An open octagonal picnic pavilion in Tower Grove Park, built as a carriage shelter. Slender wood columns — painted red with stepped blue caps — carry a broad shingled roof that flares over the seating and rises in tiers to a lantern; the lantern's louvered sides are edged with a fretwork valance and pierced diamond ornament and topped by a tall white spire and a red ball finial. Sawn gingerbread brackets in green and white fill the spandrels between the columns. The whole stands on an octagonal paved slab, open on every side to the surrounding lawns.
The shelter stands in Tower Grove Park, the Victorian walking park that Henry Shaw gave to the city of St. Louis and that opened in 1872. It was built as a carriage shelter — a covered stop where visitors arriving by horse-drawn carriage could pull in out of the sun or rain — one of the many ornamental structures set through the grounds in the park's early years.
