Faust Historic Village

15025 Faust Park

Chesterfield, MO 

(314) 615-8328

No admission fee and free parking; prearranged tours $4.00

https://stlouiscountymo.gov/st-louis-county-departments/parks/places/faust-park/  

Founded 1986

Faust Park encompasses about 200 acres in Chesterfield on the Missouri River. The land was donated to St. Louis County by Leicester Busch Faust and his wife Mary Plant Faust. Donated in 1968, the original 98.5 acres opened in 1973. An equal number of acres was donated in 1996.  Today the park is home to a butterfly house, a carousel, and the oldest governor's mansion in Missouri. 

In 1986 the first of old structures were moved to the park from their original locations in St. Louis County to create the historic village.  Currently eleven of the buildings are grouped together to form the village.  

The first building, the Spanish Lake Blacksmith Shop, was built in 1875 in Spanish Lake by a German immigrant who came to St. Louis as an ironworker on the building of Eads Bridge. The shop was donated to the park system in 2012 and was rebuilt in Faust Park. It was re-dedicated as a working blacksmith shop in 2015.

The Sellenriek Barn was built in what is now Town and Country about 1860 and was bought by Frank Sellenriek in 1865. It remained in that family until 1998 when it was donated to the park system. 

The Bright Barn was built about 1868 in Ballwin.  Edward Bright who bought the farm in 1937 from the grandson of the man who built the barn, deeded the farm to St. Louis County in 1974.  It was dismantled in the '80's and rebuilt in 1990 in the park.

The Davis House, built in Chesterfield about 1830, was built as a two-story log cabin by one of the pioneer settlers of St. Louis County, Steven Lanham. Several families have owned it.

At one point the log cabin was turned into a Victorian home with clapboard siding. It was donated to the park in 1988 and moved there the next year. 

By the house is a model of the Central Plank Road built in 1851 to help transport goods throughout the region. 

The Mertz Log Cabin was built in 1848 on what is now Maryville University campus.  The family had immigrated from Alsace Lorraine the year before and settled near other Alsatian families. They raised six children in this cabin.

This butter churn sits on the front porch. 

A peak plus a photo through the window showed us how the rooms were set up to represent life in a log cabin in the 1800's. 

Next to the log cabin is a doctor's garden.  

The Conway House was built in 1858 in Chesterfield adjacent to Faust Park. Samuel Conway, the wealthiest landowner in the area in 1867, moved into the house when he married the widow of the original owner, Dr. Frederick Bates.  He lived in the house one year before passing away.  

On the porch are descriptions of some of the buildings in the village. 

The Warmbrodt Summer Kitchen was built in South County in 1840, by a Swiss immigrant family.  The brick and frame kitchen is an example of the summer kitchen that would have accompanied the Conway House. It was moved to Faust Park in 1995.

The Alt Schoolhouse was built in 1851 in Ellisville, originally serving as the school and church for what is now St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church.  After a new building was built in 1871, the old church was sold to the city as a schoolhouse. In 1910 it became part of a school district that eventually was Rockwood District and it was used until 1951. The schoolhouse was given to Faust Park in 2006.

The Henry Hoch House was built in 1876 in Chesterfield.  Henry was in the brickmaking business and then had a general store in Bellefontaine that became "one of the most completely appointed establishments on Olive Street Road."  The house was moved to Faust Park in 1986. 

The Yokel Barn, built in 1895 in Chesterfield, is a timber frame design covered with board and batten siding.  It was moved to Faust in 1988 and currently is being used as a woodworking shop. 

The Fenton General Store and Livery was built in 1908 to replace a blacksmith shop that had burned down.  The store was in business until 1942 and at one point served as the Fenton area post office. It housed many different businesses before being donated to St. Louis County in 2013.

Peering through the windows you see that the inside is set up like an early twentieth century store. 

The Miles A. Seed Carriage House was built in 1887 in Jennings.  It was removed from the property in 1990 by the county to save it from demolition and was reconstructed at Faust in 1993-1994.  It is currently used for the park office and visitor center. 

The Saint Louis Carousel was built in 1921 and has more than 60 hand carved horses and deer. In 1929 it was a new attraction at Forest Park Highland in the city and remained there until 1963 when a fire destroyed most of the amusement park. The carousel was privately purchased and two years later donated to the county parks. Originally it was installed as an outdoor ride at Sylvan Springs but by 1979 it was showing too much wear from the weather. The facility to house the carousel was built at Faust and it opened again in 1987. 

The remaining six buildings are in another section of the park that we were unable to initially find.  

The Caretaker's House was built in its present location in 1919 as one of the first buildings built on the estate. Originally Leicester Faust lived in the house and today it still serves as a residence.

The Chicken Coop was built the same year not far at all from the carriage house and was used to house the hundreds of chickens that were raised on the Faust Estate. 

The Barn was built the next year next to the chicken coop and was used both as a barn and as a garage. 

The Greenhouse was built in 1950 and was used by Mr. Faust in his later years to grow plants. 

The Faust House was built also in 1919 where it still stands. It was the main house of the Faust Estate and is used today by Webster University and houses their Community Music School.  

Lamella Barn was built where it stands today in 1925. The lamella building structure was invented in Germany in 1908 and Edward Faust introduced the lamella roof to St. Louis in 1925.  This method does away with girders, trusses, and joints. It is thought that this barn is the first of its kind built within the United States. The barn was home to over 100 head of Black Angus cattle beginning in 1925.

Thornhill was built in 1815-1819 where it is still stands. 

It is not located near any of the other buildings of the historic village.  It is open for tours on special occasions.  

The park will continue to accept historic buildings located within St. Louis County that are in fear of being demolished in their current locations.  Currently the county is reconstructing the African School House No. 4, the oldest Black schoolhouse standing in Missouri. It was built in 1894 as a one-room school.

They are in the process of adding three more buildings to the village. 

After touring the village we visited the beautiful carousel.  

And we enjoyed riding it!

A delightful and loud calliope accompanied the ride. 

After visiting the historic village and riding the carousel we drove less than ten minutes to the Sicilian restaurant Vito's in the Valley where we all had an excellent lunch.  The service was great and we enjoyed the relaxing outside patio. 

All of us ordered Half and Half Lunch Specials. 

This was the Caprese Salad and Tortellini.

Mediterranean Salad and Parmigiana Sandwich

The Caprese Salad and French Dip Sandwich. 

Mediterranean Salad and Tacchino Sandwich

Comments:  We had a beautiful late-summer day to walk through this historic village. There were a variety of building types covering about 100 years, and all were historic. You can understand why so many schools bring their classes here for a history lesson. All of the buildings were in fairly good shape and the first eleven were bunched together.  Unfortunately, from there we had trouble finding the rest.

The Faust Park page on the St. Louis County website contains minimal information about the village.  Under the title "Guided Tours" is the information that a group of ten or more can arrange for a tour. Otherwise you can click on a link to go to a webpage that has much information about each building and a hard-to-read map. Unfortunately this was our only source since the wooden boxes in the village marked MAPS were all empty.  Later I learned on a different website that one can pick up a map in the park office.  I highly recommend doing that.  The village really has two different locations and that was not clear to us. We never found the other buildings on that day. 

We would have loved to have been able to tour the inside of the buildings as many were filled with period pieces.  Unfortunately unless you have a group large enough to schedule a weekday tour the only way to get into the buildings is to go on one of their occasional weekend tours. (That is what we did to see the inside of the Thornhill House in December 2021.)

We had a great lunch and a great time at Vito's!  All of us highly recommend this restaurant.