1820s Bissell Mansion, Longtime Dinner Theater Venue, Is For Sale For $250,000 | Home & Garden

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The front entry of the historic Bissell Mansion, which is nearing its 200th birthday, is photographed on Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022.

The interior of the historic Bissell Mansion, nearing its 200th birthday, is photographed on Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022. The Bissell Mansion is located at 4426 Randall Pl. in St. Louis' College Hill neighborhood. Photo by Christian Gooden, cgooden@post-dispatch.com

What is likely the oldest brick home in St. Louis is for sale, and it needs a little love.

Nearly 200 years ago, Capt. Lewis Bissell built the federal and Greek revival mansion atop his orchard estate, which riverboat pilots called Bissell Point.

It’s nearly 6,000 square feet, has four bedrooms, four baths, a central staircase, a dumbwaiter, a bar on each of its two floors — and maybe a few ghosts. The building at 4424 Randall Place in the city’s College Hill neighborhood, along with two adjacent lots, totals 1.3 acres and is listed at $250,000. The listing went live Wednesday.

Up until a couple of years ago, it was home for about 40 years to a restaurant and murder mystery dinner theater. The managers and owners, Barb and Stan Schepker, quit running the theater at the start of the pandemic in 2020.

The building needs work. Thieves stole the condensers for the copper, so now there’s no air conditioning. The plumbing and electrical work needs replacing, and the hardwood floors need refinishing. You can see daylight in the attic, so critters could come in, though no one has seen evidence of that. It was tuckpointed and painted a few years ago.

The historic Bissell Mansion is located at 4426 Randall Place in St. Louis' College Hill neighborhood.

“Hopefully somebody has a vision and they’re going to do something with it,” said the real estate agent, Daniel McGrath. “It would be a sin to not keep that thing going.”

Lewis Bissell was born in 1789 in Connecticut, joined the Army as a young man and came to the “far west” of St. Louis in 1808, according to the Landmarks Association of St. Louis.

He served with his uncle, Gen. Daniel Bissell, at Fort Bellefontaine and served in the War of 1812. After the war, he and Col. John O’Fallon partnered to supply goods to troops at the fort and out west.

Bissell likely built the house on his 677 acres in the late 1820s, according to the Landmarks Association. The Schepkers have stuck to “circa 1823.” Bissell’s first wife died, and he married again, and he had a total of 11 children. The census in 1830 and 1840 show six enslaved African Americans lived at the property, along with a couple of servants. Bissell died in the house in 1868 and is buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery.

A depiction of the Bissell Mansion (labeled number 4) in the Comption and Dry pictorial directory of St. Louis. Grand Avenue is just to the north.

A daughter and her husband later bought the house, and a series of owners and renters lived there for decades, including Drs. Marie and Edward Randall, for whom Randall Place is named.

In the late 1950s, preservationists saved the house from the Missouri Department of Transportation, which wanted to build the Mark Twain Expressway (Interstate 70) through the property. That group became founding members of the Landmarks Association of St. Louis.

Stan Schepker grew up on Randall Place, and his parents, other family members and residents bought the home in the late 1970s. Barb and Stan Schepker, now in their 70s, had been thinking about retirement and future plans for the house when the pandemic hit.

A dinner theater couldn’t do carryout orders to stay afloat, Barb Schepker pointed out, so they made the difficult decision to sell.

“I put my life into this for 40 years,” she said. “It was so much fun. It was absolutely the best. We entertained, and we fed people for years. I still get messages from people: When are you going to open again? Well, we’re closed.”

At the Bissell Mansion Dinner Theatre, actor Morgan Hatch gets in character as he peruses his lines on the staircase before making his entrance in the show, "A Wing And A Prayer," in February 1999.

Barb Schepker hasn’t seen a ghost herself, but lights flicker in the house, radios turn on and off, and pictures fall off the walls for seemingly no reason. A man, perhaps Capt. Bissell, is sometimes spotted on the upper parking lot, looking at the house.

A cook once told Schepker that the night before, she dreamed she saw two women in a mansion window, one blonde with a white dress, another a brunette with a pink dress and a cameo around her neck. Later that day, a luncheon guest talking to Schepker paused and told her to look in the corner. He saw two women matching the same description. Schepker couldn’t see them, but she wonders: Were those Bissell’s wives?

Several weeks ago, McGrath, the real estate agent, met a couple of estate buyers at the house. One man went upstairs, and McGrath and the other man went to the catering kitchen, which has a swinging door. A couple of minutes later, when they tried to leave through the same door, it was blocked by a vacuum cleaner, a mop and other household items. The men swore they didn’t do anything.

“It freaked me out,” said McGrath. “Like, I don’t believe in ghosts, but I can’t explain this.”

The rooms are sunny and large, with unpainted woodwork throughout. There are stone and wood fireplaces in each room, intact stained glass windows and exterior doors, and walls at least a foot thick.

“Can you imagine the lumber cost to build a doorway like this now?” wondered McGrath, running his hands along some white painted woodwork.

The building has challenges, but it has a lot going for it, he said.

“This historical significance for sure. The history. The structure is sound. The old world craftsmanship is just spectacular.”

The building isn’t on the National Register of Historic Places but is a city landmark, so it has some legal protections against demolition and alterations, said Richard Callow, chairman of the St. Louis Preservation Board.

Andrew Weil, the director of Landmarks Association, praises the Schepkers for their dedication over the years but worries that the building will become a “victim of circumstance” as the neighborhood around it also needs help.

“The tricky thing about threatened historic buildings is that it’s not enough to simply buy them,” he said in an email. “They have to be used and occupied if they are going to survive.”

Barb Schepker agrees. She had to pause while talking about the home to hold back tears.

“I would love for somebody to save it and turn it into the gem that it once was,” she said.

The historic Bissell Mansion is located at 4426 Randall Place in St. Louis' College Hill neighborhood.

The front entry of the historic Bissell Mansion, which is nearing its 200th birthday, is photographed on Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022.

Stay up to date on life and culture in St. Louis.

Valerie Schremp Hahn is a features writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

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Now a single-family home, the building, built in 1908, was a neighborhood grocery until the 1950s and is believed to have also housed a bar and possibly a speakeasy at different times.

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The front entry of the historic Bissell Mansion, which is nearing its 200th birthday, is photographed on Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022.

The historic Bissell Mansion is located at 4426 Randall Place in St. Louis' College Hill neighborhood.

At the Bissell Mansion Dinner Theatre, actor Morgan Hatch gets in character as he peruses his lines on the staircase before making his entrance in the show, "A Wing And A Prayer," in February 1999.

A depiction of the Bissell Mansion (labeled number 4) in the Comption and Dry pictorial directory of St. Louis. Grand Avenue is just to the north.

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1820s Bissell Mansion, longtime dinner theater venue, is for sale for $250,000 | Home & Garden | stltoday.com

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