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One reason why the red and white Georgian revival architecture of St. Peter’s harmonizes so well with Mary Institute across Warson Road is that both buildings were designed by the same architectural firm, Study & Farrar. Guy Study (1880-1959) and Benedict Farrar (1885-1978) had both studied at Washington University, and their early residential designs in nearby University City and Clayton stand out for their quality: See 6435 Cecil, 6440 Ellenwood, 6334 McPherson, 6366 and 6930 Waterman. Their firm had been associated with Ladue since designing the village hall on Clayton Road in 1931. Farrar was the city’s volunteer building commissioner and a member of St. Peter’s.
The congregation of St. Peter’s moved here in 1949 from an 1893 Gothic Revival building (since demolished) at Spring and Lindell near St. Louis University. Remnants of the older building still to be seen include the marble altar, the baptismal font, the World War I memorial plaque in the east aisle, and the cornerstone, now located in the garden on the east side of the present church. The design of the new church derives from several Connecticut churches of the early nineteenth century, including those at Guildford and New Haven.
St. Peter’s has recently completed a large addition designed by the late Kurt Landberg, whose work at Christ Church Cathedral, Second Presbyterian Church (in the Central West End), St. Francis Xavier (College) Church, and First Congregational Church of Webster Groves is also familiar to audiences of the Chamber Chorus.
The Chamber Chorus first performed at St. Peter’s under the direction of Stephen Curtis in 1986; his successor Philip Barnes brought the Chorus back on several occasions, most recently in April 5, 1998, for a Palm Sunday program sung by the women's voices of the Chorus. S. William Aitken, the organist and choir director at St. Peter’s, has always helped the work of the Chorus, and with the support of the then Rector, the Rev. James Metzger, and the Vestry, he invited the Chorus to move its rehearsals to the church from its former base of Trinity Presbyterian Church in University City, where he himself had previously been organist.
| Notes by Esley Hamilton
and Philip Barnes Photo by James Lowe |