| Historic Dayton's Bluff
Driving Tour |
| Part 2 |
| Prepared for
The Historic Dayton's Bluff Association by Thomas R. Zahn & Associates, Inc. This Project was made possible by the generosity of
the Saint Paul United Way
All historic photographs are from the collection of the Minnesota Historical Society |
| 20. Stutsman Block
721-733 East Seventh Street A.F. Gauger, architect Eclectic 1885, 1889 |
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This Victorian commercial block with corner tower holds a prominent location on Seventh Street, Day- ton's Bluff's major commercial street. This is a good example of how commercial buildings often con- formed to the shape of irregular lots created by different intersecting street-grid patterns. Although this brick building has been covered with stucco, the projecting elements such as the corner tower and the oriel window and cornice line display the ornate nature of the Victorian structure. Notice the owner's name under the gable on East Seventh. |
| 21. John Doeren Cigar Factory
699 East Seventh Street Early Commercial 1909 |
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This small cigar factory displays oversized sheet metal consoles (brackets). The front portico is of a later date and with simple block capitals on fluted wood piers. This former factory is now home to the Saint Paul Police East Team. |
| 22. Schoch Building
374 North Maria Avenue A. F. Gauger, architect Victorian Commercial block 1885 |
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This fine commercial block retains the essence of its Victorian styling despite the modern in-fill at the storefront level. The masonry piers defining the corners and central entry into the upper story apartments, and the thin iron piers defining the storefront entries still remain. The galvanized iron patterned cornice is one of the finest in the St. Paul area. |
| 23. Seeger Flats
661 East Fifth Street Late Queen Anne style 1904 |
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The Queen Anne massing of these flats includes a prominent corner tower and classical details including Ionic columns supporting the porch roofs. One of the porches displays a dentilled pediment, and a row of dentils at the eave line and under the gable. |
| 24. John & Alvina Seeger House
655-657 East Fifth Street Victorian Colonial Revival style 1901 |
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The extended Muench family built a second large dwelling on this site in the early 1880s. However, this house is one of a pair built just after the turn of the century by John A. Seeger, also a longtime Dayton's Bluff resident. Seeger began to invest in local real estate while still an officer for Bohn manufacturing Company, a local millwork concern that provided the woodwork for the houses of St. Paul's elite. His own house and its companion to the east display many features of the Colonial Revival style, though they continue to indulge in the picturesque contours, informal composition, and spirited material combinations of the Victorian era. The Colonial Revival style draws its influence from the Georgian, Adams, and Dutch architecture of the east coast. The revival style usually strays from strict historical interpretation and tends to be eclectic, using a mixture of details (often exaggerated) from the high styles of colonial architecture and contemporary elements. The Colonial Revival period is dated from 1880-1955. |
| 25. Adolph & Anna Muench House
653 East Fifth Street Emil W. Ulrici, architect Queen Anne style 1884 |
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The rolling hills and oak forest that first drew the wealthy onto the bluff are long gone, as are the great stone mansions of the early years. But spectacular prospects of the city across the hollow and the river remain. Financiers and entrepreneurs Gustav and Adolph Muench enjoyed two of the finest such views. Gustav's house of 1869 faces the city directly, while across Fifth Street, Adolph and Anna caught it with a sidelong glance. This house was designed by German architect Emil W. Ulrici who built almost exclusively for wealthy German immigrants scattered throughout Saint Paul in the 1880s. This is the finest of his surviving residential commissions. |
| 26. Muench-Heinemann House
334 Mounds Boulevard Italianate style ca 1869 |
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This is the last surviving Italianate mansion on the western crest of Dayton's Bluff and the oldest surviving Muench family property. When Lyman Dayton died he was buried at the front of the bluff between Fifth and sixth streets. However when Gustav Muench built his home on the site of Dayton's burial, Dayton's remains were moved to the Oakland Cemetery. |
| 27. Max Toltz House
352 North Bates Avenue Max Toltz, architect Craftsman style 1902 |
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This is the largest and finest Craftsman house in the district, combining a high brownstone foundation, a shingled second story, and large scale bracket work and porch arches in a Tudor vein. Also notice the shingled and cupolaed carriage house behind the main structure. |
| 28. Boyhood home of Supreme Court Justice
Harry Blackmun 847 East Fourth Street Four-square style 1906 |
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Justice Blackmun lived in this simple frame home during his boyhood. The strongest visual feature of this four-square design is the front gable with its classical inspired Palladian window. Other classical detailing was probably removed or concealed when the asphalt siding was applied over the clapboards and the front porch was enclosed. The American Foursquare style house is a subtype of the Prairie house and, like the Prairie style, is a truly indigenous American architectural expression. The Prairie house was developed and popularized by Chicago's Prairie School of architecture and by the work of Frank lloyd Wright. The American Foursquare, as a vernacular style, gained widespread popularity with the publication of residential pattern books shortly after the turn of the century. The style was nationally popular between 1900 and 1920. |
| 29. St. Peter's Protestant Episcopal Church
754-758 East Fourth Street Willcox & Johnston Architects Victorian Gothic/Craftsman Gothic 1888, 1905 |
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This stone church is the only remaining 19th century church building remaining in the community. The original structure was designed by St. Paul architect William H. Willcox, formerly a leading church designer in Chicago and New York City. The major part of the sanctuary was added in 1905 by Clarence Johnston, designer of the Minnesota State Historical Society and the State Office Building, located to either side of the Minnesota State Capitol. The church built of Platteville limestone trimmed with brownstone and is rendered in the Victorian Gothic/Craftsman Gothic styles. This church was once an important meeting place for the wealthier New England stock in the neighborhood. The structure was converted to condominiums in the 1970s. |
| 30. Edward W. White House
702 East Fourth Street Charles E. Joy, architect Late Queen Anne 1888 |
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This large frame house displays the architectural eclecticism that was so prevalent around the turn of the century. It is basically Queen Anne in design with its asymmetric window, gable and porch placement. The porch displays classical Ionic columns and dentiles at the porch frieze. Of special interest is the architects use of clapboard and shingles, and the unusual narrow attic window with its eyelid hood. |
| 31. Tandy Row
668 East Fourth Street John H. Coxhead, architect Victorian with Queen Anne details 1888 |
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This Victorian brick rowhouse displays a variety of interest ing architectural details. The simple rectangular box is deemphasized with the introduction of the two-story Victorian oriel window set at the west end of the front facade, and the bell-shaped canopy over the central entrances. The symmetry of the facade is further de-emphasized by the introduction of arched windows on the third floor over the projecting bay. |
| 32. Julia Knauft House
654 East Fourth Street Queen Anne style 1908 |
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This simple Queen Anne house retains most of it's original detailing with Doric columns and spindled balustrade on the full front entry porch. The house gained notoriety when it was selected for use in the 1980s movie That Was Then, This Is Now. |
| 33. Frederick Reinecker House #2
700 East Third Street Frederick Reinecker, builder Transitional Queen Anne style 1883 |
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This House was built for $2,500 by Reineeker a year after its neighbor at 702 East Third Street. The house displays the original front bay window with extremely detailed finish, Palladian attic light, and shallow bracketed cornices. It is one of the most complete patternbook type houses in the Bluff area. |
| 34. Frederick Reineeker House #1
702 East Third Street Frederick Reinecker, builder Patternbook Italianate eclectic 1882 |
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Built in 1882 for $3,000, this house is a 2 1/2 story patternbook eclectic. It is the first of two pattern- book homes that Frederick Reinecker built-the other is next door at 700 East Third and was built a year later. This property suffered deterioration, became condemned, and was partially burned. It was purchased in 1989 for $1 through the "Third Street Dollar Home" program set up by the Dayton's Bluff Neighborhood Housing Services. |
| 35. William Honebrink House
734 East Third Street Queen Anne style 1882, 1887 |
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This simple rectangular residence was originally built in 1882 as a 1 1/2 story house. In 1887 Patrick McGWre added the porch and the full second story and probably applied the ornate mill-work in the popular Queen Anne style. The house has recently been renovated with the exterior displaying a multi-chromatic palette. Color is applied to the quarter wheels and dentiles in the front gable and the porch posts to add visual interest and define the ornamental details of this modest residence. |
| 36. 723 East Third Street
William E. Dudley, builder Queen Anne style 1890 |
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Magnificently sited above the street and city, this large well-built Queen Anne house displays a recent renovation. Notice the applied detail in the front gables accentuated by the polychrome treatment. |
| 37. Boyhood home of Chief Justice Warren
Burger 695 Conway Street Cottage 1884 |
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This Modest 1 1/2- story cottage was built in 1884 for the cost of $2,000. It served as the boyhood home of Warren Burger from 1914 to 1933. Plans to restore the home are in the works. Completion is expected in 1994. |
| 38. Peter Tobin House
276 Maria Avenue Bungalow style 1923 |
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This is the most sophisticated bungalow design in the district. The house displays a tapestry brick up to the sills, shingled dormers and a very broad overhang accentuating the horizontal. The craftsman/bungalow house, introduced in the early 1900s by magazines like House Beautiful, Good Housekeeping, and Ladies' Home Journal, and architectural pattern books, gained widespread popularity from 1905 to the 1930s. The style was developed and refined around the turn-of-the-century by California architects, and brothers, Charles Sumner Greene and Henry Mather Greene. The Greenes were influenced by the English Arts and Crafts movement, and oriental building techniques and aesthetics. Whereas the Greenes designed "high-style" two-story craftsman bungalows in California, in Saint Paul, as in most of the country, the style is expressed in the more modest one-story vernacular bungalow. |
| 39. 699 Wilson Avenue
Italianate style |
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The Italianate Style evolved from the romantic notion of the northern Italian houses and landscapes depicted in late eighteenth-century paintings. This style strongly influenced the architecture of the commercial storefront of the late nineteenth century. The Italianate houses of Saint Paul are usually two stories high, square or rectangular in plan, supporting a low-pitched hip, gabled, or shed roof. They are constructed of local stone, brick or wood frame with wood ornamentation. The style was fashionable in Minnesota from the 1850s to the 1880s. |
| 40. Schornstein Grocery & Saloon
707 Wilson Avenue 223 North Bates Avenue Augustus F. Gauger, architect 1884 |
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This is the finest business block in Dayton's Bluff and attests to the pride many Victorian commercial owners fixed to their workplace. The handsome brick veneer frame building displays some Eastlake spindle work, but is mostly ornamented in the French Neoclassical style. Of special interest are the pilaster on the second story with Corinthian capitals and the ornate front gable and paneled chimney. The woodwork on the westernmost 1-story wing is of modern reproduction. |
| 41. Euclid View Apartments
234-238 North Bates Avenue Herman Kretz & Co., architects Queen Anne/Romanesque styles 1894 |
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This apartment building is superbly detailed in the rowhouse manner, with each Bates Street unit given either a pressed-iron clad bay window or window set in a diapered frame. The broadly arched ground floor openings suggest the Romanesque style. |
| 42. Holman Methodist Church
243 North Bates Avenue C.A. Boehme, architect Craftsman style 1904 |
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This is a superbly crafted church combining a distinctively American treatment of windows and Mankato stone sills and coping with the English Parish look for the bracketed portico, shingled gable and tower. The building has been sensitively remodeled into condominiums. |
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You can continue your tour of Dayton's Bluff and see additional examples of eclectic architecture by driving east on Euclid Street. Of special interest are the houses located at 973, 981, and 986 Euclid Continue east on Euclid until you reach Earl Street. Turn right on Earl, cross the freeway, and enter the Mounds Park community. This area displays a wealth of refined architectural styles and also provides spectacular views of the city. Return to Part 1 of the Historic Dayton's Bluff Driving Tour. If you would like additional information about Dayton's Bluff please call the Dayton's Bluff Community Council at 651-772-2075 |