Historical November–December 2018 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
Editor’s Note: An Airbnb on the 6100 block of Westminster stirred considerable discussion among neighbors and with the owner.
We felt that the following is a lovely description of what it means to live among good neighbors, and we asked the writer, June Vaughan, if we could use it in the TIMES.
There were several more good letters, and it became clear even to the owner that this was not the right place for an Airbnb.
While it has not yet been put on the market for sale, the residents on Westminster, who recently had their 11th annual block party, are definitely celebrating their neighborhood!
To the Airbnb owner: Over 52 years of marriage we have lived in 10 states and more municipalities. One was a coastal village in New England, where up-market, short-term rentals were often the bane of year around residents. Many perfectly pleasant Jekylls display varying degrees of Hyde while on vacation, probably more from negligence and lack of awareness or social relationship than from malice. Nevertheless, noise and other disturbances of daily life leach away the joy and comfort that we expect to find in our homes–our sanctums.
We invest in our neighborhood knowing that we will have university students living among us.
These students have a greater stake in the quality of our neighborhood than do short-term renters, even when those renters are their parents. Students often form relationships with us, even cultivating plots in our community garden.
We lived on our block for six years before work required our living elsewhere for another six.
In 2010 we eagerly returned, finding another house on our old block, and have no plans to leave.
We returned because our adventures have taught us how unique this neighborhood is. People here work together.
The previous owners/occupants of the house under discussion were the first to offer residents an opportunity to make monthly neighborhood donations to local food pantries, typifying how many individuals find a niche through which they can offer service to the whole. Few do everything that can be done, but many do something.
We are grateful to each person who contributes by planning block parties, dealing with our feral cat population, adorning the entrance columns with holiday wreaths, serving on security and planning committees, posting neighborhood e-mail messages, caring for the community gardens, publishing the SD newspaper—the list goes on and on.
The reward for this time and effort is not monetary gain, but rather to live here, striving always to make SD a better place.
We treasure the paid staff of our community council who appear to share our appreciation for what generations of neighbors have created here.
They certainly are not attracted by the millions which we cannot pay them! Regarding noise and neighborliness, please remember how noise resembles smoke in that, once a decision is made to loose it on the air, all freedom of choice is taken from those people within its range. Both pollutants dissipate slowly, traveling far along unpredictable paths, and so should be released with discretion.
We human beings are born with varying degrees of sensitivity.
I am constantly amazed by how sound ricochets along our streets and up between our closely spaced houses. Upstairs in our house we can hear loud voices addressing each other in front yards several houses away, bouncing around, shooting up our gangway and in through a closed window, as if the people are standing just there below. Sometimes we hear every word. Fortunately, our neighbors on each side–for as far away as seems to matter, are considerate people, so this almost never happens late in the evening, at night, or in early morning.
If requesting quiet in the yards, or even limiting volume from inside, after 10P.M. meet legals requirements, it fails the requirements of common courtesy. Nor does it respect the right of others to hear what they wish to hear—or not to hear, in their own homes or outdoor spaces. Many of us have worked hard to make our gardens into small islands of peace and beauty amid city life.
On those rare and magical evenings when STL weather allows, we treasure an hour or two of reading on our screened porch before going upstairs around 10P.M.
We turn on lamps while listening to the rustle of leaves, crickets, twitterings as birds settle, the occasional voice of a child or bark of a dog, muffled traffic sounds from Skinker or Delmar– even a siren or two.
These remind us that we dwell amidst a community of thoughtful, considerate neighbors who tend to curb sound and activity by 8 or 8:30P.M. because they care.
We are grateful and have great sympathy for any of you who are not so blessed.
With gratitude to all of you wonderful people, Grady and June Vaughan
Original photograph caption
Westminster neighbors pictured with Our Great Block; individual names not supplied.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, November–December 2018.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times2018_11.pdf, printed page(s) 7; PDF page(s) 7.
