Central West End

Central West End, St. Louis: Grand Homes on Private Streets Beside the Nation's Best City Park

The Central West End's private streets, Portland Place, Westmoreland Place, Westminster Place, still gate off some of the grandest architect-designed homes in the city, most built between 1890 and 1910 for St. Louis's wealthiest families. All of it sits blocks from Forest Park, named USA Today's #1 city park in the country.

Quick facts:

• 1.89 square miles, about 16,670 residents
• Grew rapidly after the 1904 World's Fair, as St. Louis's elite built homes near Forest Park
• Home to several private streets, including Portland Place, Westmoreland Place, and Westminster Place
• Borders Forest Park, named USA Today's #1 city park in the country (2022)

The Houses

Housing here spans an unusually wide range for one neighborhood: studio apartments and high-rise condos on one end, and private-street mansions well over 10,000 square feet on the other. It's one of the few places in the city where that much variety sits within a five-minute walk.

The Private Streets

Portland Place and Westmoreland Place, added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, hold 94 homes built between 1890 and 1960 by some of the city's leading architects. Westminster Place and Washington Terrace add more of the same: gated, tree-lined streets where homeowners paved their own roads a century ago and kept the gates ever since. It's still where some of the largest homes in the city sit, some over 10,000 square feet.

Euclid Avenue

The neighborhood's main street runs nearly a mile along Euclid Avenue, with more than 75 restaurants, bars, and shops packed in: Bowood Farms, Left Bank Books, the Chase Park Plaza's art deco theater, and the World Chess Hall of Fame among them. It's the kind of commercial strip that makes the Central West End feel like a small city of its own, tucked inside a much bigger one.

A Little History

The neighborhood grew up around the 1904 World's Fair, held right next door in Forest Park. St. Louis's wealthiest families wanted to live near the fairgrounds and the park that followed it, and they built accordingly, private streets, architect-designed mansions, and a level of density that's stayed genuinely walkable ever since.

Forest Park

Forest Park runs along the neighborhood's western edge, and it's not a small perk: USA Today named it the #1 city park in the country in 2022, and it's genuinely larger than Central Park in New York. Free museums, the zoo, and miles of trails and green space are a short walk from most Central West End front doors.

Who the Central West End Is For

• Buyers who want walkability, restaurants, and city life without leaving a residential neighborhood
• Anyone who wants Forest Park, genuinely one of the best parks in the country, as a backyard
• Buyers drawn to grand, architect-designed homes on private, gated streets
• People who want density and variety, from studio condos to historic mansions, in one place

Why Work with the Dawn Griffin Group in the Central West End

Partner with a team that's earned it: three-time A-List winner for Best Real Estate Agent in St. Louis (2024, 2025, and 2026), with decades of experience and over 1,000 successful transactions across the city's most sought-after urban neighborhoods.