St. Louis
Rehabbers Club
is a project of
ReVitalize St. Louis,
a non-profit corporation

Dobro dosli !  Bienvenue !  Hola !  Benvenuto !  Chào mung !  Hwangyong-hamnida  !

Read Our welcome message

Announcing the new ONLINE CONTRACTORS LIST The Saint Louis Rehabbers Club members have compiled a list of contractors and resources to assist our members in finding contractors to meet their particular needs. This online database is searchable by category and name. Users can also review and rate contractors they have used.

new to St. Louis?
If you're new in town or thinking of moving here, feel free to take a look at some of the information we've put together especially for you.

Rehabbers Club Meeting
Join us at our monthly meeting for rehab commaraderie, a lecture, a workshop, or perhaps a walking tour of buildings under renovation in one of St. Louis' historic neighborhoods. [More info on this month's meeting]

if you believe in us, we need you!
If you would like to be a part of this great grass-roots group of people by assisting with meeting ideas or planning, please send us an email.

We continually have a need for volunteers. Your active participation in this group is the very reason we've grown and prospered over the last several years. Your ideas, suggestions and positive energy are always very welcome. We want to hear from you!

GET INVOLVED — SUCCESS IS POSSIBLE
There are all kinds of opportunities to get involved and make a difference in your neighborhood. Some ideas?

• contact your NSO [neighborhood stabilzation officer], establish a relationship and find out how you can help;
• get to know your alderperson;
• check out your local neighborhood association and start attending meetings;
• come to Rehabbers Club meetings,
• join the listserve and ask questions;
• be a catalyst for change in your area by talking to contractors and developers, get them interested and pitch them a development idea;
• pick up trash;
• get to know your neighbors;
• plant flowers...

Within this website, visit the F.Y.I. page for links to NSO info, helpful city phone numbers, websites and email addresses.

View the movie "...it's just one building" by Alan Brunettin
Needs QuickTime Player

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Welcome to an unusual and wonderful resource
devoted to St. Louis city brick huggers!

It was just a few years ago, in the fall of 2000 to be exact, when this group first met.

We converged at MoKaBe’s Coffee House on Arsenal at South Grand in the Tower Grove South neighborhood. I didn’t know what to expect at that first meeting but we really filled up the place adding tables and chairs as people sauntered in. Twenty-three people were at that first meeting. Phil Duckwall, an experienced rehabber and investor in multi-family apartment buildings was our first guest. Phil is someone with extremely high standards and a love for rehabbing so he shared some of his philosophy and rehabber tricks for about an hour or so. Those around the table had many questions even though several attendees were experienced themselves. It was clear that we needed the interaction. We just soaked it all up.

From then on, we met about once a month, visiting a different city neighborhood each time. There were always new people at each meeting and we quickly became addicted. We were just a bunch of info junkies and couldn’t get enough.

Very soon after that first meeting, we started a listserve. We needed a place where we could get together with others at any time, day or night and ask questions and share knowledge. The listserve fit the bill. We discuss on a rather broad range of topics–such as offering salvaged treasures from an alley or property to whoever wants to haul it off, acquiring tax credits, how to give old windows new life, where to find architectural replacements from salvage, how to hire contractors, and lots of "how to" information too!

Eventually, we teamed up with Metropolis St. Louis, a local civic group whose mission is to attract and retain young people to the city of St. Louis. In the next phase of our development, we tried a different sponsoring organization, The Commonspace, "the center of grassroots civics and culture in St. Louis" in an effort to stay on the front edge of change and growth for the city. In 2005, having grown to over 2,000 members, the Saint Louis Rehabbers Club became a project of ReVitalize St. Louis, a diverse coalition of citizens committed to the revitalization of St. Louis.

We are still growing strong, meeting each month, and touring rehab projects in neighborhoods around the city. We visit commercial, residential and investment projects and we often have guest speakers, many with vast and wonderful experience to share. We have classes periodically and we’ve also put together a resource list of contractors to assist our members as they search for someone to work on their project.

With the gracious and sharing spirit of support in this group, many of us have been brave enough to go ahead and start our own projects. There are many rehab opportunities here in the city of Saint Louis and we have a wonderful community within which to grow and learn about how to take one on.

We hope you will enjoy this website, our newest resource in an ever-growing and involved community.

Marti Frumhoff founder

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