Restored town house gives look at high life

ST. LOUIS -- The Robert and Virginia Campbell family lived in a three-story Greek Revival town house here from the mid-1800s to 1938, entertaining high society and filling it with 19th-century innovations.

After the Campbells' schizophrenic son Hazlett died in 1938, St. Louis residents saved the downtown home as a museum. It had undergone restorations, but the most recent is the most faithful to the home's original glory, costing $3 million and taking five years to complete.

"We are giving the Campbells back their house," said John Dalzell, the museum's executive director. "This is not a 21st century idea of what a Victorian house should look like. We're working hard to keep our tastes out of it."

The house has a new lawn and old-fashioned garden. It underwent structural repairs, and has new carpeting woven to match the original stenciling and painting on the house's ceilings and walls.

On display are the family's collection of Victorian furniture, oil paintings and Baccarat crystal.

In 1854, when the Campbells moved in, the elegant house stood out among larger and grander homes on what was then Lucas Place. But when businesses sprung up around the neighborhood, all the residents fled except the Campbells.

They hung on until 1938, when Hazlett died, ending the family's 84-year stay in the Campbell House.

Experts who inventoried the house recognized the contents' worth as an example of the mid-Victorian lifestyle and it was turned into a museum, debuting in February 1943.

Historians believe Hazlett Campbell's illness saved the house and a glimpse at how wealthy people lived in the mid-19th century.

"They didn't want to move him, they thought it would be too upsetting for him, and they had plenty of money to hire servants to care for him at home," said Andy Hahn, assistant director of the museum.

As Hazlett and his brother Hugh became more reclusive, only the servants were seen coming and going.

Their father, Robert Campbell, was an Irish immigrant who earned a fortune here in fur, dry goods, real estate, banks and steamboats. He gave author Samuel Clemens, best known as Mark Twain, his first job as a steamboat pilot.

Campbell and his wife, Virginia, had 13 children, but only three lived to adulthood. Ten died before their seventh birthdays.

Dalzell believes the Campbells' wealth contributed to the children's death, because it allowed them to pipe in unfiltered water from the Mississippi River rather than using cisterns and wells. The water came into the house through lead pipes, which could have caused lead poisoning or been a factor in Hazlett Campbell's mental illness.

The house was restored to its 1885 condition thanks to many photographs Hugh Campbell took that year. Coats of paint and wallpaper were stripped away, the original designs were analyzed and replicated by artisans. The museum copied the boldly patterned carpets and placement of furniture.

The staff currently is working to transcribe 300,000 personal letters, business records and photographs to give visitors a glimpse of the Campbells and their era.

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On the Net:

Campbell House Museum: http://stlouis.missouri.org/501c/chm

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Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, http://www.post-dispatch.com