The buildings here
Stone and brick houses from about 1905 to 1930 in Parkview and University Heights, brick and stone trimmed apartment courts and four family buildings near the Delmar Loop, brick storefronts along Delmar, and solid post-war brick homes on the streets north of Olive.
One municipality, several different building eras
University City packs an unusual range of masonry into a few square miles. Parkview, laid out in the early 1900s and still a private place, carries large houses in rough faced stone and brick with tile and slate roofs. University Heights nearby is similar in age and ambition. Around the Delmar Loop the stock shifts to 1920s apartment courts and four family buildings, brick with stone or cast trim, flat roofed with parapets. Delmar itself is commercial brick. North of Olive the housing is later and simpler, solid brick with harder units and tighter joints.
That range matters because it changes the mortar. A 1908 stone house in Parkview and a 1955 brick ranch on the north side need genuinely different mixes, and a contractor who runs one bag rate across the whole city is guessing on at least one of them.
The things that fail here
Parapets on the Loop buildings come first. They are exposed on both faces, they carry roof turn-ups, and on the commercial blocks they also carry sign anchors drilled through the masonry. Every anchor is a hole that admits water, and when the coping is a flat cement cap with no overhang the whole top of the wall stays wet.
On the residential side, the chimney stacks on the older houses are the repeat item. Many sit on tile or slate roofs, which means work above them has to be staged carefully to avoid breaking tiles that are expensive and hard to match. Stone porch piers, steps and garden walls come next, particularly where the joints were repaired at some point with a cement mix that is now shedding off the stone.
Working here in practice
The practical differences from the city are the permit route and the access. University City handles its own permits and its own historic review, and the lead times are its own. Parkview adds a private place approval layer. Access is generally easier than the city, with driveways, side yards and room to stand scaffold, though the mature trees on these streets often have to be worked around rather than through.
What matters locally
Permits come from University City
University City is a separate municipality with its own building department and its own historic preservation commission. Masonry permits and any historic review go through the city of University City rather than the City of St. Louis, so the paperwork route is different.
Parkview is stone as much as brick
The houses in Parkview use a lot of rough faced stone with brick, and stone repointing calls for a softer mix again. Parkview is also a private place with its own agents, so exterior work there usually involves their approval as well as the city's.
Apartment courts near the Loop share scope
The four family and courtyard buildings around the Loop have long uninterrupted brick elevations, flat roofs with parapets, and multiple owners or a single investor. We break the estimate down per elevation so the work can be staged across budget years.
Commercial parapets on Delmar
Storefront buildings on Delmar carry tall parapets over the shopfront with signage anchored through them. Anchors let water in, the parapet is wet on both faces, and that combination brings down more brick here than anything else.
Jobs we do most often in University City
- Repointing stone and brick elevations on Parkview and University Heights houses
- Parapet and coping repair on Delmar storefront buildings
- Repointing long apartment court elevations from scaffold
- Chimney rebuilds above the roofline on tile and slate roofs
- Replacing lintels over wide living room and storefront openings
- Repointing stone porch piers, steps and garden walls