Wydown Skinker

Wydown Skinker is a leafy enclave where early twentieth-century domestic architecture meets the intellectual energy of Washington University's campus, creating a neighborhood of gracious stone and brick homes set back from tree-lined streets that feel more like a verdant suburb than urban St. Louis. Built largely between 1900 and 1930, the area showcases the period's finest residential design—from modest but dignified Tudor Revival cottages to substantial Arts and Crafts mansions—reflecting the aspirations of the professionals and merchants who shaped the city's cultural landscape. The neighborhood's proximity to Forest Park and its position adjacent to the university have preserved it as an unusually cohesive pocket of historic character, where vintage streetlights and mature landscaping invite slow exploration and reward the photographer's eye for architectural detail.