Readers had been inquiring about the house at the corner of Cook and Whittier, so I went by and checked up on it. Overall, the house looks to be doing about the same as it always has been, but I would not expect its roof to last too many more severe storms or winters.
There have been several attempts at rehabbing it, but so far, they don’t seem to have taken off. There are other amazing houses on Cook, which I’ve looked at before, so I think the best case scenario would be that there is a general interest in the whole area, and not in just this one house.
Like I said, I think this roof need immediate intervention.
But this house is not doomed, even if the entire roof has to be replaced.
By the way, this is actually the work of Frederick W. Fout, and was built in 1892 or so as part of an addition to the street grid known as Fout Place. Fout was an attorney, and like many wealthy St. Louisans, augmented his income with real estate speculation. I’ve created a new tag, Fout Place, for this house and retroactively added it to all of the posts for this house so you can look it up due to its popularity.
One thing’s for sure: a tuckpointing company will make a ton of money on the salvation of this house! I look forward to seeing someone fix up this beauty.
