The Haunted Lemp Mansion - St Louis, MO

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St. Louis River Front, 1907, courtesy Library of Congress

Will's shenanigans caught up with him when he sired a son with a woman other than his wife. Today, there is no official documentation that this boy existed. However, the rumors that this boy was hidden in the mansion attic for his entire lifetime have been prevalent over the years. According to St Louis historian, Joe Gibbons, when he interviewed a former nanny and a chauffer who worked at the mansion long ago, both of them verified that the boy did exist and was housed in the attic quarters that also housed the servant's rooms. Spawned from Will's philandering with either one of the many prostitutes or a mansion servant, the boy was born with Down's Syndrome. A total embarrassment to the family, the boy was hidden away from the world in order to cloak the Lemp's "shame." Known today as the "Monkey Face Boy," this unfortunate soul continues to show his presence at the Lemp Mansion.

Finally, William, Jr. tired of his "trophy wife" and filed for divorce in 1908. Why she didn't make this step with all of his goings-on, could be nothing more than a sign of the times. The court proceedings surrounding the divorce became a major St. Louis scandal with all four St. Louis newspapers devoting extensive front page coverage to the messy affair. The trial opened in February, 1909 to crowds that flocked to the courthouse each day to witness the drama of tales of violence, drunkeness, atheism and cruelty.

Virtually ignoring William's decadent activities, Lillian almost lost custody of William Lemp, III because of a photograph that was presented at the trial that showed her smoking a cigarette. In the end, she retained custody of their son but soon retired from public eye. The only time that she was ever seen wearing anything other than lavender was on the final day of her divorce proceedings, when she appeared entirely in black before the judge.

Lillian Hadlen Lemp was a diminutive 4'2" tall and seen wearing only lavender. This painting of Lillian, by artist

May Pratt Alsop,  hangs in the Lemp Mansion today.

Photo by Kathy Weiser, October, 2004.

With the divorce, Will’s troubles had only just begun. In 1906, nine of the large breweries in the St. Louis area had combined to form the Independent Breweries Company, creating fierce competition that the Lemp Brewery had never faced. In the same year, Will’s mother died by cancer on April 16th..

Though the brewery’s fortunes were continually declining, the Lemp Mansion was entirely remodeled in 1911 and partially converted into offices for the brewery. At this same time, William allowed the company’s equipment to deteriorate, without keeping abreast of industry innovations. By World War I, the brewery was just barely limping along.

William soon built a country home on the Meramec River, to which he increasingly retreated and in 1915 he married for a second time to Ellie Limberg, widowed daughter of the late St. Louis brewer Casper Koehler.

Then Prohibition came along in 1919. The individual family members were already wealthy so there was little incentive to keep the brewery afloat. For a time, Will hoped that Congress would repeal Prohibition but finally gave up and closed the Lemp plant down without notice. The workers learned of the closing when they came to work one day and found the doors shut and the gates locked.

On March 20, 1920, Elsa Lemp Wright, William’s sister, the wealthiest heiress in St Louis, shot herself just like her father had years before. Elsa was said to have been despondent over her rocky marriage.

Liquidating the assets of the plant and auctioning the buildings, William, Jr. sold the famous Lemp “Falstaff” logo to brewer Joseph Griesedieck for $25,000 in 1922. The brewery buildings were sold to the International Shoe Co. for $588,000, a fraction of its estimated worth of $7 million in the years before Prohibition.

After the end of the Lemp’s brewing dynasty, William, Jr. slipped into a depression. Acting much like his father, he became increasingly nervous and erratic, shunning public life and often complaining of ill health. On December 29, 1922, William shot himself, in the heart with a .38 caliber revolver, in the very same building where his father had died eighteen years before. William, II took his life on the main level of the mansion, just inside the entrance to the left. At the time of his death, this room served as his office. He was interred in the family mausoleum at Bellefontaine Cemetery, in the crypt just above his sister Elsa.

William’s brothers, Charles and Edwin had long ago left the family business, so with William Jr. gone, it seemed that the Lemp empire had finally ended. Edwin had entered into a life of seclusion at his estate in Kirkwood, Missouri in 1911. Charles had never been involved in the brewery and had chosen to work in the banking and real estate fields instead.

In 1943, yet another tragedy occurred when William Lemp III died of a heart attack at the age of forty-two.

Continued Next Page

Lemp Beer Label, 1892

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