Retaining Walls - St. Louis County
Webster Groves grew up as a railroad suburb, and many of its streets are lined with Victorian and early-1900s houses on rolling ground that drops toward Deer Creek. That means a lot of old limestone garden walls, sloped front yards held by short walls along the sidewalk, and big old trees whose roots have been working on those walls for decades. Here the look of the wall matters about as much as the engineering.
Webster Groves grew up around the railroad in the late 1800s, and it still looks like it. There are Victorian and early-1900s houses on big, tree-covered lots, and streets that rise and fall as they head toward Deer Creek. A lot of front yards sit a couple of feet above the sidewalk, held up by short walls of old limestone. Many back yards step down toward the creek valleys, and those terraces went in decade by decade, each one built a different way.
Some of the oaks and maples here are older than the walls next to them. Roots widen joints, lift base stones and push whole sections out, and a rebuild has to deal with the tree or it will happen again.
Along the street in Webster Groves a wall is part of how the house looks. A concrete block wall under a 1900s porch looks wrong. We usually rebuild visible walls in cut or dry-laid limestone chosen to sit with the house, and where the old stone is sound, relay the original.
Lots on the low side near the creek stay wet and pick up runoff from the street, so the drain and where it discharges get close attention.
Back yards out of sight from the street can use block, or boulders on a wooded creek edge. Driveways cut into a slope or walls tight against a garage may need concrete. Big old trees and narrow side yards make access part of every new wall plan.
Also working nearby, across the City of St. Louis and St. Louis, St. Charles and Jefferson counties:
Free, No Obligation
Tell us what the wall is doing and where it is. A side-on photo helps us figure out the problem before we arrive.