10/23/2026
Built around 1907, this English Tudor Revival home was constructed for Francis Eugene Nipher, a physics professor at Washington University in St. Louis. Nipher (1847–1926) taught at Washington University for forty years. In 1877 he organized Missouri's state weather service, that eventually grew into the National Weather Service.
Nipher and his wife, Matilda, had five children — a son and four daughters. In the 1920s, an addition and dividing wall was built for his daughters giving the house two front and rear entrances, so it functioned essentially as a duplex. One of his daughters lived on in the house for some years afterward. A neighboring family recalls she was still there when they moved in next door. The neighbor later bought the contents of the house after she died and donated the Nipher collection to the Kirkwood Historical Society. The house stayed in the Nipher family for decades after Nipher’s death. In 1971 it was sold to William Garesche and remained with the Garesche family until 2013, when Virginia Garesche sold it to its current owners, which are only the third owning family in the house's history.
The current "un-duplexed" the home, restores its original floor plan, and adds a kitchen, hearth room, and main-floor master suite, along with an attached garage. The house is a local Kirkwood landmark ( #82 in the Kirkwood Landmark Book) and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. Kirkwood also honors Nipher through the Nipher Middle School, built in 1921–22.
