[ballwin]
A fire on Aug. 1 destroyed a historic farmhouse in Sherman Beach County Park near the Meramec River. Investigators are trying to determine whether the cause was arson; it could not have been electrical, as the home was not hooked to any utilities. The home had been donated to county parks by Harold Donnelly, an area realtor who was a driving force behind Castlewood State Park and several county parks. Donnelly, who died in 1996, also was a founder of the Nature Conservancy of Missouri. He donated property to Castlewood, Bee Tree and Unger county parks, as well as Teszars Woods in Jefferson County.
[chesterfield]
Mercedes-Benz autos have always turned heads. They comprise the lion’s share of historic vehicles at Kemp Auto Museum in the Chesterfield Valley. The oldest, designed by Karl Benz and patented in 1886, is akin to the Wrights’ airplane—the delicate, three-wheel conveyance is widely considered to be the first automobile. Its maiden long trip was 112 miles, and considering what road conditions must have been in those days, one wonders whether it could have made it 112 more. It produced a mere .75 horsepower, which seems like two double-A batteries compared to the 1972 Mercedes 600 model, with a V-8 that generated 250 horsepower. The rich, famous and infamous—from Elvis, Liz Taylor and Hugh Hefner to Leonid Brezhnev, Kim Jung II and Idi Amin—owned these sedans, whose sole design criterion was to be the world’s ultimate luxury car. There’s a 1954 300SL, which has ‘gullwing’ doors that open up, not out. When collector Fred Kemp passed away in 2006, his more than 30 vintage Mercedes became the core of the museum collection. Today there are cars from all over the world. But the thrust is decidedly German: There’s a VW Beetle from the 1960s, when they were omnipresent and relatively inexpensive. And, across a plaza in a separate garage sits an orange VW bus, visibly in need of detailing, new paint and hours of buffing. It looks like it finally ran out of gas here after decades of following the Grateful Dead. (The Kemp, 16955 Chesterfield Airport Road, is open Wednesday through Sunday.)
[creve coeur]
It’s rare that a situation with guns and a police standoff could be characterized as good news, but all’s well that ended well in Creve Coeur recently. After police received a call from a man’s relative concerned about his well-being, they visited his apartment at Kings Landing in the 600 block of New Ballas Road. When he would not come out and cops determined he had a weapon, an 11-hour standoff ensued, snarling roads nearby and forcing fellow apartment dwellers to stay indoors. Finally, police forced their way in and captured him without incident. He was taken to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation.
[st. charles]
OMG: are there gators in the sewers here like there are in New York? No, and well, no. But imagine the astonishment on a fisherman’s face when he pulled a 2-foot alligator out of a pond in St. Charles last month. No worries. They’re not migrating north from the Louisiana bayous, either. Conservation experts say the climate here is too cold for alligators to survive year-round. It’s likely the gator was someone’s pet that got released into the wild when it wasn’t cute anymore and/or got too big to handle. (Now, if I may have offended anyone by suggesting gators are cute, I apologize.)
[st. louis]
It’s tragic, a disgrace that so many who have served their country drop through the cracks. You may see them at intersections with corrugated cardboard signs lamenting their plight: ‘Homeless Veteran. Hungry. Please Help.’ Some fought our wars as recently as Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan. Physical disability, or more often mental conditions including PTSD, have rendered them homeless. But now, about 50 can look forward to a semi-permanent roof over their heads, thanks to a pilot HUD program administered through city government via a federal outlay of $750,000, a ‘rapid rehousing’ grant. Some beneficiaries are the chronically homeless; men and women who can’t believe their lives may be looking up from sleeping on benches and frequent visits to Larry Rice or the Salvation Army. They said they wouldn’t believe their good fortune until they have the key to an apartment in their hand and a clean pillow for their head. After waiting in line and completing interviews and paperwork, they got them: apartments in the 3100 block of Cherokee Street that normally would cost about $425 a month. There are strings attached. This is teaching them to fish, not just handing out fish sandwiches: They need to participate in the transition from the street, in many cases by following recovery programs from alcohol and drugs.
[sunset hills]
When you pit the angry driver of an automobile against a cyclist, things won’t go well for the guy on two wheels. But after a driver knocked a rider to the pavement, blaming him for grabbing and holding on to his Mercedes, the cycling community became as tight-knit as a tribe in its response. The driver was Mark Furrer, mayor of Sunset Hills, for goodness’ sake. More than 200 cyclists rode in protest to the Sunset Hills administrative complex a few days after Furrer struck champion racer Randy Murdick on Old Gravois Road. Stories vary radically. Some blame road rage. But Furrer says he returned to the scene after he saw Murdick tumble in the rear-view mirror. Cyclists say witnesses had to chase him down. His $12,000 racing bicycle badly damaged, Murdick went to the hospital and says his Achilles tendon was ruptured. Cyclists say several other witnesses saw Furrer’s convertible swerve toward Murdick. Murdick and Furrer both admit to exchanging some choice words. Sunset Hills cops interviewed Furrer, Murdick and witnesses, then turned the case over to county police to avoid the pretense of favoritism. Murdick says Furrer slowed, pulled alongside and shouted, “Get off my (expletive) roads!” Furrer says Murdick ignored a stop sign and that he’d only warned him to obey traffic laws. Well, maybe … it is one man’s word against the other’s. But, why on earth would a seasoned cyclist react by grabbing a moving vehicle? After the story hit social media, the cycling community responded from far and wide, with vitriol. Reportedly, Furrer’s cellphone has been ringing constantly since the incident. At any rate, when cyclists arrived en masse at city hall, other city officials were there with bottled water. Furrer was elsewhere, perhaps still trying to ignore irate calls, texts and emails.
[university city]
We were going to say Joe Edwards is at it again, but he’s always at it. One of his pet projects, St. Louis Walk of Fame, now has a new star, former Redbirds player and now announcer Tim McCarver. And Edwards’ new 24-hour operation, the Peacock Diner, is set to open by the end of September.The first phase of the Washington U. housing project in the Delmar Loop is slated for completion Aug. 11 (at time of publication). Edwards’ knack for knickknacks will carry over from Blueberry Hill. And though some may lament that the diner will make the Loop a 24-hour destination, with The Moonrise Hotel just down the block, it already is. At any rate, you’ll be able to get a spiked milkshake until it’s last call for alcohol. McCarver, meanwhile, was indeed a star, a catcher who started in 1959 with the Cardinals. He was only 17; today, he’s 71. Most readers probably know him better as a broadcaster who was in the booth for regular-season games and the World Series for 24 seasons. Today he’s back, the guy who blathers on with Mike Shanahan as though you’ve never seen a baseball game in your life. But then, we’ve got to give him props for playing on a field populated with the likes of Musial, Gibson and Flood.
[webster groves]
Ed Mueth, second in command at the county Health Department, left a mess in his wake after taking his own life, just before an audit would reveal that he had embezzled millions. Now the county is trying to recover assets that Mueth diverted into a bogus IT company that fraudulently secured lucrative contracts. It never did add up: Mueth, who died last September, made less than $90,000 a year, yet lived a life of luxury that included a Webster Groves home worth more than $1 million. He had managed to fly under the radar for six years, an oversight that was the focus of a Steve Stenger ad attacking his opponent, incumbent Charlie Dooley, for being asleep at the switch. Meanwhile, the FBI and ACLU have locked horns, with the feds wanting to keep a lid on their investigation into the crime and the ACLU arguing it should be made public. The county has filed an insurance claim and also petitioned the probate court in an effort to recoup from the Mueth estate some of the estimated $3.5 million missing.