United States · Missouri · St. Louis
Southwest Garden, St. Louis — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Kingshighway Boulevard cuts through Southwest Garden, a St. Louis neighbourhood of red brick flats named for the Missouri Botanical Garden to its east.
About Southwest Garden
Where to stay in Southwest Garden
Each area has its own feel; here's who each one suits.
Southwest Garden is residential ground on both sides of Kingshighway Boulevard, so a base here is picked by its edges. East of the road, Shenandoah Avenue and Tower Grove Place hold quiet blocks, and the Missouri Botanical Garden closes that side with its gates a short walk off. West of it, Reber Place and Odell Street sit on some of the highest ground in the city.
Southwest Avenue carries the storefronts. Rooms sit north instead, toward Forest Park, and Kingshighway Boulevard runs back down. If you want dinner on foot rather than a drive, the Italian kitchens of The Hill are the nearer end of that road.
About Southwest Garden
What are the main landmarks in Southwest Garden?
Southwest Garden carries two historic districts, one either side of Kingshighway Boulevard, both on the National Register of Historic Places since 2012. West of the road, the Reber Place Historic District centres on its own street, platted in 1885 at 130 feet wide with a 50-foot median and aimed at the western gate of Tower Grove Park. East of it, the Shaw's Garden Historic District runs on curving streets past the closed courts of Gurney Court and Heger Court off Magnolia Avenue.
Sublette Park lies in the western half. Neither the Missouri Botanical Garden nor Tower Grove Park is inside; St. Ambrose Church stands north on The Hill.
What is the history of Southwest Garden?
Southwest Garden was common land, divided by French settlers in 1769 as the Prairie des Noyers Commons, its arpents running from present-day Grand Avenue toward Kingshighway Boulevard. Clay dug west of that line made money after the Great Fire of 1849, when an ordinance banned frame building. Samuel Reber, a circuit court judge, bought the tract facing Tower Grove Park by 1868; Margaret Reber platted it in 1885.
The streetcar arrived in 1897. The Missouri Street Railroad Company ran it down Vandeventer Avenue, and the Missouri Botanical Garden platted its land in 1916 and 1923, the second to a curving plan by John Noyes.
Where is Southwest Garden?
Southwest Garden lies south of The Hill, west of the Missouri Botanical Garden and Tower Grove Park, and north of North Hampton, split by Kingshighway Boulevard.
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Updated September 2026