Magic Chef Mansion | |
 The Magic Chef Mansion in 2017 | |
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| Coordinates | 38°36′46.33″N90°14′09.98″W / 38.6128694°N 90.2361056°W |
|---|---|
| Built | 1908 |
| Architect | Ernst Janssen |
| Architectural style | French Renaissance Revival |
| NRHP reference No. | 80004511 |
| Added to NRHP | November 9, 2018 |
The Magic Chef Mansion or the Charles Stockstrom House, located at 3400 Russell Boulevard, is a historic house in Compton Heights, St. Louis, Missouri. [1]
The Magic Chef Mansion sits on a 2-acre (8,100 m2) lot, with the house itself being 12,000 square feet (1,100 m2). [2] It was built in 1908 and designed by Ernst Janssen, [3] in the French Renaissance Revival style. [4] Its construction took one year and costed $49,500 ($1.7 million in 2024). [2] [5] It was built for Charles Stockstrom, president of Magic Chef, a kitchen appliance company. [6] When finished, the house contained over 30 rooms, including a bowling alley and library. [4]
After his daughter's death in 1990, the Magic Chef Mansion was bought by Shelley Donaho – daughter of Zane Barnes, CEO of Southwestern Bell until 1989 [1] – for $400,000 ($1.1 million in 2024), at an auction. She renovated it, which included fitting the kitchen with 1930s Magic Chef kitchenware, [6] as well as adding a 1950s-style telephone booth and a plaque, in memory of her father. [1] In 2006, she made additional renovations using historic tax credits. [1] As of 2016, she was mostly complete with the renovations and had rented it for events. [3] She planned to convert it to a museum. [6]
The Magic Chef Mansion holds a urinal which has been studied by art scholars. English art scholar Glyn Thompson argues that Fountain by Marcel Duchamp was actually created by Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. In 1964, Duchamp falsely claimed the urinal to be manufactured by the Mott Company, when it was actually the Trenton Potteries Company. On August 10, 2016, Thompson visited a urinal – the same make and model as Duchamp claimed – in the house's first floor unisex bathroom to measure it and note its design differences. Scholar Francis Naumann, who believes Duchamp did create it, also visited the urinal to study. [7]
