Lay Center for Education & The Arts [Mapquest Map]

Overnight Accommodations
Lay Center provides sleeping accommodations for up to 48 guests. The 12 bedrooms are equipped with dressers, reading lamps, coat racks and desks. Showers and restrooms are conveniently located near all rooms.

Meeting Space
Meeting spaces vary in both size and style. The spacious auditorium provides seating for up to 75 people, while four smaller classrooms (two of which are laboratories) seat up to 20. These classrooms are perfect for science workshops and teacher enhancement training.

Dining
With a seating capacity of more than 50, the cafeteria is available for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and can be used as a meeting space. The kitchen is complete with all cooking amenities, food service can be provided to meet your needs.

Grounds

This 350-acre property is a nature lover's dream. The five mile walking trail winds through a primarily oak-hickory forest with several open fields and two lakes. Throughout the trail, signage has been posted to help guests identify the seasonal flora and fauna. This trail is perfect for science class field trips.

Henry Lay Sculpture Park
Set on approximately 20 acres, the Sculpture Park is surrounded by 350-acres of natural meadows, wooded rolling hills, lakes and streams.

A well-maintained path takes guests on a 40-minute walk through a working Maple Grove, the McElwee Cemetery and most importantly a plethora of sculpture. Artists with pieces represented in the park are New York based Wendy Klemperer, Portland's Devin Laurence field, Beijing artist Bing Cheng and Brian Rust from Augusta, Georgia.

Story Woods
Visitors to the Henry Lay Sculpture Park will have the opportunity to read, play on and picnic in Story Woods. Emilie (Uh-meel-yuh) the story keeper and her garden of books greet guests as they enter this play land of art, literature and nature. Story Woods is a collaboration between artists Michele vandenHeuvel and Henry Lay. It allows guests the opportunity to experience literature and artworks as various artists interpret them in natural settings. This children's area provides a place where imagination and learning can be stimulated through visual, tactile and spiritual encounters.

McElwee Artists Residences
The McElwee Artist Residencies allows six artists the opportunity to live at Lay Center and develop work this is pertinent to the Pike County, St. Louis and Kansas City areas. As part of their residencies, artists also will be working with students in their studios and lecturing as a part of a teaching program sponsored by the Fine and Performing Arts Department of Saint Louis University. During the summer, this program will include one-day workshops. At the end of their residencies, artists will exhibit their works not only on site but also at the Saint Louis University Museum in St. Louis.

History
Saint Louis University's Lay Center for Education and the Arts is a 350-acre property located in historic Louisiana, Missouri. This Mississippi River town, founded in 1808 by French settlers, is known for its rolling landscapes, gracious historic homes and the state's most intact Victorian streetscape.

John McElwee, a Revolutionary War hero, and his wife, Rhonda Black, first settled this farm property in 1832. McElwee and his 12 grandchildren are buried on the property in the McElwee-Stewart-Carr Cemetery.

Henry Anthony Lay (April 11, 1941-Oct. 5, 2000) an alumnus of Saint Louis University School of Law, purchased the property in May 1996. Lay's generous support of the University through donations and scholarships has enabled hundreds of young people to further their quest for knowledge and improve themselves through education.

The Lay Center for Education and the Arts is the culmination of Henry Lay's dream of establishing a place where literature and art are combined with the beauty of nature to stimulate learning and imagination.

Saint Louis University
Founded in 1818, Saint Louis University is a Catholic, Jesuit university and leading research institution. The University strives to foster the intellectual and spiritual growth of its 11,000 students through the broad array of undergraduate, graduate and professional degree programs on campuses in St. Louis, Missouri, and Madrid, Spain.

Saint Louis University's Lay Center for Education and the Arts features reduced prices on overnight accommodations and meeting space, an atmosphere conducive to learning and reflection, beautiful grounds and personal attention from the University Event Services staff.

Getting There
Travel west on I-70 to Wentzville; take Highway 61 north, about three miles north of Bowling Green, exit onto Highway UU east for five and half miles. Lay Center for Education and the Arts will be on your right.