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Archbishop’s residence has a long and storied past
(by Kara Krekeler - September 02, 2009)
When Archbishop Carlson took up his post earlier this year, he also took up residence in the same building that has housed St. Louis’ archbishops for more than 80 years and has hosted its fair share of local history, from the first cocktail party in the U.S. to providing sleeping quarters for a visiting pope.
The residence of the archbishop, at 4510 Lindell Blvd., was built by prominent businessman William Nolker in 1891, on land he had purchased four years earlier. The plot was subject to several building restrictions, including what type of building could be constructed there, what sorts of smells could issue from said building and how close a structure could be to the street.
“[Nolker] planned the whole building, but there was a proviso on that block that you couldn’t build closer than 40 feet to Lindell,” said Audrey Newcomer, director of archives for the archdiocese.
When planning, Nolker wanted to construct a tower that would encroach upon that 40-foot boundary by nine feet, and so he had to plead his case to his neighbors, she said. Not wanting to fully cave to Nolker’s whims, the block gave him seven feet instead, resulting in the tower on the northeast corner of the building.
Nolker died in 1906 and 11 years later, his children sold the gray stone mansion to Julius Walsh, who, with his wife, hosted that famed cocktail party, which was defined by the New York Times as having drinks standing up rather than sitting down.
Walsh owned the house until his death in 1923, and a year later, his children sold the building to the archdiocese as a residence for Archbishop John J. Glennon, who had previously lived in a building down the street. That building, 3810 Lindell Blvd., was later razed.
“The Central West End was considered to be a very important part of the city” with local leaders in business and government living here, Newcomer said. “The archdiocese wanted the archbishop to reside with them, whether they were Catholic or not.”
Over the years, the building has seen its share of ups and downs, from a 1968 storm that smashed one of the stained-glass windows and destroyed the porte-cochere to the 1939 addition of a chapel to the southeast corner of the building. It has housed priests of the chancellory — and a series of nuns has long lived in the carriage house to help with its upkeep — and has hosted a number of receptions and meetings, particularly during the tenure of Archbishop Justin Rigali.
But in the eyes of St. Louis Catholics, its most impressive claim to fame is having housed Pope John Paul II during his visit to St. Louis in 1999. Newcomer said that while any visiting dignitaries from the church would have stayed there, the pope’s visit is the only one that required physical changes to the mansion — grates were put up outside the windows of the room where the pope slept. Today, that room is no longer a bedroom but is instead a file room, Newcomer said.
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