The Chuck Berry House (1950 - 1958)

The red brick cottage at 3137 Whittier Street in St. Louis's Greater Ville neighbourhood is where Chuck Berry lived from 1950 to 1958 — eight years that produced the foundational catalogue of rock and roll. In this house, Berry wrote and first performed 'Maybellene', 'Roll Over Beethoven', 'School Day', 'Rock and Roll Music', 'Sweet Little Sixteen', and 'Johnny B. Goode'. It is not hyperbole to say that the music created in this modest three-bedroom brick cottage changed the world.

The Ville was one of St. Louis's most significant Black neighbourhoods — a community of doctors, teachers, musicians, and businesspeople who had built a self-sufficient cultural world within the constraints of segregation. Berry was very much a product of that community, and the house on Whittier Street was his base as he commuted between local gigs, the recording studio in Chicago, and national fame. Keith Richards always said Berry was the true founding father of rock and roll, and this is the address where that founding happened.

The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008. It has suffered from long neglect and has been the subject of ongoing preservation efforts. The neighbourhood around it has been economically challenged for decades, which makes the house's survival both remarkable and fragile. Plans to restore and repurpose it as a heritage site have been periodically proposed.