The buildings here
Compact one and one-and-a-half story brick bungalows, shotgun cottages and small flats built between about 1900 and 1935, on narrow lots with short chimneys, brick or concrete front stoops, rear sleeping porches and low retaining walls at the sidewalk.
Small houses, close together, built to last
The Hill is one of the most consistently built parts of St. Louis. Streets like Shaw, Daggett, Marconi, Bischoff and Wilson carry block after block of compact brick houses on narrow lots, most of them a single story or a story and a half, many with a rear sleeping porch and a small yard behind. They were built between about 1900 and the mid 1930s, largely for and by the families who settled here, and they have generally been kept up better than housing of the same age elsewhere in the city.
That maintenance history changes what we find. Fewer collapsed cornices and bulging walls, more small jobs that have been put off: a chimney crown nobody has been on the roof to see, a gangway wall that has stayed damp for thirty years, a front stoop that has finally started shedding brick.
The brick changes across the neighborhood
The Hill was built out over about three decades, and the brick changed during that period. Earlier houses use soft local common brick fired at lower temperatures, porous and forgiving, which needs a lime rich mortar that stays softer than the unit. Later bungalows, especially those from the 1920s onward, use harder machine made brick that can tolerate a stiffer Type N mix.
Telling them apart is not guesswork. We look at the face texture, the arris on the edges, how the brick absorbs a splash of water, and what the original mortar looks like where it has not been touched. Two houses on the same block can need two different mixes, which is why a neighbor’s price is a poor guide to yours.
Where we usually end up working
Gangways and rear elevations come first on most jobs here. Front elevations on these houses are short, sheltered by the stoop roof and often in good shape. The chimneys are the sleeper item: short stacks on low roofs still get weather from every direction and most of them still carry the original thin mortar wash instead of a proper cast crown with an overhang.
Below that, the ground level masonry keeps us busy. Stoops, cheek walls, and the low retaining walls at the sidewalk edge all sit in wet soil, take road salt in winter, and take a beating from freeze cycles that hit them harder than any wall on the house.
What matters locally
Two eras of brick in the same block
Houses built before about 1915 here use soft local common brick that wants a lime rich mortar. The later bungalows use harder machine made brick that can take a Type N mix. Mixing those up damages the older houses, so we test the brick before specifying.
Narrow lots and tight gangways
Lots on The Hill run narrow and the houses sit close to each other. A gangway three or four feet wide takes both roofs' runoff, so those side walls stay wet longer and fail before the front elevation does.
Front stoops and retaining walls take the beating
The brick and concrete stoops, cheek walls and low sidewalk retaining walls on these streets sit in wet ground, are exposed on several faces and get salted every winter. They are the most common small masonry job in the neighborhood.
Well kept houses with deferred chimneys
Housing here is generally maintained better than the city average, but chimneys get missed because nobody looks at them. Short stacks on low roofs still take weather on four sides, and the crowns on them are often the original thin mortar wash.
Jobs we do most often in The Hill
- Repointing gangway and rear elevations that stay damp
- Recasting chimney crowns and installing rain caps
- Rebuilding brick front stoops, cheek walls and steps
- Replacing rusted lintels over front and kitchen windows
- Repointing and rebuilding low sidewalk retaining walls
- Cutting out spalled brick at splash level and below sills