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Campbell House

DESCRIPTION: The Campbell House Museum is an 1851 three-story townhouse once owned by Robert Campbell, one of St. Louis’ most prominent residents. Because Campbell’s sons lived in the home until 1938, and shortly after that it became a museum, 90 per cent of the Campbell furnishings have been retained making the museum a showcase of Victorian furnishings and decorative arts. Furnishings include classic Rococo-Revival Victorian furniture, portraits, textiles, silver, gold-leaf frames and cornices and faux-grained woodwork.

Also on the grounds are a carriage house, rose garden, and gazebo. The estate is the only home left in the once-elegant neighborhood of aristocratic homes called Lucas Place.

Although the home was decorated in the “traditional” Victorian style when it opened, through the use of old photographs, it is being restored to look exactly as it did when Robert Campbell and his wife Virginia lived there.

After the completion of a restoration project in 2005, the house looks as it did in the 1880s. Two third-floor rooms are being turned into exhibition halls for programs and displays, which will detail life as it was for a wealthy family and its servants during the 19th century.

ADDRESS: 1508 Locust St., St. Louis, MO 63103

LOCATION: Downtown

PHONE NUMBER: 314-421-0325

WEB SITE: www.campbellhousemuseum.org

GETTING THERE: From downtown, take Locust Street west to 1508 Locust.

HOURS: Wednesday - Saturday, 10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.; Sunday 12:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

ADMISSION: $6, includes a guided tour; children 12 and under free.

SIGNIFICANCE: The Campbell House Museum houses one of the best collections of 19th century lighting devices in the country. Among the items in the collection are lithophane lamps and a set of unusual gasoliers.

The museum is a rare example of a Victorian home decorated with authentic Victorian furnishings. Since the home stayed in the family until 1938 and the family apparently rarely threw anything away, many of the original furnishings are still in the house. Also in the house was a complete collection of family letters, business records and receipts for items purchased when Mrs. Campbell decorated the house. Using 60 rare 1880s photos of the inside of the house, letters and other records, curators have been able to recreate the home as it was when the Campbells lived there giving the visitor a window into the world of a wealthy St. Louis family during Victorian times.

The house was located in what was then called Lucas Place, one of the city’s first enclaves for the wealthy. Prior to the establishment of Lucas Place, there was no separate neighborhood for St. Louis’ wealthy families.

The Museum is also significant because of what it reveals about the life of Robert Campbell, a mountain man-turned-millionaire. As one of the prime movers and shakers of early St. Louis, Campbell was instrumental in turning St. Louis into the Gateway to the West. Henry Shaw, a contemporary of Robert Campbell, lived a few blocks away.

HISTORY: John Hall, a St. Louis wholesale grocer, built the Campbell House in 1851. The original owner was Cornelia Wilson, a wealthy widow who lived in the house for about a year and a half. She had bought the house for $13,000 in 1851 and sold it to Campbell for $18,000 three years later.

When the Campbells moved into the house, the street was part of Lucas Place, the toniest part of town, a precursor to the private streets that became popular a few years later. St. Louis was still a small town when the house was built, and Lucas Place was considered the suburbs. Nearby were the first public high school in St. Louis and the first Presbyterian church. Christ Church Cathedral had not yet been built.

Robert Campbell had come to the U.S. in 1823 from Scotland. His role in the growth of St. Louis earned him a fortune, and when he died in 1879, he was considered the wealthiest man in Missouri. His holdings included real estate, dry goods, railroads, steamships and a gold mine in New Mexico.

By 1825, Campbell had joined a trapping expedition for the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, which would revolutionize the fur trade with a business innovation – the Rendezvous. Each summer, the company sent independent agents with mules loaded with supplies to trade with trappers for their furs at a specific location, a more efficient and profitable approach than the previous piecemeal method of buying and selling.

Five years later, he started Campbell & Sublette, a fur company he formed with William Sublette. The company was a competitor of the American Fur Company, which was owned by the Chouteaus, one of the founding families of St. Louis.

When he retired from the mountains in 1835, Campbell settled in St. Louis and began investing in industries not just in St. Louis but also all over the West. When styles changed and fur was going out of fashion, he was smart enough to switch his business to outfitting settlers heading West. His mercantile stood where the Arch is today.

The federal government asked him to outfit a troop of soldiers for the Mexican and the contacts he made with military men-and his connections with Northern Irish Protestant immigrants-helped him become successful in his business.

As part of the cream of the crop of St. Louis society, the Campbells lived a life of affluence and evidence of that can still be seen in the home today. Their home had running water when they bought it, an unusual situation for the 1850s. The Campbells had a staff of 7 to 10 servants, mainly Irish or German immigrants, to run the house.

Campbell dinner parties often included many influential people. Among visitors to the home were President and Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant; General William T. Sherman; James B. Eads, builder of the renowned Eads Bridge, and Father Pierre De Smet, explorer and missionary to the Indians.

But despite their affluence, the Campbells knew tragedy well. At a time of high mortality among the young, 10 of the Campbells’ 13 children died before age 7. Virginia Campbell spent most of her adult life in pregnancy or in mourning. The three surviving children, all boys, had enough inherited wealth that they didn’t have to work.

None of the sons married, and there were no heirs. James, the youngest son, had attended Yale where he was a member of the Skull and Bones Club and later attended Harvard Law School. He died in 1890 in Paris at the age of 30.

The other two sons – Hugh and Hazlett – continued to live in the home for decades even as the neighborhood changed and all of their neighbors eventually moved out. Hazlett suffered from manic depression or schizophrenia and tended to be reclusive. Hugh continued to manage the family estate and protected the house.

Hugh died in 1931. Hazlett continued to live in the house until he died in 1938. As the neighborhood changed to commercial, and Hazlett became reclusive in old age, mystery and romance surrounded the home.

When Hazlett died, hundreds of people claiming to be Campbell relatives swarmed over the estate hoping to cash in on their kinship since the Campbell sons had no wives or children. The house, however, was willed to Yale University as a memorial to James. Yale was not interested in keeping up a building in St. Louis and immediately put it up for sale. The furnishings were sent to the Selkirk Gallery to be auctioned. Stix, Baer and Fuller, a local department store, bought the home in 1941 as part of its 50th anniversary celebration and gave it to the Campbell House Foundation, a group that was formed to turn the home into a museum. The Foundation raised enough funds to go to Selkirk Gallery to buy back 90 per cent of the Campbell furnishings. The house was opened as a museum in 1943. The Foundation still runs the museum today.

HIGHLIGHTS:

  • The front hall, kitchen, butler’s pantry, service hall, two servants’ bedrooms, Mrs. Campbell’s mother’s bedroom, a 19th century bathroom and the two-room master bedroom suite.
  • The dining room, the parlor, the morning room and the whole third floor, including bedrooms and the family library.
  • The parlor contains Campbell’s suite of mid-19th century, high-styled Philadelphia rococo revival furniture.
  • Non-matching mantles of two fireplaces in the living room were installed in 1872.
  • Stenciling from 1873 that was found under four coats of paint in several rooms has been replicated on the walls and the ceiling as it appeared when the Campbells lived in the house.
  • The Campbell’s original gasoliers hang in the parlor, front hall, dining room, morning room, and master bedroom and on the third floor.
  • The kitchen walls and flooring have been restored and the room looks as it did in 1880.
  • The butler’s pantry contains Virginia Campbell’s china and crystal.
  • The bathroom contains an original 19th century tub, toilet and a reproduction of the original pattern of linoleum on the floor.
  • The master suite woodwork has been false grained to look like walnut and contains the Campbells’ original furniture and reproductions of the 1880s wallpaper and carpeting. The bedroom used by Virginia Campbell features the original 1840s Empire furniture.
  • The morning room contains a mahogany English aesthetic movement mantle.
  • Two rooms on the third floor will be used for exhibits on aspects of life during the Campbells’ time.
  • Photographs taken in Egypt during the 19th century by noted British photographer Antonio Beato and bought by the Campbell sons on their travels are on display in albums the brothers put together when they returned home.
  • In the carriage house, visitors will find two of Robert Campbell’s carriages, which have been there since at least 1879.

ESPECIALLY FOR KIDS: When children visit the museum, tours include discussions about life in early St. Louis, the diseases that beset people living during the Victorian time period and the medicine doctors used to treat them.

ANNUAL SPECIAL EVENTS: Each December, the Campbell House Museum is one of several historic homes in St. Louis that co-sponsor a Victorian house tour. During that time, the homes are decorated in Victorian style for Christmas. Plans are underway for an Irish festival at the Campbell House as well as galas and fundraising events.

HANDICAPPED ACCESSIBILITY: The Campbell House Museum is not handicapped accessible.

WHERE TO GET LUNCH: There is a wide selection of restaurants throughout downtown St. Louis, in nearby St. Louis Union Station and in the Washington Avenue Loft District.

GIFT SHOP: The Campbell House Museum Gift Shop is housed in the Campbell’s former laundry in the basement of the house. It features books, reproductions of Victorian china and glass, toys and puzzles.

WHAT’S NEARBY: Nearby visitors will find Christ Church Cathedral and the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site. Further east on the St. Louis Riverfront, visitors will find the Gateway Arch, the Old Courthouse, the Old Cathedral and historic Laclede’s Landing. The festival marketplace at St. Louis Union Station also is nearby.

PUBLIC RELATIONS CONTACT: John Dalzell, executive director, 314-421-0325, campbellhm@earthlink.net.

 

Readers should call 1-800-916-0040 to request a free copy of the Official St. Louis Visitor Guide or point, click and explore St. Louis at www.explorestlouis.com