The Billionaire’s Backyard: The Unlikely History of Grant’s Farm

If you want a glimpse into the specific brand of Gilded Age surrealism that defines St. Louis, you don’t go to a museum. You go to a tram station in Grantwood Village. Welcome to Grant’s Farm, a place that started as the private deer park of the Busch family and somehow morphed into a public animal reserve that feels less like a zoo and more like a fever dream of mid-century corporate whimsy.

But before it was a backdrop for a beer company’s marketing, it was something far more intimate—and far more controversial. The property was originally a wedding gift. In 1848, Colonel Frederick Dent, a prominent St. Louis County plantation owner, gave 80 acres of his Gravois Creek land to his new son-in-law: a young army lieutenant named Ulysses S. Grant.

Grant didn’t just own the land; he lived on it. He hand-built a log cabin he dubbed “Hardscrabble,” a humble structure meant for a man who hadn’t yet become the savior of the Union. It is the only structure still standing that was built by the hands of a future president before he took office. After the Mexican-American War and before the chaos of the Civil War, Grant worked the land, enduring the brutal realities of slave labor and subsistence farming. It was a period of Grant’s life defined by failure and hardship—a “hardscrabble” existence in every sense of the word. Grant struggled to make a profit, fighting against a harsh climate and a lack of resources, eventually leading him to abandon farming altogether and head back into the military, a decision that would eventually put him on the path to the White House.

Fast forward to 1903, and the land passed into the hands of the Busch family. For the brewing dynasty, it was an opportunity to build a personal fiefdom. The family mansion, the “Big House,” eventually rose from the ground, surrounded by a private deer park. This was the Gilded Age writ large: a beer baron buying a president’s legacy to turn it into a backdrop for private amusement. It became a symbol of the Busch family’s dominance, a place where business deals were made in the shadow of presidential history, and where the “Budweiser Clydesdales” became the real icons of the estate.

Growing up as a Busch heir in this backyard must have been a uniquely disorienting experience. Imagine waking up in a stately mansion and stepping out into a world where bison grazed near the swing set and camel sightings were as common as squirrels. It was a life of extreme privilege, wrapped in the oddity of a semi-private menagerie. Yet, this Gilded Age fairy tale had sharp edges. The family dynamic—fueled by gargantuan wealth and the immense pressure of a global brewing empire—was defined by high-stakes internal politics, public feuds, and the constant, crushing scrutiny that follows one of America’s most recognizable dynasties. The farm was their sanctuary, but also their stage, and often their boxing ring.

Stories of the Busch children growing up there sound like something out of a darkly opulent novel. They didn’t just ride horses; they lived and breathed equestrianism, with access to some of the finest stables in the country. Their childhoods were punctuated by the bizarre contrast of high-society galas and simple, rugged farm life. One day you might be learning etiquette from a high-ranking socialite in the Big House, and the next you’re out on the trails with your siblings, feeling the weight of your family’s name while riding through thousands of acres of private forest. It was a secluded paradise, yet it was also a glass house where every childhood tantrum, teenage rebellion, and romantic entanglement was whispered about by the entire city.

In 1954, August “Gussie” Busch Jr. opened the farm to the public, turning his personal menagerie into a permanent feature of St. Louis culture. It was a stroke of marketing genius, cementing the Anheuser-Busch brand in the collective memory of every child who ever sat on that tram. But the farm’s history is a tangled web of beer money, presidential roots, and the sheer audacity of private ownership.

In 2015, the farm’s future fractured. The Saint Louis Zoo attempted to purchase the property for $30 million, only for the deal to collapse amidst a bitter family dispute. Billy Busch, son of Gussie, outbid his own siblings by a single dollar—a move that felt like the climax of an inheritance drama that had been brewing for a century. In 2017, the farm was finally secured by family members, with a promise to keep it free and open to the public.

Today, as you sit there sipping your post-tour beer in the shadow of the Big House, the animals continue their slow, strange drift across the pasture. It’s a quintessential St. Louis oddity—a reminder that in this city, history is rarely just history. Sometimes, it’s a tram ride through a billionaire’s backyard where the camels are the primary inhabitants, and we’re just along for the ride. It’s presidential poverty meet Gilded Age excess, all served with a complimentary lager—and it’s all perfectly, uniquely, and wonderfully weird.