An open wood picnic pavilion of eclectic Victorian design, its hipped roof carried on paired teal-green posts with red collars over a concrete floor. The framing is elaborately worked: broad arches spring between the posts beneath deep spandrels of pierced scrollwork, and the gable ends and frieze carry the same curvilinear tracery, all picked out in gold and cream against dark green. Diagonal lattice fills the panels above the arches, radiating boards line the ceiling, and a crest of white ironwork runs along the roof ridge.
Henry Shaw placed roughly a dozen fanciful pavilions through Tower Grove Park as ornaments and as shelter for picnic parties. The Lily Pond Pavilion was designed by Eugene L. Greenleaf and built in 1872; it stands beside the park's lily pond, which gives it its name. The park's collection of Victorian shelters is part of its designation as a National Historic Landmark.
