Between 1849 and 1851, architect George I. Barnett simultaneously designed Henry Shaw's city and country residences. Tower Grove House was Shaw's elegant Italianate country home, designed to stand alone against the landscape and approached by a sweeping carriage road across tall grasses. The land was originally wild prairie with a small grove of sapling sassafras, which, together with the home's distinctive tower, gave rise to the name "Tower Grove." After Shaw's death in 1889, the house was inhabited by the Garden's first director, Dr. William Trelease, and the original east wing was replaced with a larger, more symmetrical wing to accommodate his family. The home underwent extensive renovations in 1953 and again in 2005, and today it is open to the public as a historic house museum with furniture and materials that once belonged to Shaw.
