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ST. LOUIS — The Mullanphy Emigrant Home, built in 1867 to welcome Irish and other immigrants to what was then a booming frontier river city, is no more.

The historic structure was built with funds from the estate of Bryan Mullanphy, who was elected mayor of ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ in 1847 and was the son of the city’s first Irish millionaire. Its prospects had been fading since 2021 storms knocked down part of a wall and the roof. Preservationists and the Old North ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Restoration Group had scrambled to save it once already, back in 2006.

When Dr. Wahied Gendi bought the building in 2018, there was a brief glimmer of hope as the Egyptian immigrant pledged to do whatever he could to preserve the structure and its history as a haven for those seeking to build a new life in America.

But nothing happened. And a fire Thursday night closed the book on the 156-year-old structure. A pile of bricks covered North 14th Street on Friday morning, adjacent to the collapsed building just north of downtown.

“He had these grand plans,â€� said Andrew Weil, president of the Landmarks Association of ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½. “To my knowledge he hasn’t done any kind of stabilization work.â€�

“It’s a real tragedy,� Weil added. “It’s an incredibly significant building — or was.�

The fire started about 10:30 p.m. Thursday, said Carol Clarkson, president and CEO of Sunshine Ministries, which works with the homeless and owns and operates several buildings nearby. The fire knocked out power in the area, and two of Sunshine’s buildings were still without electricity at 10 a.m. Friday. A half dozen Ameren Missouri trucks were on site Friday morning working to restore power.

The building burned for a couple of hours before the fire department extinguished it, said Jeff Cleveland, a resident at Sunshine Ministries. He and Clarkson suspect squatters were living there and started the fire. Earlier this year, an abandoned church caught fire and damaged one of the nonprofit’s buildings, Clarkson said.

“I understand the value of historic buildings,� she said. “It’s just too bad that people don’t get a hold of these buildings and do something with them.�

Gendi said Friday he had paid an engineer to evaluate the building after the 2021 storms. The firm determined that the structure was too dangerous to restore, he said. He said he was unable to secure a loan to pay for stabilization that would have cost millions, far more than the real estate was worth. He was willing to donate the structure to an organization able to finance the work, but no one was interested, Gendi said.

“The building was so much damaged by the storm, it can’t be fixed,� Gendi said.

City records show Gendi never applied for any building permits for the structure. But in May, he applied for a demolition permit. The city had condemned the building, he said, but the Cultural Resources Office referred the application to the Preservation Board because the structure is in a National Register of Historic Places district.

The Preservation Board was going to hear the demolition permit appeal at its meeting later this month, Gendi said. His concern was that the homeless who frequently broke in to the structure could be injured or killed by falling bricks.

“It’s very surprising what happened,� he said.

The city could have used its “demolition by neglect� ordinance or part of a $6 million stabilization fund to stabilize the Mullanphy Emigrant Home, Weil said. Both allow the city to make emergency repairs and bill them to owners.

“This is a perfect example of where the city could have used its demolition by neglect ordinance to effect repairs and stabilize and secure the building and place a lien and charge the owner for it,� Weil said. “It’s one of these iconic buildings that the demolition by neglect ordinance was created to address.�

Weil said he has asked the city to use its powers both on Mullanphy and on the Second Baptist Church in the Central West End, which was damaged by a 2021 fire. There, too, the owner has not made any fixes to the historic structure.

Buyers of historic buildings know full well the responsibility they are taking on, Weil said. The city should hold them accountable rather than letting them allow their buildings to fall apart to get around the city’s restrictions on demolishing historic structures.

“We have tools through our city government to try and address those things,� Weil said. “And so far city government has not had the appetite to take that (demolition by neglect) ordinance for a test run.�

Mayor Tishaura O. Jones’ spokesman, Nick Dunne, and Cultural Resources Office Director Meg Lousteau didn’t respond to a question about why the city didn’t use the ordinance to try and stabilize the Mullanphy home.

Instead, Dunne said in a statement that ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ was making a “concerted effort to stabilize and demolish vacant buildings throughout the city.â€� So far this year, the city has paid to tear down 133 vacant buildings and stabilize 51 structures.

“Through these targeted investments, we are hopeful we can avoid future losses like Mullanphy House,� Dunne wrote.