Resurrection in the St. Louis Loop

It seems fitting that the new Moonrise Hotel opened less than a week after Easter. The front of the hotel includes one of the few instances in St. Louis where a complete of a portion of a historic building was "resurrected" following demolition. Above is the finished re-construction with the new hotel towering above and below is a photo prior to demolition of the original building (photo from the August 2007 Preservation Board agenda).

The former building housed the Ronald L. Jones Funeral Chapel. The two story portion was constructed in the early 20th century, with the well matched one story addition dating from I believe the early 1980's (there had been a small plaque on the corner of the addition with it's date of construction). During demolition of the building many of the stone and terra cotta elements from the entrance, bay window and some decorative elements near the roof were salvaged and incorporated in the new construction. The re-construction included new brick and a green tile roof matching the original.
Some elements were changed slightly including the windows flanking the entrance, at the one story portion as well as the size of the windows on the second floor. There are differences in the parapets including wall thickness and the awkwardly wide portion at the top of the front parapet where brick had to be used to fill in around the original terra cotta element. Overall though the re-construction is pretty true to form and most people will never notice the slight errors.

Photo from early last year

While there are varying opinions about the merits of reconstructions such as has occurred here, there is no doubt that the "historic" portion of complex blends well with the scale and character of the surrounding area. The new tower is fairly bland and had it been placed directly at the front of the property right on Delmar it would not work well with its neighbors. Did someone really think that black glass is attractive?
While some may not agree with the demolition, beyond the highly ornamented facade the original building was a fairly ordinary red brick box. The demolition, new construction and re-construction in this case allowed for a more urban higher density use (think of how rare this is in St. Louis!) of the site that would otherwise not have been possible. This increase in density is especially desirable with the Delmar MetroLink station one block east.

The revolving moon which crowns the top of the hotel tower