Christmas Light Installation in Tower Grove

Dense blocks, consistent houses

The neighborhoods that ring Tower Grove Park are some of the most consistent housing in St. Louis: brick two-family flats and gabled bungalows, built close together on narrow lots, most of them with a front gable, a shared or open porch, and a stone or brick face that has not needed much since it went up. There is real advantage in that consistency. When the houses on a block are the same shape, a display that gets the geometry right on one front looks right on every front — and a whole block in the same warm white is one of the better sights in the city in December.

The complication is the canopy. These streets carry old, heavy trees, and a roofline that would read clearly on an open subdivision lot can vanish behind branches. So the design has to account for what is actually visible from the sidewalk and from a car, which usually means putting more of the display low — porch, rail, entry, front bed — and less of it above the gutter.

A Tower Grove front, done right

• Front gable and porch roof traced, which is the readable line on most of these houses
• Porch columns and rail wrapped or garlanded, at the height people actually pass
• Entry door framed, with a wreath if you want one hung dead-plumb
• Front bed and small trees lit, so the display survives the canopy
• Two-family flats handled as one composition rather than two competing halves

We work the Tower Grove blocks, St. Louis Hills and the south side on the same schedule. Install in October and November, repairs all season at no charge, takedown and storage in January. Free quote at (636) 244-6125.