What to know about Portland Place, where St. Louis couple pointed guns at protesters
Demonstrators were on their way to protest at the home of St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson
Photos of a St. Louis couple who emerged from their mansion brandishing firearms as Black Lives Matter protesters marched down their private street circulated like wildfire on social media Sunday.
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The couple, Mark and Patricia McCloskey, live on Portland Place, a private street in a St. Louis historic district lined with million-dollar homes. Demonstrators were on their way to protest at the home of St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson, who sparked outrage when she read the addresses of constituents who wrote her letters about defunding the police department during a livestream.
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A mansion on Portland Place in St. Louis. (Google Earth)
"A mob of at least 100 smashed through the historic wrought-iron gates of Portland Place, destroying them, rushed towards my home where my family was having dinner outside and put us in fear of our lives," Mark McCloskey told News 4 on Monday.
The gates are marked with "No Trespassing" and "Private Street" signs, he told News 4.
St. Louis' elite have lived on private streets like Portland Place since the 19th century, although many were done away with in the mid-20th century, according to St. Louis Magazine.
Portland Place is in St. Louis' Central West End neighborhood, which Zillow classifies as a "very hot" sellers' market. It borders the 1,300-acre Forest Park owned by the city of St. Louis.
A Zillow page on a home in Portland Place in historic St. Louis. Screenshot
The median home value in Central West End is $336,532, which is far higher than the city's overall median home value of $131,150. However, Portland Place has numerous listings well over $1 million.
The McCloskeys have spent years restoring their mansion, which was built more than 100 years ago by the son of Adolphus Busch, of Anheuser-Busch fame, the couple told St. Louis Magazine in a 2018 interview.
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The Italian Renaissance-inspired palazzo was once St. Louis' "most dazzling" mansion complete with a teak-and-ebony dance floor, a rare Aeolian house organ with 38-foot-long pipes and stained glass windows, according to the magazine.
A view of Niemann Mansion in St. Louis. (Google Earth)
The McCloskeys were also part of restoring St. Louis' historic Niemann Mansion, where their law firm is located. The German-style home was built in 1887 but still has the original woodwork inside despite being used as a commercial office space for decades, according to a YouTube video posted by the law firm.