Lafayette Square, St. Louis, MOA Victorian park neighborhood suited to small receptions, not a stand-in for exhibit-hall capacity.

Lafayette Square grew up around Lafayette Park, the oldest park west of the Mississippi River, and the neighborhood's restored Victorian mansions still line the streets that surround it.

Several of those mansions now operate as bed-and-breakfasts or small event venues, which makes the Square a fit for an intimate dinner or board-level reception rather than anything sized for a general session.

It sits close to the Truman Parkway and I-44, an easy short drive from downtown without being within walking distance of the exhibit halls.

The park itself, laid out in the mid-19th century and modeled loosely on a formal English garden, gives the surrounding streets a genuinely historic backdrop that few other St. Louis neighborhoods can offer a convention program looking for a distinct sense of place.