3319 DeMenil Place

3319 DeMenil Place. The Grandest Home. Creole Geminien Beauvais built the largest house in this elegant enclave on this site in the early 1870s., As a teenager, Beauvais had worked in the lucrative fur trade, a source of seed money for many early 19th century entrepreneurs. Eventually Beauvais became an independent trader in the Laramie region. The Indians named him "Big Belly." As a member of special Indian commissions, Beauvais helped the federal government gain possession of the Black Hills., Beauvais, like many of his fellow fur traders, had two families. His Indian wife and children lived in Wyoming, then moved to the Sioux reservation in South Dakota. By 1870, his St. Louis family had moved into the house on this site. Images show the house to have been three stories tall, with a Victorian porch, a then stylish mansard roof, and dormer windows. The scale and trim of the home evidence Beauvais' prosperity., Beauvais' family lived here for over a decade. Then the Henry Ziegenhein family moved into the splendid home., Ziegenhein was a carpenter, who, after serving in the Union Army during the Civil War, became a contractor. Ziegenhein and his wife raised their nine children in the hoe on this site While living here, he became a major shareholder, then vice-president of Lafayette Bank. Later he was elected Collector for the City of St. Louis. In 1897, Henry Ziegenhein, of the street now known as DeMenil Place, was elected the 29th Mayor of the City of St. Louis., These arts and crafts flats, numbered 3313 to 3327 DeMenil Place, were built on the site of the Beauvais-Ziegenhein mansion in 1924.