By 1865, a German immigrant named Phillip Bamberger was running a picnic ground and wine garden on Gravois Road, at what is now Gravois and Bamberger avenues in Tower Grove South. It lasted a couple of decades. After that, Adolphus Busch bought the land and gave it to a Catholic order of nuns, who ran a home there for girls and women until 1969. Today the site is the parking lot of Gravois Plaza, a strip mall with an Aldi, which is not what Busch had in mind.

Bamberger’s Grove was one of the suburban picnic grounds that German St. Louisans took the road out to for a day in the country. St. Louis Magazine, which dug into the site’s history, found that its advertising leaned toward Rhine wines, with little or no beer. In 1868 a newspaper called it “a delightful summer resort.” The grove appears to have closed in the late 1880s, and the magazine does not say why.

In 1890, according to the same account, Busch paid $15,000 for the property. The seller was a Philadelphia speculator, and the buildings were described as ramshackle. Busch gave the land to the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, an order that worked with girls and young women from troubled homes. By 1895 the House of the Good Shepherd had moved to the corner as 3801 Gravois.

The complex grew into something like a small town. Historical sources describe a chapel, a school, a gymnasium, dormitories, a power plant, a laundry and a swimming pool. The chapel was built in a cross shape, so that four separate groups could face the central altar. St. Louis Magazine says that former prostitutes, known as Magdalens, lived in a back building. The 1930 census shows residents ranging from age 6 to age 94.

The records that survive are mostly about institutions, so the individual stories are rare. In 1895, a 14-year-old fruit stand worker named Teresa Ortale sought free schooling there and was enrolled. In 1967, two 15-year-old girls escaped, and police struggled to catch them near South Grand while hundreds of people watched. One patrolman sprained an ankle.

By 1969 the buildings needed repairs, and the Sisters had decided to move to North County. They sold the property. About 120 nuns and girls were living there at the time, and twenty-nine sisters and about 45 girls aged 13 to 17 moved to a home on Mullanphy Road. The Missouri Historical Society has a photo of the convent being demolished on September 8, 1969, and by September 10 the Post-Dispatch reported that most of it was gone. A $4 million shopping and office complex was announced. The shopping part got built, and the office part never did.

Gustine Avenue was rerouted for the project, which took some houses with it. The rubble from the convent went into the fill behind a retaining wall along the new curve. If you drive Gustine today, the road still bends around the parking lot, held up in part by the building it replaced.