Oakland House Museum

7801 Genesta Street
Afton, Missouri  63123
314-352-5654

Admission is $10 for a tour and $30 for tour with lunch.  Free parking lot.  

https://oaklandhousemuseum.org/

The museum opened for tours in the 1970's. 

The Oakland House was originally the summer home for Louis Auguste Benoist and his third wife.  It later had several owners until the early 1970's when restoration was begun. In addition to being a museum the house can be rented for weddings and other social functions.  

Louis Benoist (1809-1867) was related to French royalty.  He was a great Western financier of his generation and later in life he made money running a lottery. He lived in the city of St. Louis.  In 1850, after marrying for the third time, Benoist began buying property in "the country", a day's drive from his city home.  In 1853 the house was built and he now had a summer home for his growing family.  (He fathered 18 children.) 

The house's architect was George Ingraham Barnett, who also designed the Governor's Mansion in Jefferson City and Henry Shaw's Tower Grove home. This house was built with white limestone found on the property.  It has 34 windows. The gardens were completed under the direction of Henry Shaw. 

Upon completion of purchasing property Oakland Farms consisted of 485 acres (one-third the size of Forest Park.) Heege Road, McKenzie Road, and River Des Peres bordered his land with one land section going as far as Gravois Road. This was a working farm with animals and orchards, but no slaves. There were stables, barns, a 4-acre Mirror Lake, a stone boat house, a stone smokehouse, and a bridle path.  

In 1969 the property was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1975, Oakland received the first plaque given to a historic home by the St. Louis County Parks & Recreation Department. In 1983, the Oakland House was recorded by the Historic American Buildings Survey of the United States Department of the Interior in the Library of Congress.

At some point the property became under the ownership of the Afton Historical Society.  They sponsor house tours, holiday events, historical lunches, and other events, and manage the many rentals that occur. 

Upon entering the house, these are the doors that greet you in the lobby.

You are also greeted by this free-standing stairwell with a banister made from mahogany from Honduras. 

Interesting clock in the front hall. 

Every room has at least one fireplace.  The parlor has two fireplaces.  Over each parlor mantle is an ornate period mirror.  Both mirrors came from a sale of items from a large mansion in the city.  

No parlor is complete without a piano.  

The house is filled with family portraits that have been donated by family members.  This portrait is of Louis's daughter-in-law. 

A beautiful hutch in the dining room. 

The ornate clock on the hutch.  

The ornate back of the dining room chair. 

The dining room is known as the Brookings Room. Robert Brookings owned the house and property from 1890-1893 and he lived there with his housekeeper (shown above). In 1892 he became the first one to bring running water into the house.  Another first: his horse pictured above lived on the farm and went on to win the first Kentucky Derby.

The house had a butler's pantry (now a bathroom) and has a kitchen that is used often for Society events and by caterers. 

The kitchen fireplace was used to provide heat and to warm water for baths, etc. Cooking took place in an outdoor kitchen. 

Upstairs there are three bedrooms.  (A fourth area houses the house manager who lives on the property.) This bedroom is set up as a parlor.  

Another ornate piece of furniture in that room. 

This is a second bedroom. 

And an ornate dresser in that bedroom. 

The final bedroom has several pieces of furniture donated by Benoist family members including this beautiful bed. 

This kneeling table has a "last rights" kit on top that would have been used by family members when a priest could not travel the distance in time to do the rights. 

These are three examples of ornate chair backs that are found upstairs. 

And two period table lights. 

And of course every bedroom needed a bowl and pitcher. 

There are a few costumes on display upstairs.  These are worn by docents and others for historical functions held at the house. The doll is wearing a dress that belonged to one of the Benoist daughters. 

On the second floor there is a staircase that goes up to the tower.

After touring the house we went to Robust Bistro & Wine Bar in Webster Groves for lunch. 

The Pimento BLT was very good.

The chicken flatbread was yummy!

A great crab cake sandwich! 

And an excellent Cranberry-Walnut Chicken Salad Sandwich

 

COMMENTS: This was the twentieth historical home in the St. Louis area that our group has visited.  What was different with this house was the amount of items, be it furniture, china, portraits, etc., that the family members of the original owner have donated to the old family house. And the Benoists continue to donate.  It is very impressive and it makes the house special. 

The other aspect of this house that is different from most of the other houses is the emphasis on renting it.  The house museum is regularly open to just walk in and see it only 12 hours total each year - on six Sunday afternoons. It is open to the public for holiday events (I believe without tours) and they offer several weekday catered lunch opportunities ($30) that include a tour.  You can also rent it for a luncheon and tour if your group is large enough. And finally you can make arrangements for a one-hour private tour for any size group. This is what I did. They seem to be not real organized in doing this. It was somewhat difficult to get it set up and then the tour guide did not come.  Fortunately the house manager was home and gave us a shortened tour.  The volunteers are very committed to keeping the museum open and functioning but I'm not sure how committed they are to private tours. 

We had a nice lunch at Robust.  I was surprised how empty it was at noon on a Friday but we were told that their business becomes busy starting about 2:00.  The menu had some great options and we all enjoyed our food.