Preserving Minnesota’s most iconic home

Fighting an aging building, wicked weather and increasing repair costs, Glensheen staff work to keep mansion around for another 110 years

By Jimmy Lovrien jlovrien@duluthnews.com

Preserving what many people consider to be Minnesota’s most iconic home is no simple task.

Glensheen’s collections manager Milissa Brooks-Ojibway’s job might be to curate the artifacts left behind by the Congdon family and display the mansion as it might have looked in 1910, but she’s also found herself keeping an eye on the aging mansion.

Brooks-Ojibway and her staff routinely go through the estate with a checklist and photograph areas of the house, comparing them to earlier photos to ensure its condition isn’t worsening.

“I watch for things that go wrong and call in people when necessary,” Brooks-Ojibway said.

Some things can be handled by the University of Minnesota Duluth’s maintenance staff, but other projects require a conservator or historic architect so it meets State Historic Preservation Office standards.

“The sooner we can see these things and make sure that they’re taken care of, the better,” Brooks-Ojibway said.

Conservation, not restoration

When something needs repair, Glensheen staff are careful to keep the mansion true to its 1910 self.

“We don’t restore here,” Brooks-Ojibway said. “Restore implies bringing it back to more of a normal condition, more of a new condition.”

She pointed to a stained-glass window on the mansion’s grand staircase that was once bowed in. A conservator meticulously repaired it to its intended shape, but the cracked glass remains.

And that’s OK.

“We’re retaining all the original material as much as we possibly can. A restore is not as concerned with that,” Brooks-Ojibway said. “(Restorers) are willing to willy-nilly replace whatever needs to make it pretty again.”

Throughout the house, crews are slowly removing layers of paint to reveal the original surfaces.

For the larger repairs, staff have more trouble finding material and historic matches.Thankfully, the mansion’s original builders left extra supplies in the attic. In one case, staff even found the tiles they needed buried under rock in the boathouse.

Tony Dierckins, publisher of Zenith City Press and the author of several books about Glensheen and the Congdon family, said keeping the mansion true to 1910 in an authentic way serves guests, too.

“It’s a really remarkable snapshot of what life was like,” Dierckins said.

Unlike some homes-turnedmuseums, namely St. Paul’s James J. Hill House, which was once used for offices, Glensheen went directly from family home to a museum.

Everything in it, such as furniture, was donated, too. Like its brick exterior and historic stained-glass windows, what’s inside is just as important to telling the Glensheen story.

“This is what’s remarkable about Glensheen,” Dierckins said. “Not only because of the work that they’ve done, but of what was left behind.”

$26 million in repairs needed

When Glensheen and UMD asked for state bonding funds for “critical repairs,” a request fact sheet came with a warning: “DETERIORATING STRUCTURES AT GLENSHEEN COULD COLLAPSE IF NOT REPAIRED IN THE NEXT FIVE YEARS.”

The brick terraces and walls surrounding the lakeside garden are being pushed out and cracked. In several places, bricks sit unattached to one another — no mortar left.

That makes Dennis Lamkin, who serves on Glensheen’s citizen’s advisory committee, nervous.

“Every time we have a big storm like this one this last week,” Lamkin said, referring to the Oct. 21 storm that brought heavy rains, winds and waves, “I worry that some of it is going to collapse.”

The Legislature in 2018 heard the cries for help, and Glensheen was authorized to use up to $4 million in state bond funds for critical repairs. But the mansion still needs to match that with $4 million of its own funds to unlock the state money.

In addition to shoring up the garden walls, the combined $8 million would also fund a new heating, ventilation and air conditioning system building system, repair exteriors of the Manor and Carriage houses and, if funds allow, replace the existing pier.

The pier, which juts straight into Lake Superior from beside the boathouse, was once an L-shape, offering the boathouse protection from waves. Without that, strong waves made more severe by high lake levels pummel the boathouse.

After all of that work is complete, there’s still another $10 million needed to prevent future critical repairs and $8 million is needed to bring the estate back to its 1910 status, according to a legislative flyer provided by Glensheen.

In total, $26 million is needed for Glensheen.

Lamkin said it’s worth it. On top of daily tours, it’s become a hub for concerts and events.

“Glensheen is not only a great property for historic interpretation,” Lamkin said. “It is a community asset.”

Brooks-Ojibway said the costs to repair Glensheen are steep but will likely last up to 110 years, as the original construction has.

“We can’t sit back on our laurels and just hope it all is OK,” she said. u