Take some time this Saturday to breath in the crisp fall air and the beauty of local midcentury homes, courtesy of Docomomo US/MN, the local chapter of an international nonprofit devoted to the documentation and preservation of architecture from the Modern Movement. Since Docomomo US/MN's founding in 2010, the annual Fall Tour Day has grown from having roughly a dozen guests to preparing for crowds of people.
This year’s tour includes nine different homes split into morning and afternoon tours. The morning tour (10-11:45 a.m.) showcases four homes on Folwell Avenue in St. Paul’s unique University Grove neighborhood, while the afternoon tour (12:15-3 p.m.) features two homes in Minneapolis, two homes in Golden Valley, and one in Minnetonka.
Mindful renovation encompasses the theme of this year’s tour, says Benjamin Clasen, vice president of Docomomo US/MN.
“It’s sort of nine cases of different stages of living and different stages of living within modernism,” Clasen says. “There’s real conscious effort for how they’re modernizing their homes or changing their homes to make it their own.”
The tour’s range covers renovations, remodels, and perfectly preserved homes, each populated by decades old residents and fresh owners alike. Be sure the pay close attention to these standouts.
Perfect Preservation
2151 Folwell Ave., St. Paul
1 of 3
Ben Clasen
2151 Folwell Ave.
2 of 3
Ben Clasen
2151 Folwell Ave.
3 of 3
Ben Clasen
2151 Folwell Ave.
Russell Hobbie, a physics professor at the University of Minnesota, and his wife have lived in this home for 50 years and are still thrilled with it. They collaborated with the architect in the creation of their home, and have only made small updates since 1969, that included getting a new roof, upgrading kitchen appliances, and replacing Formica countertops and vinyl flooring.
“We were very fortunate, because Tom Van Housen, who was our architect, I think is very skilled at listening to his clients,” Hobbie says, explaining how they were able to approve only the second iteration of Van Housen’s plans. “His jaw dropped.”
They decided to keep the upper level airy and left the kitchen cabinets open to further this feeling. On their first night in the home, they noticed an unbearable amount of noise in their kitchen from all the hard surfaces, but Hobbie immediately found a solution.
“The reverberation was so loud and painful that I went out the next day and bought enough refrigeration cork–slabs of cork–to glue them to the wall and absorb the sound, and that made all the difference in the world,” he says.
It went from being a room of irritationto one of serenity.
“My favorite aspect is the bedrooms are all in what my wife likes to call the lower level, also known as the basement, and that has given us a lot of space on the first floor for a very wide open and a very peaceful-feeling space,” Hobbie says. “We often have people comment about how peaceful it feels.”
Architecturally, Clasen notes that the built-in desks in the bedrooms are an interesting merger of the mid-century modern style and the needs that stem from raising school-aged children. The home next door at 2161 Folwell also has this unique feature.
Reinvented Renovation
8640 Winsdale St. N., Golden Valley
1 of 8
Ben Clasen
Winsdale Street
2 of 8
Ben Clasen
Winsdale Street
3 of 8
Ben Clasen
Winsdale Street
4 of 8
Ben Clasen
Winsdale Street
5 of 8
Ben Clasen
Winsdale Street
6 of 8
Ben Clasen
Winsdale Street
7 of 8
Ben Clasen
Winsdale Street
8 of 8
Ben Clasen
Winsdale Street
At first Jay Isenberg, an architect, and his spouse Lynda Monick-Isenberg, an artist and professor, looked at the foreclosed house built in 1959 as a potential flip to sell, but then after a few visits to the property, they decided to purchase and renovate it for themselves.
“We thought more and more about it and we felt this would be a good catalyst to make the life change we’d been thinking about for a couple of years, now that our kids are older and not living in the house,” Isenberg said.
Before renovations, it was a concrete block, low-profile, split-level house, he says, noting it had a stubby presence.
“But when we came into the house, the volume of the house, the structure of it, presented itself, and it was very pleasant,” Isenberg says, explaining how they saw the possibility for the dark interior to become lighter and more open. “You could see how it had a lot of potential for a really nice space.”
They gutted the home, bringing it down to the base structure, then reshaped it, created a two-story addition, added a three-season porch, turned the car port into a garage, and painted the dark cedar white.
Isenberg decided to do the general contracting himself, which was an unexpectedly difficult transition for him to make. The couple was also in the middle of a life transition, as they were moving out a house that they lived in for 30 years and where they raised three children.
“There were a lot of decisions we had to make, and we were the clients, you know my spouse and I,” Isenberg says. “This was a journey we took together.”
Downsizing to Duplex
19 and 21 Barton Ave., Mpls.
1 of 3
Andrea Rugg
Barton Avenue
Exterior of new addition to house showing large deck and see-through quality of house with lots of windows
2 of 3
Andrea Rugg
Barton Avenue
Open living space showing kitchen and part of living and dining areas
3 of 3
Andrea Rugg
Barton Avenue
When they moved to the Twin Cities from their Virginian countryside home in 1984, Marilyn and Steve Peltier bought their Prospect Park home as a quiet spot in the middle of the city.
“This just was a wonderful sort of marriage,” Marilyn says. “You’re right in the middle of things, but you feel very close to nature.”
Their relationship with the property has been in flux over the years, as they eventually moved to a larger Victorian home in Crocus Hill for some 30 years while renting out the Barton Avenue home. After their two children were out of the house, they were looking to downsize and landed back on their hilltop property.
“One day we were just over walking around the yard,” Marilyn says, “And we happened to look towards downtown and realized we had just a phenomenal view of downtown that we had for 30 years and didn’t know that we had that view.”
With that beautiful vista in mind and their other boxes checked, the decision was made.
Lisl and Winston Close originally designed the property in 1948, and Close Associates, now owned by Gar Hargens, worked with the Peltiers in revamping their home after it had been a rental for several decades.
With 41 steps to simply reach the front door, the project was an undertaking, but the couple is more than pleased with the results. They added windows to let in more light and so they could enjoy an unobstructed view of the sun setting on downtown Minneapolis.
“I haven’t hardly hung anything on the walls, because I prefer looking out and seeing the green and the trees outside,” Marilyn says.
The home is so high up and surround by trees, that past tenants have called the home a treehouse. And, because it’s so high up, the couple doesn’t have to worry about privacy, even with their duplex neighbors.
“We don’t even know they’re there hardly,” she says. “That wasn’t a vision that I had for our retirement, and I feel so good about it.”
Reversal Restoration
2337 Nottingham Ct., Minnetonka
1 of 13
Ben Clasen
Atomic Ranch Revival
2 of 13
Ben Clasen
Atomic Ranch Revival
3 of 13
Ben Clasen
Atomic Ranch Revival
4 of 13
Ben Clasen
Atomic Ranch Revival
5 of 13
Ben Clasen
Atomic Ranch Revival
6 of 13
Ben Clasen
Atomic Ranch Revival
7 of 13
Ben Clasen
Atomic Ranch Revival
8 of 13
Ben Clasen
Atomic Ranch Revival
9 of 13
Ben Clasen
Atomic Ranch Revival
10 of 13
Ben Clasen
Atomic Ranch Revival
11 of 13
Ben Clasen
Atomic Ranch Revival
12 of 13
Ben Clasen
Atomic Ranch Revival
13 of 13
Ben Clasen
Atomic Ranch Revival
The last stop of the tour is landscape architect Nate Anderson’s Minnetonka home, “Atomic Ranch Revival.” Anderson reverted the 1957 rambler back to its retro heyday after purchasing it out of foreclosure in 2008.
“He’s been very mindful about the choices that he’s making in the renovations,” Clasen says of Nate.
The home is complete with cedar siding, brick veneer, and original period-style windows–including its very own bomb shelter.
“A lot of the modern elements from that house had been removed. And he spent the last 10 years trying to restore the house to the way that it was,” Clasen says. “But he’s really restored it to that 1960s atomic ranch aesthetic.”
The ranch house is the showcase of the Docomomo tour, and it’s clear the modern style of the home has not only been restored architecturally, but also in the design and décor of the space.
“The owner has done so much work to undo a lot of the bad changes that were made in years when no one was paying attention to modernism,” Clasen says. “He’s really brought it full circle back to the way it probably looked when it was built, and done so keeping in mind modern uses for houses.”
Learn more and purchase your tickets to Docomomo US/MN’s 2019 Fall Tour Day.
