Tasteful friends: The McCloskey home

Burn it down!

You can read more about them here

No wonder they were holding guns. They need to stay alive to pay the renovators.

There's no variation in proportion. It looks like a cube, at least from this angle. I like symmetry and regularity, but this is too much. It would look nicer without that top floor. Why does the top floor seem to have the lowest ceiling? Usually, you make the top floor the most impressive floor.

The hell with those 2, anyway.

R4 - the top floor was originally servants' quarters so it wasn't intended to be grand. Did you not grow up with servants? Jeez!

I thought servants were relegated to the basement. Excuse my faux pas.

I've come to the conclusion that you don't have to be smart to be a Lawyer- just a sociopath.

R4 - think about Downton Abbey - the kitchens were in the basement and the servants' quarters (halls) were on the top floor

Looks beautiful. I support this couple protecting their home.

Looks beautiful. I support this couple protecting their home.

R8, I thought the Downton Abbey servants were down in the basement. But here's Gwen with dormer windows.

As much as I despise the people who own it, I can’t hate on the restoration.

"The house was built by Edward and Anna Busch Faust, heirs to the Anheuser-Busch fortune, who sought to recreate a Renaissance palazzo in the midwest. Long considered one of St. Louis’s most famous residences, today it sits in the tony neighborhood of Central West End—down the street from the residence of St. Louis mayor Lyda Krewson." Artnews

If you don't own a successful brewery forget this house. A couple of personal injury lawyers will usually find this house a struggle.

In Downton the servants' hall is in the basement next to the kitchen, butler's pantry etc. In Upstairs Downstairs the servants' hall, such as it was, was in the basement. The servants slept on the top floor and usually there were back staircases which the servants took to the top floor so they could go to bed without encountering the masters and their guests by using the grand stairs.

Notably, in Upstairs Downstairs it is questionable as to whether there were back stairs to the servants sleeping quarters. There does seem to have been at least a service staircase to Miss LIzzy's room; that seems to be it as far as back stairs go.

It's pretty damned fabulous.

How did they afford this place 30 years ago plus afford the restoration?

The wife has put on a lot of weight in only two years.

I am shocked to say it's beautiful. I was expecting Vegas for the interior photos, but it's a gorgeous home.

[quote] The wife has put on a lot of weight in only two years.

Hamburgers with mustard made her fat.

And maybe all the honey that she and her husband destroyed, too.

Mustard has very few calories. More like burgers with cheese.

In fairness, that is a home that even I would shoot a looter to protect.

It's a beautiful museum quality tomb.

They have shown fantastic judgement in restoring this place, they have really done well by it, its a beautiful job

Now if only they'd shown the same level of judgement in dealing with the protestors

R16 the place would have cost them very little initially. It had been abandoned and empty for years, effectively it was derelict. Big old derelict mansions tend to go for very little precisely because of the restoration costs, which they would have spread out over the last 30 years