Samuel Cupples House Fact Sheet

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	Samuel Cupples House DESCRIPTION: The Samuel Cupples House is a historic mansion located on the campus of Saint Louis University. The building is a rare example of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture in St. Louis. The 42-room, castle-like mansion was built by wealthy St. Louis entrepreneur Samuel Cupples and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It has been restored to its original splendor with many of its opulent original furnishings and is open for public tours. The McNamee Gallery, located on the lower level, houses educational exhibitions and art exhibits. Seminars related to the house, the collection and the history of St. Louis are also held here. The University's permanent collection of fine art is displayed throughout the house as is the University's glass collection, one of the largest in the Midwest. SLOGAN: "The wealth of a country is in its homesteads"-Frederick Law Olmsted ADDRESS: Mailing address: 221 N. Grand Boulevard, St. Louis, MO 63103. Cupples House is located on the St. Louis University campus near Lindell and Spring Avenues. LOCATION: On the Frost Campus of St. Louis University 10 minutes west of Downtown St. Louis PHONE: 314-977-3025 WEB SITE: www.slu.edu/the_arts/cupples GETTING THERE: From Downtown St. Louis, take I-64/40 west to the Grand Boulevard exit. Turn right on Grand Boulevard and go two blocks to Lindell. Turn left on Lindell and follow it one block south to Spring Avenue. Cupples House is located on the John F. Connelly Mall next to the Pius XII Memorial Library. It is one block west of Grand and one block south of Lindell. There is no parking lot for the Cupples House, and limited street parking is available on Lindell. More parking is available at the Frost Garage on the southwest corner of Grand and Laclede and at the Laclede Garage at Laclede and Spring. To access that garage, turn left on Laclede from Grand (one block before Lindell) and proceed a short distance to Spring where the garage is located. After you park, enter the campus through the gates across from the parking garage. Follow the foot path to the clock tower. Cupples House is the first building on the right beyond the plaza at the clock tower. HOURS: Tues.-Sat., 11 a.m.-4 p.m., closed in January and on national and Catholic holidays. Tours are held on Monday and Tuesday. Advance reservations required for groups of 20 or more. ADMISSION: $4, adults; $3, seniors; children and students with school identification are free. Admission to the gallery is free. ANNUAL ATTENDANCE: 12,000 WHAT'S NEW: Special exhibitions at the Cupples House are always changing. For details on what is on display at the current time, call for information. National Public Television's Antiques Road Show recently featured a segment on the Cupples House filmed during the program's recent visit to St. Louis. HIGHLIGHTS: The exterior of the building is in the Richardson Romanesque style with fortress-like towers and limestone gargoyles. The building is constructed of purple Colorado sandstone and pink Missouri granite from the Elephant Rocks quarries in southern Missouri. The elaborate stone carvings on the building were done by stone carvers brought from England to do the job. The building cost $500,000 when it was constructed in 1890 (approximately $15 million in 21st century dollars) and about the same $500,000 to restore it in the 1970's. There are similarities between the exterior of the house and Holy Trinity Church in Boston. Thomas Annan, architect of the Cupples House, was heavily influenced by Henry Hobson Richardson who designed the church and reintroduced the Romanesque style to this country. The house has 42 rooms and 22 fireplaces. It took 18 servants - most lived on the premises in the servants' quarters or above the stables across the street - to care for the house. Filled with woodwork of imported English oak, the Grand Hall, modeled after the galleries in English country houses, runs the full expanse of the main floor. Its furnishings include a 13th century French Gothic bishop's throne and a rare Steinway duo musical player piano originally used in the house. The room also has a mantel of elaborately carved oak in classical motifs with the date the house was begun (1888) in Roman numerals in the mosaic above the fireplace. The front foyer has woodwork of imported English oak and 19th century French torchéres with marble pedestals and bronze figures. The Reception Room on the main floor has woodwork of white mahogany from Central America and lamps imported from China. A hand-carved oak desk in the library was designed for the house by architect Thomas Annan. The inscription over the mantle reads in Latin: "The life of man without literature is death." The commode in the Music Room is an exact copy of a Louis XV commode designed by Riesner for the bedroom of Louis XVI at Versailles. The Flemish Room is decorated with an 18th century Dutch desk cylinder, an elaborately carved 17th century Flemish breakfront of walnut with inserts of green marble from Port Sory in eastern Scotland, a hand-carved walnut 19th century English library table and paintings by Flemish artist Pieter Cocke Van Aelst and a 17th century Dutch artist. Leaded glass windows fill the house with light. Louis Comfort Tiffany windows are on each floor. One of the most intriguing windows is the Zodiac Window on the Minstrel's Balcony overlooking the Main Hall. It is from a design by the English Pre-Rafaelite artist Burne Jones with a poem by St. Louis poet Eugene Field. The Cupples House's Turshin Glass Collection of American and European art glass-including Pairpoint, Steuben, Tiffany, Webb, Lalique and Venetian glass-chronicles the history of glass from 1800 to 1950. Also in the house are Northern and Italian Renaissance paintings, many of which were brought to St. Louis from Belgium by Father Peter DeSmet, S.J., an early Jesuit missionary in the St. Louis area. Portraits of Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) and his family are also on display. The lower level, which now houses the McNamee Gallery, used to be Samuel Cupples' bowling alley. ESPECIALLY FOR KIDS: Cupples House holds occasional art seminars for children in 4th and 5th grades in conjunction with its special exhibits. Special tours are also given to elementary school children. ANNUAL SPECIAL EVENTS: Cupples House sponsors a concert series each year and the Portobello Antiques Sale held either in the spring or fall to raise funds to further restore the house. Cupples House is also one of several historic homes in St. Louis that sponsor a spring house tour each year. HISTORY: Pennsylvania native Samuel Cupples went to work in a wood ware company in Cincinnati at a very young age. In 1851 he was sent to St. Louis with a flatboat of wares (broom handles, ax handles, etc.) to head up a branch of the company. But before he reached St. Louis, he had sold all of his wares. He returned to Cincinnati for another load, journeyed back to St. Louis and within two days of arriving, he opened his own woodenware business where the Gateway Arch stands today. There was a great need for woodenware in the thriving city of St. Louis, and Cupples' success at his business made him very wealthy. Cupples eventually gained a partner in Robert Brookings, who was considered a business genius. His idea to build warehouses next to the railroad tracks where freight cars could be shuttled to cut down on handling eventually gave Cupples control of the shipping of all goods into the city as the Cupples Station warehouses became a distribution center for everything coming in by rail. (Today Cupples Station's warehouses, located on the south side of Downtown St. Louis, are being restored and one is home to the new Westin St. Louis hotel.) In 1888 Cupples commissioned the prominent architect Thomas Annan to design a mansion in accord with his business success. The result-an impressive castle-like mansion with turrets and gargoyles-was indeed in keeping with his great wealth. The rooms were large, airy and filled with paneling, pillars and elaborately ornate furniture and décor. Cupples lived in the house for almost 25 years. He died in 1913 leaving no children-three daughters, his only children-had died in childhood. Cupples' heirs sold the house to the Railroad Telegraphers Union in 1919 for use as the organization's office headquarters. It had been Cupple's fervent wish that Saint Louis University not get the building, so irked was he when the University built DuBourg Hall on Grand Avenue spoiling his view to the east. But in 1946, the Telegraphers Union sold the property to the University which renamed the building Chouteau House in honor of Charles Pierre Chouteau, the University's first student. The building was used as a student union, ROTC headquarters, a base for continuing education and administrative offices until 1970 when the name was changed back to Cupples House and efforts were undertaken to restore the building. Although the interior of the building was largely intact, the exterior was blackened by decades of soot and its original color obscured. Considering Cupples' anger at the University, Father Maurice B. McNamee, a Jesuit priest and former Saint Louis University English professor, finds ironic humor in the fact that he was the one who spearheaded saving the building and spent 22 years bringing the mansion back to its former glory. WHAT'S COMING UP: A new docent training program is almost completed and docents will soon be giving narrated tours of the house every hour with emphasis on the culture of the era and the way of life of a wealthy family living in the Gilded Age. Formerly, visitors were given a brochure for a self-guided tour. HANDICAPPED ACCESS: The Cupples House is handicapped accessible. WHERE TO GET LUNCH: There are a number of restaurants in the Central West End neighborhood nearby. WHAT'S NEARBY: The Samuel Cupples House is located on the campus of Saint Louis University which is also home to the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art. It is located in the Grand Center arts and entertainment district of St. Louis with the Fabulous Fox Theatre, Portfolio Gallery, the Sheldon Theatre, Powell Symphony Hall, the Grandel Theatre and the Edison Gallery nearby. PUBLIC RELATIONS CONTACT: Pamela Ambrose, Executive Director, 314-977-3575, anthonym@slu.edu.
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