Amoureux House - Ste. Genevieve, Missouri - Wikipedia Entries on Waymarking.com

"Jean Baptiste St. Gemme Beauvais House. Local name: Amoureux House. 327 St. Mary's Road. c. 1792; shortened and subdivided c. 1842. Property type: French vertical log house. The property is one of only a few surviving French Canadian vernacular dwellings of its period in the United States. It is also one of three surviving poteaux en terre (post-in-ground) houses in Ste. Genevieve. The house has been shortened from its original size. Restoration architect Jack Luer estimates that the building originally measured 69 feet long by 28 feet wide.  The log walls are 12-inch cedar logs. The house presently measures approximately 51 feet by 27 feet in plan excluding the front and rear porches. The porches are approximately 10 and 8 feet in depth.

The house is oriented with its gable end facing St. Mary's Road. A raised porch is recessed beneath the shed-roofed eaves on the south side of the house, while former north side porch is enclosed. Fenestration consists of six-over-six, double hung sash windows and 12-light windows. The walls of the house are sheathed in clapboard and stucco. The roof is sheathed in corrugated metal. One brick chimney projects from the west end of the roof ridge, while a second chimney projects from close to the center of the roof ridge. Before the gables were constructed, the house had a steep French Canadian hipped roof with a 72 degree slope on the ends and 52 degree slope on the sides.  During the roof renovation, the west chimney was removed. The portion of the east chimney that projected above the roof was changed from stone to brick. A new brick chimney was added at the west wall to accommodate stoves.

The original tapered walnut ceiling beams have walnut ceiling boards, rived, then hewn flat on top and planed smooth on the bottom with a bead added at the exposed edge. Battens are used to cover the joints. All are held in place with hand-forged nails and were concealed by a plaster ceiling (removed c. 1970).

Interior alterations also occurred during the 1840s. The interior space remaining after the west end of the building was removed was subdivided into four rooms with a center hall by the installation of plaster and wood partitions. The dates of these partitions were established by the presence of straight-shanked blunt end screws that were manufactured during the 1840s. Tongue and groove flooring had replaced the original floors prior to the installation of the partitions. Other alterations that may have occurred at this time included the closing of the remaining fireplace opening and the relocation of its walnut mantel. The original casement windows were replaced with pine double hung sash, and the original doors and interior trim were replaced with pine. The original shutters and their strap hinges were replaced with slat blinds. The exterior face of the wall logs below the new porch ceilings had sawn lath and lime plaster installed, while the exterior face of the east and west log walls and the new gabled were sheathed in wood siding.

The house was built by Jean Baptiste St. Gemme de Beauvais, Jr. and was later lived in by his son, Raphael, and subsequently by August St Gemme. Beauvais ancestry has been traced back lo Gabriel Beauvais and Marie Crosnier of St. Martin, Perche, France. Their son came to Canada in the mid-1600s and their grandchild, Raphael, came to Kaskaskia in the early eighteenth century. In 1852, Benjamin Amoureux acquired the house...  The building is presently owned by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources and is part of the state historic site in Ste. Genevieve."  ~ Historic District National Register Nomination Form