Holly Hills, St. Louis — Area Guide & Where to Stay

What are the main landmarks in Holly Hills?

Holly Hills keeps its landmarks on Wilmington Avenue and Leona Street. St. Stephen Protomartyr Roman Catholic Church at 3949 Wilmington Avenue grew in stages, a tan brick complex with a rectory from 1929, a school from 1931, and a ribbed concrete bell tower raised with the 1962 sanctuary. Oak Hill Chapel at 6100 Leona Street answers it, a 1952 design by Schmidt and Krueger whose spire and glazed gable rank among the city's best Modern work.

Everything else is streetscape. Federer Place has its own planted median, Bowen Street has two landscaped islands, and rows of steep-gabled Gingerbread houses run along Arendes Drive.

What is the history of Holly Hills?

Holly Hills was railroad ground first. Missouri Pacific interests assembled the tract in the 1880s and ran a line along its eastern edge, announcing a company town that never came; the ground lay fallow for thirty years. The Federer-Arendes Real Estate Company bought it in 1922 and platted the first subdivision in 1923. Federer, Arendes, and Livingston named streets for themselves, for their wives Marie, Winifred, and Jeannette, spliced into Marwinette Avenue, and for the Coronado hotel where they drew the plan.

The name was picked to echo Hollywood, and lots sold as the California of St. Louis. Building peaked in 1928.

Where is Holly Hills?

Holly Hills fills the blocks between Holly Hills Boulevard and Bates Street, bounded southeast by South Grand Boulevard and northwest by Leona Street.