Old Catholic School Building in Saint Louis MO

Immaculate Conception School, St. Louis Missouri

Date added: January 19, 2024

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Missouri
School

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Catholic education in St. Louis reaches as far back as St. Louis Catholicism itself. Before the middle of the nineteenth century, the Church's emphasis, however, was upon higher education, and the construction of colleges and seminaries. With the advent of common public elementary schools and a general move toward compulsive education, the Roman Catholic bishops realized the need for parochial elementary and secondary schooling to combat the public schools' free, but undeniably Protestant influence. In 1875, the Vatican issued the so-called Instruction of 1875, which ordered that every effort was to be made to start new parish schools, or to improve and enlarge the existing ones. By the time the Immaculate Conception School was erected, there was a total of 5,788 parochial schools throughout the country, with an enrollment of 1,633,5979.

The Immaculate Conception church had its beginning in 1854, as St. Kevin's parish. The first church building, at Eighth and Chestnut Streets, was finished in 1862. A small school adjoined the church. When, in 1874, a second church was constructed, the parish school moved with it to its new location on the corner of Jefferson and Locust Street. During the last part of the nineteenth century, when the influx of new immigrants to St. Louis expanded the church's congregation, new accommodations were necessary, and a third church and school were constructed at Park and Cardinal. Sometime around the turn of the century, the parish name was changed to Immaculate Conception, and in 1904, it moved to its present church building on Lafayette, a Late Gothic Revival structure, while classes continued at the Park and Cardinal site.

In April of 1924, land for the construction of the present school was donated to Archbishop John Glennon and the archdiocese by John O'Fallon Delaney, and his wife Elizabeth. Delaney was a physician who never practiced medicine; he devoted himself to the management of his father's large estate. Delaney's family had always been intimately involved with Catholic education in St. Louis. He was the grandson of John Mullanphy, an early St. Louis pioneer and philanthropist, who in 1827, was responsible for the formation of one of the first Catholic schools in St. Louis, run by the Ladies of the Sacred Heart. The land donated to the parish was originally the Delaney family home. The Delaneys gave the land "in consideration of their regard and appreciation of the value of religious education...for the purpose of maintaining and operating a school in which the doctrines of the Roman Catholic religion shall be taught."

The cornerstone of the present school was laid in 1925 and the dedication of the structure took place on Easter in 1926. The contractors were Gillispie and Daly, a local firm. The school served students from Kindergarten to eighth grade, and was staffed by the Sisters of Loretto, who had served as the faculty of the Immaculate Conception schools from their creation. Each sister was responsible for several classes, which, in addition to regular and religious instruction, included sewing, drawing, and music. Between 300 and 400 students regularly attended the school, almost entirely from Irish and German backgrounds. The school served not only as the education center for the parish, but as a gymnasium, meeting room, library, and auditorium. During later years, mass was often held in one of the large first-floor meeting rooms.

In the fifties and sixties, the population of the parish began to change. New immigration introduced Italian, Black, and Puerto Rico students to the school. The middle class began an exodus from the inner city, the Immaculate Conception congregation dwindled, and the parish became unable to support its own school. Accordingly, in 1969, when the Archdiocese took over the Immaculate Conception School, and consolidated the schools of St. Henry, Holy Guardian Angels, St. John Nepomuk, Sis. Peter and Paul and St. Vincent de Paul parishes the school had less than 100 students. The school was renamed Compton Heights Catholic School, and the Sisters of Loretto were replaced by the Frecious Blood Sisters. Finally, the Compton Heights school was closed in 1979, and its students transferred to Notre Dame Elementary School.

Presently, it is in the process of acquisition by a private development firm, which intends to restore the building and convert it into apartments. The exterior ard hallways will be returned to their original condition and all significant interior features will be retained.

Henry P. Hess was born in St. Louis in 1884. His family had always been involved in building and construction: his father was an executive of a planing mill, and several of his brothers later became contractors. Hess began his training in the office of Henry Weise in 1900, when he was 14. As a draftsman, he worked for nearly all the prominent St. Louis firms, including Isaac S. Taylor and Eames and Young. The association most influential to his later career, however, was about 1912, when he joined the staff of William B. Ittner, while Ittner was serving as Commissioner of School Buildings for the City of St. Louis. Here Hess gained valuable experience in the design of educational institutions, studying Ittner's theories of the requisites of proper light, ventilation, and a large, inviting kindergarten area, as well as assimilating Ittner's stylistic preferences: that a school should have a "domestic" simplicity, with dignified, restrained decoration. When Ittner resigned in 1915 and went into private practice, specializing in school buildings, Hess also resigned; a year later he was able to form his own firm. Vince Schulte, whom he had met while working in Ittner's office, became his draftsman, and remained with Hess for the next twenty-five years. Hess' first independent commission was St. Rose's School on Goodfellow Street, and upon its completion, he was established as a favorite architect of John Joseph Cardinal Glennon, an enthusiastic supporter of school construction. Until his death in 1957, Hess was to receive many commissions for school buildings within the Archdiocese of St. Louis, and throughout the Midwest, completing approximately 700 structures. Chief among his works are Cardinal Glennon College, Rosati-Kain High School, De Andries High School, the William Cullen McBride High School, the College of Commerce and Finance for St. Louis University (now the Business School), Christian Brothers College, All Saints Church in University City, the Mary Queen of Peace complex in Webster Groves, Missouri, and St. Joseph's Hospital in Hot Springs Arkansas. Hess' buildings throughout the twenties and thirties generally reflect traditional, historical revival styles; those of his later career show the influence of Art Moderne and other contemporary architectural movements.

Building Description

The Immaculate Conception School, at 2912 Lafayette, was completed in 1926. Facing north from a raised site, it occupies all of City Block 1309 on the north side of the city's Compton Hill district. It is a three-story steel frame masonry construction, T-shaped in plan, with concrete rafters which were poured in place. Its concrete foundation is faced with coursed rubble limestone and trimmed with a granite water table. Atop a high hill and surrounded by smaller, residential structures, the building presents a dignified, massive appearance, with red brick common bond walls detailed with limestone quoining, capstones, and beltcourses.

The school reflects the influence of the Jacobethan revival style, the architectural style most favored for city schools of the period, and which was popularized by prominent St. Louis architect William B. Ittner. The carefully formulated product of an economical use of materials, site, and decoration, the school's exterior reflects precisely the arrangement of space within. The horizontality of the building's seven-bay primary facade is emphasized by grouped windows and a heavy stone beltcourse which connects the lugsills of the second story and visually separates the ground floor. A second stone course at the lintel level on the third story effects a cornice and emphasizes the curvilinear roofline, where silhouettes of shaped gables rise above the flat, composition roof. Countering this strong horizontality are the vertical groupings of the windows of each bay, and two projecting towers, which break through the roofline on the primary facade and are crowned with battlements. Windows of the school are large and grouped in solid masses, forming a rhythmic unified pattern across all facades. Fenestration of the main block is restricted to a four-over-one double-hung sash, usually capped by a four-light transom. Throughout the structure, windows of the first story are paired; those of the second and third stories are grouped four or five under a single lintel. All windows have stone lintels and sills and are marked by heavy quoining.

The focus of the seven-bay primary facade is on the entrance, which is set within a central bay rising to a shaped gable, and is flanked by projecting towers. Surmounting the entranceway, on the second and third stories are groupings of four windows set together under a single stone lintel; the flanking bays present paired windows at each of their three stories. Windows of the three central bays were originally of etched glass; all but two have been lost or replaced. Classical details in the Jacobethan Revival, which if they appear at all, are usually limited to details of the primary entrances, here have been transformed into a prepossessing Neoclassic portico, displaying paired smooth shaft columns and pilasters of the Tuscan order, and carrying a full cornice with balustrade above. The facade's end bays are surmounted by shaped gables filled with diaper patterned brickwork.

The east and west secondary facades are identical, each a three-bay configuration, the center bay of which contains secondary entrances to the school which open into lateral stairtowers. The doubleleaf doors are surmounted by paired double-hung windows. At the level of the landing is set a large triple-hung sash window which rises to ceiling height on the third story. In marked contrast to fenestration and stone detailing, the remaining two bays of the secondary facades are elaborated with decorative brickwork in a diaper pattern.

Projecting from the center of the main block on this facade is a one-story el which contains the school's auditorium/gymnasium area. Its broad expanse of wall surface is broken into rhythmic divisions by simple buttresses capped with limestone. Fenestration on all facades of the gymnasium is restricted to the second story, and is a triple hung two-over-two-over-two sash with a flat arch of vertical stretchers and stone lugsill. The stylistically simple gymnasium el is consistent with the unadorned rear facade of the main block, which presents windows of the primary fenestration pattern set under flat stretcher arches. At the third story level, the stretchers extend across the facade to form a belt course, echoing the limestone coursing of the other elevations.

The Immaculate Conception's T-shaped floorplan reflects the traditional "closed plan" format, which presented a single long hall on each floor, surrounded by classrooms on all sides. The opinion of many school authorities of the time was that the centralized hallway of this floorplan not only was more economical, but allowed more "control" over students than the new "open plan" popularized by Ittner, generally considered to provide superior lighting and ventilation. However, at the Immaculate Conception, Hess reached a compromise between the air and light of the Ittner's open plan, and the economy of the central hall. Transoms surmount each window for improved air movement; large staircase windows shed natural light into each hallway, and to bring classroom light into the hallways, the door to each room is glass-paneled and set under a transom.

The school's primary entrance opens into the main lobby through double-leaf plateglass doors, flanked by 20-light sidelights; both doors and sidelights are surmounted by multi-light transoms. Echoing the configuration of the primary entrance are secondary doorways to either side of the reception hall, which opens onto the principal's office and a small waiting room. These are singleleaf doors, each with 15 lights, flanked by sidelights of 15 lights and topped by transoms, which were opened for ventilation. The auditorium and gymnasium area also opens off the main lobby; originally, it was fronted by a small ticket booth. The walls of the auditorium are surfaced in glazed tile. A small stage is located at the southern end of the room and is flanked by dressing and locker rooms.

Since the building served the parish not only as a school, but as a social and recreational center, the ground floor of the building was intended mainly for community use. Originally, it was comprised of committee and meeting rooms, and a small kitchen. Multi-paned, double leaf doors situated at either end of the central hallway could be closed to partition off the stairways to the upper floors. Wooden folding doors in rooms on either side of the lobby could be opened to form large rooms for meetings or mass. On the second floor of the school were located the teacher's dining room kitchen and lounge; the music rooms and general classrooms. The kindergarten was situated on the top floor of the structure.

Halls throughout the school have high, molded plaster ceilings. Floors in each hall are covered with Terrazzo in patterns of red, white and grey; all woodwork, including picture rails, is of oak. Classrooms retain original oak closets and chalkboards. Their original wood flooring has been covered with linoleum tile.