This property was part of Nathan Boone's survey of the Commons in 1830 and part of Dr. Andrew Wilson's subdivision of the Commons in 1835. In 1894, William Bezzenberger, an employee of the Wabash R.R., purchased the lot at the corner of Franklin and N. 5th Street and paid $4.00 tax, indicating no structure. In 1895, he paid $16.00 tax, indicating that some improvement had been made and associating the house with that date. The house is a two-story, front and side gabled Queen Anne with graceful arched brick lintels over slightly arched window tops, Eastlake design cutwork above the windows, and an L-shaped front emphasized by the porch and corner entrance door. In 1897, the property was owned by Octavius Plouff and his wife Margaret until 1908, a period of twelve years. In 1909, H. H. Wilmes and his wife Bernadine, nee Kesting, purchased the property. Hearsay says that when the H. H. Wilmes family purchased the home it was not quite finished and that they added the whole rear wing, whose roof created a hipped-roof appearance between the gable roofs and was flat on top as if meant for a widow's walk. Henry Wilmes, a native of Josephville, Missouri, lived for a time in St. Louis with his wife before moving his young family to St. Charles, where he opened the St. Charles Ice and Coal Company. Henry and Bernadine had five children, belonged to the Borromeo Parish, and donated one of the stained glass windows to the newly rebuilt church after the cyclone of July 7th, 1915.