feature || visionary Home is Where the Art Is Charles Schulz leaves two treasures in a Minneapolis home. time, I had three children and wanted a bigger house. I asked my wife, and she said yes. So we went over to the house, had a martini and did the deal.” In 1992, the Mall of America — and its indoor amusement park, Camp Snoopy — celebrated its grand opening. Naturally, Schulz was in town for the festivities. While here, he made a point to visit the home. “My
parents were still in the house,” Abdo recalls. “So he and my dad were walking around talking about plumbing problems — guy stuff. Then he went upstairs and took a red magic marker and signed the walls ‘To the Abdos with friendship.’ It used to be a brilliant red, but now it’s fading.” Not long after Schulz’s visit, the younger Abdo generation assumed ownership of the home and undertook a massive renovation, taking special care to preserve the paintings.
“It was built in 1922 and had a lot of problems, so we basically rebuilt it,” Abdo explains. “We had to jack up the house from its foundation because of a structural sag, and we had to hire special structural engineers to pin the Snoopy picture up because it had a small hairline crack.” Abdo says there was never a question about preserving the paintings. “It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, these are valuable,’” he explains. “They were cool. I liked them.” So did Schulz’s kids. Over the next two decades, Abdo received a number of visits from them. “They were nostalgic about the home,” he says. “At one point, Monte said, ‘If you move, please let us know, because we’d like to talk to you about the artwork.’” The Schulz family was interested in transferring the paintings to the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, California. Though it wouldn’t be easy, it had been done before. “Schulz lived in Colorado Springs for a while and painted a series of small figures on a wall,” Abdo notes. “The next owner painted over it, but it was recovered by the Schulz family and is now in the Schulz Museum.” The Abdo paintings soon may follow suit. Abdo and his wife, Karen, recently became empty nesters and are considering a move. But before they go, they want to make sure the paintings will be well-preserved. “We reached out to the Schulz Museum, and they asked if we’d be interested in getting them into the museum,” Ken says. How will it feel to say goodbye? “Certainly they’re part and parcel of the mythology and lore of the home, but our goal is to get these paintings into the museum. There’s no other place I’d rather see them.”
still live with schulz TOP Ken and Karen Abdo flank one of two Charles Schulz paintings in their home, which the artist created when he owned the house in the ’50s. BOTTOM LEFT Schulz returned to the Twin Cities and autographed the paintings in 1992. BOTTOM RIGHT A Charlie Brown–like tribute to son Monte, whose name adorns the 10-gallon hat. 128 Artful Living
| Spring 2014
PHOTOGRAPHY BY WING TA
It’s 1962, you’re 6 years old and your family buys a big house in the Tangletown neighborhood of Minneapolis. Your new bedroom has two paintings on the walls. One looks a lot like Charlie Brown, the other Snoopy. Cool, huh? Hell yeah, according to Ken Abdo, who was that kid. Some 50 years later, Abdo owns his childhood home and the paintings in his boyhood bedroom are still intact. That’s because they’re more than cool; they’re oneof-a-kind treasures painted by the man who brought Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the Peanuts gang to life: Charles Schulz. “He lived there from 1955 to 1958,” Abdo recounts. And at some point during those three years, the beloved cartoonist made his mark on the home. “There’s this Charlie Brown-ish-looking character with a 10-gallon hat on his head and brandishing six-guns,” Abdo explains. “The hat has the name Monte on it; his oldest son is named Monte. The other painting was of his dog, Spike, who was the inspiration for Snoopy. In this painting, he’s running on all fours, but you can clearly see the resemblance.” Abdo is well-versed in the paintings, having grown up in the bedroom that housed them. And he loved them, even when he was well into his teens. “I plastered rock ’n’ roll, movie and sports posters everywhere, but I never covered them up. Steve McQueen was next to Snoopy, and I’m sure Raquel Welch was somewhere there, too. But I knew they were special and I was a big Peanuts guy — what’s not to like?” As a boy, Abdo often told his parents that he wanted to buy the home when he was older. In 1992, he got the chance. “My dad called and asked, ‘Do you want to buy the house?’ At the