THE HYDE PARK HOMES TOUR, part 2

I was going to write a new blog entry Tuesday night to post yesterday, but then Mom hogged the computer ALL EVENING, and I was forced to go to bed early and get some extra beauty sleep.  Which was just as well, since Mom was totally freaked out about something called "refinancing our mortgage," and I didn't want to get in her way.  So she spent the whole evening trying to find a bunch of papers and then scanning them and emailing them to some banker guy.  Mom says the papers are supposed to prove that if the bank loans us the money, we can pay it back and still have enough money for dog food.  I hope it all works out, so that Mom will be happy and will keep helping me write my blog.

But anyway, getting back to the subject of the Hyde Park Historic Homes Tour, I'm going to show you some pictures of a very old house that was on the tour.  This house was built in 1902 by a man named William J. Eastlake, who was the credit manager at the Armour Meat Packing Company.  Then when World War I was going on, Mr. Eastlake bought the Atlas Cereal Company, which made oatmeal and cereal.  This company helped make it popular to eat oatmeal for breakfast, because before that, people mostly ate other stuff like bacon and eggs.

This house is mostly built of stone, instead of being built of wood, like lots of the other houses.  Also, it faces south instead of east or west, like the houses around it.  This is because there was more land around it in the beginning, so it was more like a farm house than a city house.  In the yard, there is a white oak tree that is supposed to be the biggest white oak in the whole state of Missouri, which is decided by how big around its trunk is.

You can make a ladybug out of an old army helmet.

In Mom's opinion, the bark of this tree did not look like the bark of a white oak, but she is not a tree expert, so she didn't say anything.  One of the tour guides mentioned that there was some question about whether the tree was a white oak or not, so maybe Mom is not the only person with the same opinion.

Okay, well, getting back to the house, it was divided up into apartments during the 1930s because lots of people did that with their houses so they could make a little extra money by having boarders.  By the time the couple bought it who live there now, the house was in very bad shape.  The back wall was bowing out and was about to fall down, and there were lots of other problems, too.

The fireplace in the living room

The new owners had the back wall torn out and rebuilt.  They also pretty much ripped out everything in the house and started over.  This was the third house on the same block that they fixed up.  The first two were Arts and Crafts bungalows.

The fireplace in one of the bedrooms.  The tile work is all new
and it was done by a local artist.
The fireplace makes a fine place to store suitcases.

After being remodeled, the house now has more windows and lots more green features, like for instance, geothermal heating and cooling.

The whole third floor is a playroom for the family's three kids.  I think a better use for this room would be as a place for dogs to play in.  You could put a bunch of agility equipment and also lots of nice, cushy dog beds.  I could see myself spending a bunch of time in this room, especially if I could sleep in a warm beam of sunshine coming in through the window.