House of Villadiva

A St. Louis Magazine Must-Read for 2021

WELCOME TO THE "ornate but rickety" Villadiva, whose stained glass windows and uneven floors house more than a century of St. Louis's queer culture and drama. In a city where "ambition and history and activism and machinations mix with scandal and sex and ghosts and murder," it's beneath Villadiva's crystal chandeliers that secrets are revealed and stories come to life. You'll feel you're in the room with provocateur Andoe and his riotous, multigenerational tribe of eccentrics, socialites, drag queens, card-reading witches, psychic mediums, addicts, and promiscuous extroverts--as well as the stalkers, liars, and felonious, headline-grabbing sociopaths who are determined to destroy them.

House of Villadiva reveals the heart and heartlessness of urban queer life in the 21st century-and the secret to living through it.