All Entries Tagged With: "Old Jamestown"
The Gardens of NoCo: Chan Mahanta
Chan Mahanta's colorful prairie garden is a gem of the Old Jamestown area.
“In wildness is the preservation of the world,” wrote Henry David Thoreau, and I’m pretty sure Chan Mahanta agrees. This talented local gardener has created a wondrously wild native prairie in his front yard, which NOCO’s newest contributor, JoAnn Batzer, recently had a chance to visit. Here’s what she learned…
Chan Mahanta doesn’t flinch about a tour bus dropping off more than 40 botanical garden professionals in his driveway. Visiting groups from the Perennial Plant Association or even famed garden writer and designer Noel Kingsbury don’t worry him either.
Chan can stand his own ground (literally!) with elite horticultural visitors from all over the globe, mostly because he has worked incredibly hard on his Old Jamestown property and it shows. The 1.5-acre prairie in his front yard was awarded the top prize for an amateur in the 2004 St. Louis Post-Dispatch Great Garden Contest, serving as an exquisite example of native plant use in a residential environment.
Chan Mahanta
An architect by trade, Chan designed his impressive home overlooking the Missouri River in 1997, moving there with his wife, Banti, from Creve Coeur. Originally from India, he was fascinated at an early age by the American landscape, often thumbing through comic books featuring Native Americans, cowboys and bison herds that roamed the early prairie.
During college he also saw The Vanishing Prairie, a 1954 Disney nature documentary, and it became etched in his memory. But it wasn’t until moving from California to St. Louis (and ultimately North County) that Chan realized he could finally fulfill his dream of creating his own native prairie. In 1999, he started his current garden entirely by seed.
Looking back, he admits he should have prepared the site better, as a few areas had to be reseeded twice. But by three years in, the prairie gradually became established, and today it’s a showpiece with more than 60 varieties of wildflowers, warm season grasses and native plants.
June and July are peak bloom times, but prairie gardens hold year round interest. In winter, the dry grasses and seed heads are not only aesthetic, but provide wildlife food and habitat, proving that the prairie isn’t just a ‘garden’ but an entire ecosystem.
Coneflowers (Echinacea spp.), black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta.) and blue false indigo (Baptisia australis) provide stunning color during the summer, while grasses like big bluestem (Andropogon gerardi), little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) and Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans) offer subtle texture and color in the winter.
A huge plus to the garden is the low maintenance. Now that the prairie is established, Chan only puts in 4-6 hours a month of upkeep. No irrigation, fertilizing or weekly mowing is needed! Just battling the ever encroaching honeysuckle and other non-native weeds is his main duty at this point.
Once a year in mid to late February, he brush-hogs the vegetation down to the ground, gets a burn permit from the local fire district and then carefully burns the remnants. The prairie doesn’t need to be burnt every year, but Chan prefers to do it to keep the woody weeds in check and deny the voles and mice shelter all winter. In the spring, the area quickly rejuvenates and provides shelter and color once again.
Chan’s garden also hosts a wildlife-friendly pond and waterfall feature along with a vegetable garden. The wooded back of the property provides a natural contrast between the sunny prairie in front, while two deck areas offer private, shady spots to watch the river either from the bluff or at the water’s edge.
Active in the Old Jamestown Association, Chan would love to see more native plants and prairie plantings in the area. Always willing to share his experience, he has already assisted neighbors in establishing prairie gardens nearby, and his newest endeavor is beekeeping – another important aspect of the prairie ecosystem.
Chan’s bees are fortunate to have such a beautiful and diverse prairie home. And of course, NoCo is lucky to have a resident as creative, dedicated and talented as Chan Mahanta! Not only did Chan build his beautiful, sustainable garden from scratch, but he also provided all of the gorgeous photos for this story…
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Jo Batzer has lived in North County most of her life and is excited to be a part of the NOCO team. She has worked in the horticulture and florist industries for over 25 years and is the garden leader at Twillman House Community Garden. Jo lives and gardens in the Spanish Lake area with her husband, two sons and two dogs.
825 Carrico Road: Rich with History, not Bubbleheads
Enveloped by acres of rolling woodland in the Old Jamestown area, 825 Carrico Road is a vintage charmer just waiting for some TLC.
For people who love old houses, there’s nothing quite as magical as a house that time forgot. Decades may have passed but virtually nothing has changed, leaving behind a vivid snapshot of an earlier era and a curious mystery that must be peeled back layer by layer.
It’s incredibly rare to find a house like this, where water still comes from a cistern and the vintage decor is perfectly preserved. That’s why I was thrilled to discover 825 Carrico Road, a circa-1905 farmhouse in the heart of the beautiful Florissant Karst, where sixty years have glided by with barely a blip.
Frank and Melba Neuberger bought the 12-acre property in 1947, when the Old Jamestown area was still just a rural farming community. They also owned an adjacent 11.5 acres, just a short distance from the Missouri River, and both eventually spent their entire lives on Carrico Road.
Melba died in 2004 after 57 years there. Frank, who made his living selling cemetery plots and real estate, recently died at the age of 99 after staying there until 2006.
“My aunt and uncle were just good, kind-hearted people,” says John Goessmann, the Neubergers’ nephew. “They had lots of friends in the area who were always looking out for them, and they really loved the peace and quiet in that little valley of theirs.”
Janet Lueke, whose aunt and uncle, Catherine and Hubert Poeling, owned 825 Carrico before the Neubergers and raised pigs there, says it’s amazing how little the property has changed over the years. “It used to have an outhouse, but other than that, it looks pretty much the same,” she says.
“Back then, there just weren’t many houses around here,” says Lueke, 68, who still lives near Carrico Road. “This is definitely one of the older ones.”
Deed records show that Howard and Hattie Carrico actually lived in the home during the 1930s, but whether the Carrico family (who were big landowners in the area) played a part in its construction is a mystery. A 1909 map names J.M.D. Alben as the property owner, but so far, I haven’t found firm evidence that he’s the one who built the house.
What I do know is that the Neubergers dramatically altered the home’s original facade in 1948, removing the front porch and adding a side garage and side porch – in my opinion, making it better. I also know that despite the sinkholes, hidden caves and thick, haunting woods that surround 825 Carrico and most of Old Jamestown, there are absolutely no “bubbleheads” to be found here.
As you may know, Carrico Road is the “Bubblehead Road” of urban legend, where deformed inbreeds supposedly attack trespassers. And yes, the Neuberger house sits in an isolated hollow that could easily spook you at night. But ask the locals about bubbleheads and they insist it’s nothing but a silly myth perpetuated by teenagers.
“I have no idea where that got started,” Janet Lueke says with a laugh. “I grew up on Shackelford and have lived in this area my whole life, and I can tell you we never heard of bubbleheads when I was in school. There’s no truth to it at all.”
“Absolutely none,” emailed another local resident who asked that I not share his name. “It’s nothing more than some kids trying to scare each other. You know, they found this dark country road, back in the woods, and…there’s your story. Somebody got creative. But I can honestly tell you, I’ve been in this area since 1946 and I have never seen any strange or sickly people wandering around or attacking cars or any of that nonsense. It’s just a nice place…one of the prettiest areas in North County, I think. There are no bubblehead people here.”
At least not now. But Goessmann does recall the story of a family that used to live at the far end of Carrico Road, before his aunt and uncle moved in. Apparently they had a son who suffered from hydrocephalus, or “water on the brain,” and he used to wear a football helmet for protection when playing outside.
But did he attack people or roam the woods? Absolutely not. He was just a little boy with an unfortunate condition. And he’s long gone now.
So there you have it, NOCO fans… the likely source of the Bubblehead legend. Despite what you’ve heard, Carrico Road is not the home of mutants with swollen heads. But it is the site of one very cool old house, which can be yours for just $139,900…
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For more information about 825 Carrico (which could make the sweetest little suburban farm), contact real estate agent Bob Branstetter at (314) 791-3555. A special thanks to him and John Goessmann for providing most of the photos for this story!
Preserving the Florissant Karst
A view from Sinks Road, so named because of the Old Jamestown area's many sinkholes
Anyone who drives down Old Jamestown Road can easily see that the area is a natural wonderland. But hiding beneath those dense forests and beautiful rolling hills is a treasure so unique that St. Louis County recently passed legislation to protect it.
Covering four square miles bordered roughly by Lindbergh Blvd, Old Halls Ferry, Hwy 367 and the Missouri River, the “Florissant Karst” is well known by geologists all over the world. Essentially it’s a landscape that has been carved out by millions of years of water, creating caves, underground rivers, springs and eventually sinkholes as the sedimentary limestone slowly dissolves.
The Florissant Karst offers the finest example of deep, funnel-shaped sinkholes in the Central United States. It also provides natural drainage for the Old Jamestown area, leading many to believe that it should be protected from certain kinds of development.
