Locksmith Services in St. Louis, MO

Flats, foursquares and brick houses

The city's preservation plan defines a flat as a building with more than one dwelling unit, each with its own entry. On a two-family flat, one door on the front facade opens into the first-floor apartment and a second door on the same facade leads to the upper unit by an interior stair. Two front doors on one building mean two sets of keys that are easy to mix up.

• Walk-up apartments, common in the first two decades of the 20th century, have one main door into a shared stair hall, with each apartment opening off that hall. The street door and each unit door are separate locks.
• Multi-family flats, where every unit has its own entry, appear mainly in the Skinker-DeBaliviere and Academy neighborhoods.

Central-passage foursquares, built in brick or stone with the entry centered on the front facade, include a 1909 example in Skinker-DeBaliviere. One-story brick houses with a shaped front parapet, popular from 1900 to 1920, appear in Dutchtown. Front-gambrel colonials turn up in Penrose, Tower Grove South and Bevo Mill, and St. Louis Hills has one-story Neo-Tudor houses of the 1930s and 1940s.

Older commercial buildings

After the 1849 fire destroyed 15 riverfront blocks, the city rebuilt with an emphasis on fireproofing: generally four or five stories, heavy brick walls, and stone or cast-iron street fronts. The Washington Avenue wholesale district began to take form in the late 1890s. In a building like these shared by several tenants, the street entrance and each tenant space are separate lock questions; see commercial locksmith service.

Snow routes and car trouble

In snow or ice, the Street Department clears arterial, secondary and hill routes first, then main school entrances and intersections, then the windrows where side streets meet the main snow routes. The director then decides what further support the remaining side streets get. Hill routes have a grade of 8 degrees (a 14% slope) or more and are extremely difficult to navigate.

The city asks residents to keep cars off major routes when possible. A car whose only key is lost cannot be moved off a snow route, so arrange car key replacement early if snow is forecast.

City rules worth knowing

Ordinance No. 71835, Housing Conservation District inspections. The ordinance requires an inspection of property in a Housing Conservation District, and the city states that since October 7, 2024, all property in St. Louis lies in one. A Certificate of Inspection is needed before a vacant residential unit is occupied, or before an occupied building is sold without one issued in the last 12 months. Rental units are reinspected every three years or on a change in occupancy. A tenant change is also a sensible time for lock rekeying.

Local historic districts. The city has 18, each created by ordinance, including Lafayette Square, Soulard, Benton Park, the Central West End, Shaw and The Ville. Each district ordinance has its own design standards, and in most cases changes to building exteriors are reviewed by the Cultural Resources Office, so check before replacing a front door.

This is general information, not legal advice.

Requesting service in St. Louis

Give the neighborhood and cross streets. For a flat, say whether the locked door is the upper or lower unit's; for a walk-up, whether it is the street door or a unit door; for a car, whether it sits on a snow route. Missouri Locksmith Pros takes service requests from homes, businesses and drivers in St. Louis; see house lockout and car lockout service or the Missouri page.