The San Luis wasn’t unlike many nursing homes I’d visited in my life; drab, dated and undistinguished. But it was clean and the residents seemed happy to see us.
Last week, as I drove on Lindell near the “new” Cathedral Basilica, the street suddenly changed from two lanes to one and a small river of water flowed down the street to the sewer. As I drove farther east, I realized the water was part of the demolition of the San Luis. Driving slowly past, I saw large earth-moving equipment and men with jackhammers. The San Luis was coming down.

What I didn’t know when I visited with my daughter was that the San Luis was originally built as an upscale hotel in the early 1960s called the DeVille. The archdiocese bought it in 1973 and operated it as an apartment complex for low-income residents until 2007.

Last month, the St. Louis Preservation Board voted to allow the Archdiocese to tear down the building to create a 150-space parking lot.

Preservationists had sought to save the building for two reasons. They cite it as an excellent example of mid-20th century architecture that matches some of the other nearby buildings. They also say a surface parking lot would ruin the Lindell streetscape, which features a series of high rise apartment buildings.

Meanwhile, the archdiocese stated they need more parking for events at the Cathedral and for Rosati-Kain high school. The architect for the parking lot said the building is in poor shape. My guess is that the archdiocese, with its own financial struggles, realized the long-term cost of maintaining the building had exceeded the demolition cost. With a poor economy and sluggish real estate market, there was little prospect of someone renovating it.

I had lunch with a preservationist last week and she said the best use of the building would have been “adaptive reuse,” or renovation. But she admitted that the appearance of the building itself did not generate a big public outcry over its demolition. This was not a “turn of the century” grand apartment building with 12-foot ceilings, ornamental terra cotta and “classic lines.” This was an old hotel built in the 1960s that was converted into senior housing and then left vacant. Even 28th Ward Alderman Lyda Krewson, a longtime supporter of Central West End renovation, said she reluctantly supported the parking lot plan.

The building, for many years bustling with hotel guests, senior citizens and even child carolers has now entered into its own “Silent Night.”