United States · Missouri · St. Louis
Shaw, St. Louis — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Large houses line Flora Place, the strip Henry Shaw bought as an entrance way to his Missouri Botanical Garden. The neighbourhood that took his name grew up around it. Shaw is a local historic district of St. Louis, held between Tower Grove Avenue and South Grand Boulevard, with Tower Grove Park along the southern edge.
About Shaw
Where to stay in Shaw
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An ordinance protects the historic structure and character of Shaw, which shapes what a visitor finds here: rehabilitated brick houses on the side streets rather than hotel blocks. Tower Grove Avenue runs the western boundary, with the Missouri Botanical Garden immediately beyond it, and the quietest rooms sit on that line. Bigger hotels stand north across Interstate 44.
Take the eastern streets toward South Grand Boulevard if you want dinner within a walk, or drop south to Magnolia Avenue and the Tower Grove Park gates.
About Shaw
What are the main landmarks in Shaw?
St. Margaret of Scotland Catholic Church has held the parish on Flad Avenue since the late 1800s, and its school sits a few blocks north on Castleman Avenue. Shaw Place is the set piece. An oval drive rounds a parkway, a fountain sits near the south end, and ten Victorian brick houses of the 1880s by George Ingham Barnett line it, each with one window bricked shut in an English habit born of taxing houses by their windows.
The oval went private in 1915 and is reached from De Tonty Street. The Missouri School for the Blind, founded in 1851, holds a campus on Magnolia Avenue at the southern edge. B'nai El Temple stands two streets west of South Grand Boulevard, Romanesque Revival and on the National Register.
Two houses worth the walk belong to other quarters: the Charles Stockstrom House sits a few blocks east across South Grand Boulevard in Compton Heights, and the William Buehler House farther south in Tower Grove East. The Missouri Botanical Garden closes the western line, Tower Grove Park the southern one.
What is the history of Shaw?
The area was established in 1769 as Prairie des Noyers, a French settlement. Henry Shaw had bought several large parcels here by the mid 1850s, and the neighbourhood carries his name. In 1878 he platted his Grand Avenue Addition, and Shaw Place came out of it.
Flora Place was platted in 1901 and lined with large houses within a few years; Magnolia Place opened in 1916. Brick did the rest. In 1985 Shaw was designated a Certified Local Historic District, so the structure and character of these streets are held by ordinance rather than left to chance.
Where is Shaw?
Interstate 44 closes Shaw to the north, South Grand Boulevard to the east, and Tower Grove Avenue with the Missouri Botanical Garden to the west. Magnolia Avenue draws the southern line, with Tower Grove Park beyond it. It covers about six-tenths of a square mile.
Flora Place, Russell Boulevard, and Shaw Boulevard all run east to South Grand Boulevard, and Thurman Avenue crosses them north to south.
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Updated September 2026