In the early 1870s, Creole Geminien Beauvais built the largest house in this elegant enclave on this site. As a teenager he had worked in the lucrative fur trade, which provided seed money for many early 19th century entrepreneurs, and he later became an independent trader in the Laramie region, where Indians named him "Big Belly." As a member of special Indian commissions, Beauvais helped the federal government gain possession of the Black Hills. Like many fellow fur traders, he had two families: his Indian wife and children lived in Wyoming and later moved to the Sioux reservation in South Dakota, while by 1870 his St. Louis family had moved into the house here. Images show the house as three stories tall, with a Victorian porch, a stylish mansard roof, and dormer windows, and its scale and trim reflected Beauvais' prosperity. His family lived here for more than a decade before the Henry Ziegenhein family moved into the home. Ziegenhein, a carpenter who became a contractor after serving in the Union Army during the Civil War, raised nine children here with his wife. While living here, he became first a major shareholder and then vice-president of Lafayette Bank, later was elected Collector for the City of St. Louis, and in 1897 was elected the 29th Mayor of the City of St. Louis. The Beauvais-Ziegenhein mansion was replaced in 1924 by arts and crafts flats numbered 3313 to 3327 DeMenil Place.
