The September issue of the CWEA Griffin hit the news stands on Monday—or will be in your mailbox shortly. In the meantime, here’s an article published in June 2022’s issue featuring the renovation of former St. Louisan David McMahon’s ancestral home on Westminster.
Finding long-lost relatives on a genealogy website is one thing, finding an ancestral home and deciding to restore it is quite another. Witness what former St. Louisan David McMahon, a semi-retired real estate developer and lawyer with St. Louis roots who lives in Broomfield CO, discovered in 2009 on ancestry.com. He signed up to help his daughter find family connections in Ireland, where she was headed to attend a university.
He was amazed to learn that his great-grandfather, John Francis McMahon, had built a house at 4544 Westminster for $6000, in an area described as a “new middle-class neighborhood in the Central West End.” John Francis, a successful businessman, his wife, Margaret, and their 5 children moved into the house in 1905. Two additional children were born later. David McMahon was aware of another McMahon house at 4328 Westminster, built by the family’s oldest son, Joseph, who lost it during the depression. The house at 4328 is now a convent.
During a 2013 trip to visit family in St. Louis—the McMahon relatives include Thomases, Doyles, Fausts and Bernards—David and his brother, another John Francis, cycled to the CWE to look at 4544 Westminster. When the co-owner, Trieste L. Woods, questioned why they were standing in front of her house, he explained that this was a family home and inquired whether she would be interested in selling. She wasn’t. Undaunted, McMahon wrote Ms. Woods each year asking if she was ready to sell. Five years later, Woods’ agent called McMahon to say the house was on the market. McMahon closed on the house in December, on his father’s birthday, and started renovation in January, 2019.
McMahon hired his nephew and a few of his SLUH friends as his demolition crew, and enlisted Hank Hart of HEH Construction, a specialist in residential historic preservation, as General Contractor. The house is in the CWE Historic District, so McMahon applied for both Federal and State Historic Preservation Tax Credits, which meant he worked closely with the City’s Cultural Resources Office during the renovation.
This was not his first restoration project. Over the years McMahon has renovated other properties in St. Louis, and renovated and built new homes in Colorado. When he was just 20 years old he bought a duplex, a shell of a building, on Ann Avenue near the Brewery. He bought it for $3000 from HUD. He lived in the structure, sleeping on an air mattress, and worked on it while he was going to school. He knew nothing about construction, so he spent hours at the library perusing "how to” books learning how to renovate a house. After it was completed, he sold that first property, then bought and sold several more to finance his legal education.
From 2019 until the house at 4544 Westminster was completed in October, 2021, McMahon made at least 20 trips from Colorado to St. Louis. Construction dragged on because of slowdowns due to Covid. He lived in the house when he was in town, and kept a photo of his great-grandfather to remind him why he was doing this. “I’m a big believer in the alignment of the stars. I closed on the house on my Dad’s birthday, and while I was walking around working in the house I would think about my great aunts and uncles who would have been crawling around on these same floors. After all, If not for what I now call ‘This Old McMahon House,’ we would not be here.”
Adhering to Historic District Standards meant that renovations of the exterior must replicate the original construction. The front porch was torn off and completely rebuilt, a second floor bay window was restored, as was a Lincoln Window on the back of the house. Hardware was restored, as were the radiators, which was a passion project for McMahon. The radiators, with their Fleur de Lis motif, were removed, sandblasted, and painted in the original color before being reinstalled. All the woodwork in the house was covered in paint except for the staircase, a dramatic feature of the house. Balustrades and broken spindles were duplicated by a local millwork shop, and stained glass windows were sent off to be restored. The kitchen and bathrooms were completely renovated, two new HVAC systems were installed, and electrical service was installed underground.
McMahon also built a new two-car garage. That’s where the original stone Westminster Place street number, that had been on an alley wall, has found a new home.
The 45-4600 blocks of Westminster are zoned 2 family, so in addition to restoring the upper 3-stories, now rented by a young family, McMahon turned the lower level into 750 s.f. apartment for himself. “I come back to St. Louis often to visit family, and wanted a place of my own where I could soak up the ancestor vibe, just a few blocks away from Forest Park. Through this renovation I’ve learned that it’s valuable to be curious about your ancestry, what they accomplished, their values and interests, how they failed and were resilient in the face of life’s inevitable challenges.”
Nice to know our ancestors are looking down on us. Thanks David
David you’ve indeed done a wonderful job and it’s so nice to see it honored here.