Archive for the ‘Classical Revival’ Category

The Williamson-Russell-Rahilly House in Lake City

Thursday, November 29th, 2018
304 S Oak Street, Lake City

The Williamson-Russell-Rahilly House is a another great example of how historic homes change over time. Similar to the renovation of the Augustine Hawley House in Red Wing, this grand home began in the Greek Revival style when constructed in 1868. Built for Harvey Williamson by carpenter John Stout, the home was renovated in 1910 by the third owner, Patrick Henry Rahill, in the Neo-classical/ Classical Revival style.

Photo of Home in Greek Revival style, circa 1900

The very first home that was built on site was constructed in 1855 by one of Lake City’s founders, Samuel Doughty. It was purchased a few years later by the city’s first postmaster, Harvey Williamson, however, it burned down sometime around 1867. Williamson took the opportunity to build a new home on its foundation in the Greek Revival style. It featured 6-over-6 double hung windows, engaged columns, two small porches, and a side gabled roof with simple open pediment and wood frieze.

Williamson sold the home to Morris C. Russell circa 1882. Russell had an adventure type past. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1840 to a father who not only farmed his land but was the manager of his brother’s iron mines. From the age of 10, he worked on the farm, in the iron mines, and as a clerk in his uncle’s supply store. When he was 14, his father gave him permission to move to the Minnesota Territory, a wild region which 3 of his brothers had already moved to a few years earlier. It was on the Hamburg steamer, landing in La Crosse, that he survived a cholera outbreak that killed hundreds of passengers. Eventually arriving in Saint Paul, he worked for a few years as a flatboater, “polling” cargo up the rivers, and delivered the first piano into the Minnesota Valley. On one expedition with his brothers, delivering timber to Saint Paul from the Big Woods, his raft was windblown into a river bank due to spring headwinds. They spent a week living off bark, roots, and some spoiled herring until they were rescued.

Morris Craw Russell

Russell was well acquainted with many of the local Indian chiefs and served as a Scout in the Sioux Uprising of 1862. In 1872 he founded The Brainerd Tribune, the first newspaper on the Northern Pacific Railroad east of the Rockies. A few years later, he was associate editor of Lake City’s first newspaper, The Lake City Leader, and then started this own paper, Graph-Sentinel.

As for the house, he lived in it only a year, selling to the Buck family, owner’s of the city general store. It was in 1901, that the home was purchased by Patrick Henry Rahilly. He is best know for serving in the Minnesota House legislature for three terms, and as a State Senator for one. He is the reason for the home’s Neoclassical design seen today, commissioning local architect Charles Koch in 1910 to dramatically change the facade. Four 30-foot Ionic columns were added under a fully pedimented gable to the front facade as was a porte cochere to the side of the home (among other renovations as well). The original elements of the interior remained, including five fireplaces, four of Italian marble and one of blue African marble. Woods found in the home are mahogany, quarter-sawn oak, and walnut. The home remained in the Rahilly family until 1963.

The Burton – Rosenmeier House in Little Falls

Monday, July 25th, 2016

606 SE 1st Street, Little Falls

606 SE 1st Street, Little Falls

The Burton/Rosenmeier House is a significant architecturally  example of the Classical Revival (or Neoclassical) style in Little Falls and for its associations with its first two inhabitants: The Barney Burton family and later the Rosenmeier family. The home was built in 1903 by Barney Burton, the design coming from a pattern book by George Barber, a prominent architect who sold his residential blueprints via mail order to customers across the nation.

Barney Burton was the seventh of eight children born to Isaac and Sarah Burton, Polish immigrants, who settled in Peoria, Illinois, before migrating to Wisconsin. At the age of eighteen he moved to St. Cloud where he went into the clothing business with his brother, Jacob. In 1886 they moved to Little Falls seeking a better location. As the Little Falls community prospered during the “timber boom” years, so did Barney Burton who had dissolved the partnership as his brother moved on to other independent endeavors. He made is living selling woolen clothing and accessories to lumberjacks, expanding his business gradually into Central and Northern Minnesota. He married Sara Deutsch, of Minneapolis, in 1894, and lost her through death at childbirth the following year. In 1898 Barney married a sister of Sara, Josephine Deutsch, a life-long relationship which bore three additional children. Barney Burton, prominent in Little Falls area business activities for more than 50 years, died of a heart attack in 1942. Josephine died in 1953 in Baltimore.

606 SE 1st Street, Little Falls Interior Detail

Interior Architectural Detail

Christian Rosenmeier rose to prominence in the county following his graduation from the U of M Law School, as president of his class, in 1906. Initially settling at Royalton, he established a law office and married Linda Bakken, a teacher associate from his first vocation. They had three children. Christian relocated to Little Falls about 1914, following his election as county attorney.

In 1920, he resigned this post to become a vice-president of the American National Bank of Little Falls and the newly-established American Savings and Trust Company. The following year he became president of both operations. Christian and Linda purchased the Burton house in 1921. In 1922 he was elected to be the state senator for the area. At the time of his death in 1932, he was chairman of the Senate Rules Committee. His work in the senate included authoring legislation creating the C.A. Lindbergh State Park at Little Falls, and the National Guard Camp at Fort Ripley. His law practice in Little Falls brought him into an association with his neighbors, Charles A. Weyerhaeuser and Richard D. Musser, who jointly managed the Pine Tree Lumber Company and its related companies.

Christian’s son, Gordon, followed in his father’s footsteps. Graduating from Stanford University in 1932, and having been admitted to the bar in California, returned to Minnesota and went into his father’s law office. In 1940, he was elected to the unexpired term of the late Senator Fred Miller of Little Falls. Gordon Rosenmeier enlisted in the U. S. Navy Air Force in 1942, serving on the USN Command Staff in the South Pacific. At the end of his tour of duty, in 1944, he filed for reelection to the Senate, in absentia, and won an easy victory. He served successive terms in the Minnesota Senate until 1971. During his three decades of service he authored a succession of major bills which have left a lasting impression on the affairs of all Minnesotans.