Every first weekend of June, the Lafayette Square neighborhood of St. Louis, MO USA holds its annual summer house and garden tour. I have done this tour several times and it never disappoints.

The Painted Ladies

Lafayette Square was built for the wealthy and well-heeled residents of St. Louis, with most of the homes constructed after the 1850’s. The popular park in the square was created in 1836 and named for Marquis de Lafayette of the American Revolutionary War. The area is well known for its colorful preserved homes known as the “painted ladies”.

Time Travel to a Gilded Age

Many homes on this tour have been fully restored to their amazing gilded age glory even after the area suffered a catastrophic tornado on May 27, 1896. And the neighborhood’s fall into squalor during the early 1900’s until the 1980’s. In addition to the tour, there are free carriage rides in the park, trolley rides for ticket holders, an art and antiques fair, vintage baseball, and a concert on Saturday night.

Enjoy the following video from the holiday version of the to get a peek at what you can see on the tour. And check back here soon for the full summertime experience!

See https://lafayettesquare.org/calendar/category/home-tours/

For details on the tour and this weekend’s activities.

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Victoria L. Szulc is a multi-media Steampunk artist/writer who is working her six and seventh Steampunk novels, “A Dream of Emerald Skies” and “Lafayette to London”, both of which will be released this summer. You can follow her works at mysteampunkproject.wordpress.com and her author page on Amazon amazon.com/author/victorial.szulc