What's the flap

Kirkwood is a bedroom community of the city of St. Louis, established over 150 years ago. Most of the original housing has long since been replaced, but the gradual process resulted in homes side by side with architectural styles sometimes a century apart. The housing boom has resulted in a significant increase in infill housing, the practice of knocking down older and often obsolete homes for replacement with newer, larger, and substantially more expensive homes.

One architectural disaster has plagued some of these home: the garage faced house. Instead of presenting a classic front of a house with windows, doors, gardens and grass, people have turned their house around. The street is presented with a two or three car garage projecting well in front of the living quarters. This style works in suburban neighborhoods where all the homes are backwards and the street leading to them functions like alleys do in city neighborhoods.

These homes are a blight on the architecture of Kirkwood.