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Glen Echo Historic District
Preservation Foundation
Glen Echo Historic District Preservation Foundation
3401 Lucas-Hunt Road
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The Glen Echo Historic District earned its listing on the National Register of Historic Places administered by the United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service (Reg.# 07001105 dated October, 25, 2007). The National Park Service turned 100 years old on August 25, 2016.
In its second century, the National Park Service recommitted to exemplary stewardship and public enjoyment of historical places. In 2015 the Board of Directors of Glen Echo Country Club and other interested parties initiated an effort to provide additional resources to preserve the historic building and properties of Glen Echo Country Club.
As the result of this effort, the Glen Echo Historic District Preservation Foundation (“Foundation”) was formed and qualified as a 501(c)(3) Nonprofit Corporation. Glen Echo Country Club, Glen Echo Park and the surrounding community are its beneficiaries.
In answer to the National Park Service’s Call to Action, the Foundation is determined to promote preservation of a historic site, create jobs, strengthen the local economy, and support ecosystem services in the public interest.
The Glen Echo Historic District encompasses two separate (but physically connected) resources consisting of Glen Echo Country Club with its golf course and Glen Echo Park, the adjacent residential subdivision. Glen Echo Park, the neighborhood, was platted in 1906 shortly after Glen Echo Country Club was established in 1901. In 1904, Glen Echo Country Club served as the site for the first, and until 2016, the only Summer Olympics golf tournament in the world. The historic district lies in northern St. Louis County, Missouri, bounded at the east by Lucas-Hunt Road, at the north by Normandy Place (just south of Natural Bridge Road), at the east by the St. Vincent’s County Park and St. Mary’s Lane, and at the south by St. Peter’s Cemetery.
Glen Echo Country Club’s 167 acre facility includes three contributing buildings and two contributing structures: the 18-hole golf course, the Tudor Revival clubhouse situated at the north end of the club grounds, the Pro Shop, Cart Shed and tennis courts were all built during the period of significance of the District (1901-1957). Today, this entire area retains its overall historic appearance. Although updates to the course have been made over the past century, the design and location of the holes, landscape elements, and hazards remain visually intact, appearing much as they did by the late 1920’s. This is also true of the clubhouse, which despite interior alterations to upgrade the kitchen, locker rooms, and secondary dining/bar areas, appears much as it did following its completion in 1929. Most homes in Glen Echo Park were constructed in the 1920’s and many of the original houses constructed in the early 1900’s remain. Glen Echo Park’s curvilinear plan consists of two streets that are accessed via Lucas-Hunt Road.
No sidewalks or curbs line the streets, which is an original characteristic of the neighborhood. Early deed restrictions stipulated that homes constructed along Henderson Avenue must face south toward the golf course. This is true even today, as all houses bordering Henderson Avenue face the golf course, despite the fact that primary access to these homes is via Henderson Avenue. The area surrounding the Glen Echo Historic District is distinguished by its nineteenth and early twentieth-century influences. Both the cemetery (to the south) and the county park to the west (originally St. Vincent’s Orphanage) retain their nineteenth-century appearances featuring open pastoral landscapes, and historic buildings and structures. North and east of the club and district are early twentieth-century subdivisions that were developed in relation to the railroad, streetcar, and automobile – all of which served to shape residential and commercial development in northern St. Louis County, Missouri.