County of building: Saint Charles County
Location of structure: Jefferson St., 7th house W of N 10th St., N side, St. Charles
Built: 1893
Architect/Builder: Unknown
Architectural Style: Gothic Revival influence
Original Occupant: J. George and Meta Diehr
Map
"300. 1026 Jefferson Street; Gothic Revival influence; circa 1893; Contributing
Facing south, this 1½-story frame structure has a cross-gabled roof with wide overhanging eaves. The gable ends are trimmed with narrow scalloped bargeboard and the west gable is clipped. A brick chimney
straddles the ridge of the front gable and a gabled dormer pierces the front slope of the west gable. The dormer has battered walls, paired 4/4 windows above paneled skirts and scalloped bargeboard in the
gable end and eaves. The foundation is coursed rock-faced stone and the walls are finished with clapboard siding. The 5-bay façade has two 9/9 windows in the west wing, 2 in the front-gabled wing and an entrance in the east wing, and the windows on the façade have segmental-arched hood molds.
The upper 2 panels of the 4-panel wood door are glazed, and the door is topped by a single-light transom The 1-bay portico has a wooden deck, balustrade with turned balusters, slender box column and engaged box columns with molded capitals, and a shed roof.
a. Garage; 2004; Noncontributing
The 1-story, 2-car, side-gabled frame garage has a paneled metal overhead door." ~ NRHP Nomination Form
"Built: 1893 circa
Style/Design: Gothic Revival influence
The County’s tax parcels database gives the date of construction as 1890, but this address does not appear in the 1891-92 city directory; however, the house may have been built shortly after the directory was published. The address does appear in the next available directory, which was published in 1906. From 1906 through 1959 the home was owned by the J. George and Meta Diehr family. In 1906, Mr. Diehr co-owned (with H.F. Merten) the Diehr Grocery Co. at 143 North Main Street, but from 1910 through 1945 he sold real estate and insurance. By 1950 Mrs. Diehr was widowed, but she continued to live in the house through 1957. Florence Diehr, presumably their daughter, was the homeowner in 1959, but by 1961 she had moved next door to the new duplex at 1024 Jefferson Street that she apparently had built. Forrest and Irma King owned the home in 1961, when research ended, and he was a salesman.
"Facing south, this one-and-one-half story, frame structure was originally T-shaped. The base of the T is the front gabled wing and
the crosspiece is the side-gabled section, but the crosspiece is longer on the west side than the east. However, a shed-roofed
addition was made to the east half of the rear elevation, giving the house an irregular plan. The roof has wide overhanging eaves and is trimmed with narrow scalloped bargeboard, and the west gable is clipped. A brick chimney straddles the ridge of the front gable and a gabled dormer pierces the front slope of the west gable. The dormer has battered walls, paired 4/4 windows above paneled skirts, and scalloped bargeboard in the gable and eaves. The windows throughout the house are replacements and they are framed by louvered vinyl shutters. The foundation is coursed, rock-faced stone and the walls are finished with weatherboard siding. The five-bay main façade has two 9/9 windows in the west wing, two in the front-gabled wing and an entrance in the east wing, and the windows on the façade have segmental-arched hood molds. The upper two panels of the four-panel wood door are glazed, and the door is topped by a single-light transom. The door opens onto a one-bay portico that has a wooden stair on its south side, a wooden deck, balustrade with turned balusters, slender box column and engaged box columns with molded capitals, and a shed roof. The south end of the east elevation has a door that opens onto the portico, and to the north is a box bay with paired windows and pent roof trimmed with bargeboard; a window; and in the addition is a door and window. The west elevation has a 6/6 and two 9/9 windows on the first floor and two 4/4 windows on the second, and the windows have plain surrounds with molded caps, except the southernmost first floor window, which has a hood mold.
"This tree-shaded lot is slightly elevated above the public sidewalk that extends along the front. A sidewalk with three steps leads to the portico, and to the right of the stair is a low concrete retaining wall and to the left is a retaining wall constructed of landscape
timbers. A landscape bed edged with bricks is to the west of the portico, and the bed is filled with shrubbery and small trees. The
rear yard is enclosed by a combination privacy and picket fence, and at the northeast corner of the property is a one-story, two car, side-gabled, frame garage that was built in 2004. The paneled metal overhead door is on the west elevation and opens onto a concrete driveway that leads to the alley. There are no openings on the alley (north) side. The garage is noncontributing." ~ St. Charles Historic Survey Phase II, PDF pages 205-209