Retaining Walls in St. Louis, MO

Limestone Foundations, Limestone Walls

Much of south city and the older north-side neighborhoods were built from the 1860s through the 1920s: brick houses on rubble limestone foundations, with garden walls, front terraces and alley walls in the same stone. Lots are narrow and deep. Near the Mississippi bluffs in Carondelet and along the River Des Peres the grade drops sharply, and many of those drops are held by walls older than anyone living on the street.

Most of those walls were laid dry with nothing behind them to drain water. They lasted a hundred years because they could flex. They're bulging now because a century of silt has filled every gap behind them.

Working City Lots

City jobs are all about access. Gangways between houses are often too narrow for anything with tracks, and the alley is usually the only way in, shared with garages, trash carts and neighbors. We plan access and haul-off around that, stage material in the alley, and do more by hand than we would in the county.

The City of St. Louis issues its own permits, separate from St. Louis County. Taller walls and walls near a structure are the ones that usually need one, and we check before we design.

What City Walls Usually Need

Many city jobs start as a repair: relaying a bulged section of limestone with drainage behind it this time. Walls right against a house or garage often need poured concrete. Back-yard terraces can use block where it's out of sight, boulders on the rare wooded lot, or a full new wall where the old one is past saving.

St. Louis Retaining Wall FAQs