the past year, a number of mid-century buildings were nominated to the National Register of Historic Places. Though the Archdiocese has neglected to pursue a nomination for the DeVille, the quality of its design coupled with Colbert’s importance make it certain that it too would be eligible for listing on the National Register as well. If listed, the building would qualify for both federal and state historic tax credits which would enable a developer to rehabilitate the building with ease. With its built-in parking, double swimming pool, retail space, and over two-hundred apartments located in such a dynamic part of the city, rehabilitation would seem logical.

Opposition to the preservation of mid-century buildings like the DeVille Motor Hotel is too-often reduced to the opinion that they are “ugly.” When deciding whether or not to demolish an irreplaceable piece of architecture, it would be prudent to keep in mind that it is our tastes, not a building’s worth, that are subjective. For years it was thought that Victorian architecture was gaudy and needed demolishing; in retrospect we can be thankful that this short-sighted opinion didn’t do more damage than it did.

A good part of a building’s worth derives from the extent to which it embodies its era. The DeVille Motor Hotel embodies a time when the city was rapidly losing residents and addressing the impact of the automobile upon urban life. As a bright new high-rise, the building represented hope for St. Louis’ urban core much in the manner of the Gateway Arch. As a motor-hotel built to compliment the density of the Central West End, it accommodated driving culture while avoiding the sprawling footprints of its more common suburban counterparts.

The Archdiocese’s desire for more parking for the New Cathedral and for Rosati-Kain students and faculty is understandable, but razing the DeVille is a far too simplistic and destructive answer. With almost 200 built-in parking spaces hidden from the streetscape, is there truly no way of reusing the DeVille while accommodating the Church’s desires? Is a surface parking lot, the lowest common denominator of solutions, really the best we can expect? Fifty years of this brand of “quick fix” has left our downtown pock-marked by bland parking garages and empty surface lots; and one would think we’d strive to avoid such a fate for the well-preserved Central West End.

The Archdiocese has not yet obtained a demolition permit for the DeVille Motor Hotel, lending a measure of hope for the building’s preservation. Charles Colbert died early last year and was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor by AIA Louisiana. What better time than now for our community to take a stand in defense of his work; and rally for imaginative, rather than mediocre solutions for our built environment.

You can e-mail Lindsey at nicolankford@gmail.com.