NORTH Magazine 2025 Winter Issue

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BUILD IT RIGHT

TM

NORTH FOUNDER | PUBLISHER Tracy Ramsay

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Frank Roffers

MANAGING EDITOR | ART DIRECTOR Julie Ann Kubat

EDITOR

Amy Carlson

GRAPHIC DESIGNER | DIGITAL MEDIA & MARKETING MANAGER Elaine Gabel

LEAD GRAPHIC DESIGNER | CREATIVE CONSULTANT Sheba Concept & Design

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WRITERS

Surfing Lake Superior is a thing. A big thing, drawing surfers from faraway places, especially when the winds start howling out of the northeast and the water temperature hovers just above freezing. Click here for exclusive content on local surf culture.

Frank Bures | 34 Amy Carlson | 60 Beth Dooley | 98 Alyssa Ford | 132 Emma Geary | 20 Rudy Maxa | 66 | 74 Nancy Monroe | 48 Jeff Rennicke | 86 Laurence Reszetar | 92 Stephanie Pearson | 106

MARKETING PARTNERS Albertsson Hansen Architecture and Interior Design | 51 Anysite Solutions | 103 APEX* | 129 Ascential Wealth Advisors | 13 Bell Bank* | 11 Billings Roofing & Siding | 128 Black Woods Group Catering | 71 Bradley Interiors* | 30 Bruckelmyer Brothers* | 136 California Closets | 33 Carlson Orthodontics | 113 Cascade Vacation Rentals | 130 CF Design | LUM Studio* | 46 Duluth Stove & Fireplace* | 43 Ferguson | 53 Genereau & Co | 84 | 135

Giants Ridge | 58 Heirloom Vacation Rentals | 127 Hemma | 56 Hiner Home Design | 32 Intectural | 18 JM Inc | 54 Johnson Mertz* | 44 Kitchee Gammi Design Co* | 42 Kitchi Gammi Club* | 134 Knutson Custom Construction | 6 Lakes | Sotheby’s International Realty | 122 | 125 Land Rover Minneapolis* | 2 Larson Group Real Estate | 126 LouAda | 29 Lulu Collective | 45 Luminesque Aesthetics | 96

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Lutsen Real Estate Group | 131 Marshall School | 65 Maureen + Associates | 52 Miners National Bank* | 123 Pier B Resort Hotel* | 133 Robert Barnes Law | 91 Renewal by Andersen | 4 Saline Landscape & Design* | 57 ShipRock Management* | 124 South Pier Inn | 8 Spacecrafting | 94 The Boat Club | 72 The Pink Wealth Management Group | 95 Tracy Ramsay + Partners* | 114 Wolf Creek Watch Co | 15 *NORTH magazine recognizes our founding marketing partners. Their initial participation was instrumental to the success of our 2024 launch.

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LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHER

Dear Readers, As I sit in my cabin, all cozy after thawing out from my latest winter adventure, I’m reminded of what it means to call the North home. I work as a Realtor and find delight by introducing people to our area and helping them find their home. Winter is different for everyone, but to truly find yours in the North, you need to do more than brave the elements–you need to embrace them wholeheartedly.

For some, winter here is a magical land with sparkling snowflakes, fireside chats with friends, and a cup of hot cocoa warming their hands. Others find winter joy skiing, skating, snowmobiling, or sledding.

For me, I find magic by venturing out in the cold and dark–strapping on my spiked boots, putting on my headlamp, and climbing up a rocky hill to blaze trails in the fresh snow. It’s a physical experience. My eyelashes freeze, I can see my breath, and the cold bites my cheeks. I feel so alive when I’m finished– exhilarated and connected to our wild and untamed North.

After each adventure, I love the feeling of defrosting by a fire, a sauna, or steam shower, the heat melting the chill from my bones. I follow with a hot cup of tea, a warm blanket, a good book, and my pets at my feet.

Even as I revel in winter’s charms, I still dream of those endless summer days ahead. I close my eyes and can almost feel the sun warming my skin as I cruise across a sparkling lake in a boat, waves gently lapping on the far shore, the scent of sunbaked pines in the air.

This is the beauty of life in the North–a land of contrasts and endless possibilities. Whether we’re conquering icy trails or basking in summer’s glow, we’re always home.

As you explore this issue, I invite you to share your own winter experiences with us. Tag us in your snowy adventures on social media or write to us–we’d love to hear your ideas for stories in our next issue.

Stay warm and adventurous,

Tracy Ramsay Publisher

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

New Beginnings: Exploring the Heart of the North Welcome to the Winter issue of NORTH magazine.

I am excited to share that I have stepped into the role of Editor-in-Chief and I am eager to bring my vision and passion for storytelling to our pages.

NORTH, proudly published in Duluth, Minnesota, is dedicated to curating content that inspires and connects our community. We believe in the power of print media, elegant design, and high-quality journalism to showcase the unique architecture, travel, food, lifestyle, and compelling stories that define our region.

IN THIS ISSUE EXCLUSIVE COLLECTION: Step into the extraordinary world of Lee and Penny Anderson’s spectacular collection of boats and cars on Nisswa Lake. Trust me, it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen.

HIDDEN GETAWAY: Uncover the charm of Stout’s Island Lodge, a secluded gem near Birchwood, Wisconsin.

FROM JUILLIARD TO THE FOOD NETWORK: Discover how Molly

We conclude this issue with a poignant farewell to Lutsen Lodge, reflecting on the loss of our most cherished northern resort.

A CENTURY OF CHARM: Explore the history of Lutsen Lodge,

INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCE

Yeh’s journey led her from classical music to culinary fame on a beet farm in East Grand Forks, Minnesota.

Minnesota’s iconic North Shore resort and its timeless tale of hospitality and heritage.

We’ve integrated QR codes throughout the magazine, allowing you to delve deeper into selected features. Scan with your phone or tablet to view rich video content, ranging from a vintage boat and car collection to aerial views of a stunning estate and backcountry skiing in British Columbia.

Thank you for joining us on this journey through the North. We encourage you to subscribe for future issues and support our valued marketing partners who make this publication possible.

CAPTURING THE NORTH: Prepare to be mesmerized by Layne Kennedy’s fine art photography, offering a fresh perspective on our northern landscapes.

LAKESIDE LUXURY: Enjoy a first-time look at Palisades North, a

remarkable modern estate gracing Lake Superior’s North Shore.

Here’s to new beginnings and shared adventures.

Cheers,

Frank Roffers Editor-in-Chief

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CONTENTS DWELL 20 | A PALISADES RETREAT The gem of the North Shore

34 | A MINNESOTA ICON Lutsen Lodge, Edwin Lundie, and the soul of the North Shore

48 | PARK POINT PARADISE A wild yet curated backyard bursting with color

EXPERIENCE 60 | WHEN NORTH ISN'T NORTH ENOUGH Backcountry skiing at Sol Mountain Lodge in British Columbia

66 | THE ISLAND OF HAPPY DAYS The unique experience of Stout’s Island Lodge

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98 CULTURE 74 | THE ANDERSON YOU HAVEN’T MET Lee Anderson reveals his love affair with vintage boats & cars

86 | KING OF COLD The lens of photographer Layne Kennedy finds beauty everywhere in the North, even in its most extreme moments

92 | NORTH SHORE MAGIC From frozen to fabulous

THRIVE 98 | FINDING HER BEET Molly Yeh thrives in the North

106 | IN SEARCH OF SAUNA NIRVANA AROUND LAKE SUPERIOR On a 750-mile road trip through the heart of sauna culture in the United States, a writer searches for the perfect combination of steam, heat, and cold

12 | PUBLISHER'S LETTER • 14 | EDITOR'S LETTER 115 | MARKET • 132 | PARTING THOUGHTS WINTER 2025 | 17

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DWELL Living in a physical place or location for a period of time and making it home

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A PALISADES

The gem of the North Shore

WRITTEN BY EMMA GEARY | PHOTOGRAPHY BY SPACECRAFTING

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HOME

RETREAT WINTER 2025 | 21

Click here for exclusive video

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HOME

The home was built to honor natural, tactile materials that represent the region’s landscape, designed with a conscious effort to make the property feel embedded in the environment.

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ust a stone’s throw past Tettegouche State Park, a driveway slopes off Highway 61 to reveal one of the most stunning properties along the North Shore: The Palisades North Retreat.

Perched along Lake Superior’s rocky coastline, the escape was enveloped by vibrant autumn colors when we visited in early October.

It’s easy to see why the owners, who split their time between Silver Bay and Minneapolis, find it hard to leave. Wander through hiking trails forged by the couple themselves or sip a post-sauna cocktail in their private island lounge. Beach dwellers and sea kayakers alike can gather together every evening with sweeping panoramic views of Lake Superior over dinner. Encapsulating the wonder and magic of the chilled coastline with activities for every season, the Palisades North Retreat provides guests with a full North Shore experience without ever leaving the property.

With over 2,200 feet of private coastline and 9 acres of land, two private beaches, and sweeping lake views from every room, this property embodies the ultimate North Shore retreat. A guest cabin with two additional bedrooms and the striking 60-foot Palisade cliffs make it both a sanctuary and a haven for adventure seekers.

So, how did this 7,200-square-foot home come to life? Over years of intentional design informed by the land itself. Principal

Cheryl Fosdick of CF Design shares, “When the previous owners purchased the property, they wanted to recycle as much of that original structure as possible, starting with the foundation of a wedding-cakelike, three-story home. We were able to recycle over 70% of the materials, which was astounding.”

Preserving the foundation not only maintained the home’s connection to its site, but also saved the design from regulatory changes that would have required the new build to be set back from the cliff, losing much of its lakefront charm.

“For me, the poetry of the project appeared when we were left with just the land,” Cheryl continues. “With a biochemistry background, I look to honor what exists while letting new ideas grow. My process explored both engaging with the landscape and reimagining spaces, inviting play into the process—a fundamental part of design.”

One unique aspect of the process was Cheryl’s decision to observe the land through all four seasons before finalizing any designs. “We wanted to build in harmony with nature’s rhythms,” she explains. “The home expresses the four elements, with water grounding the base, earth at the foreground with landscaping, fire through the rising structure, and air at the top, flowing upward toward the sky.”

Construction began with a simple concrete wall from the original foundation that runs through every floor, most prominently seen clad in stone in the first-floor fireplace. It allowed for expansive glass panels

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throughout, making the home structurally sound in a 120mph wind zone, ready to weather Minnesota’s most unpredictable storms while remaining beautifully integrated with its surroundings.

Gathering is easy with four bedrooms and seven bathrooms in the main home, plus two more in the guest cabin. The home’s main tower, which includes the spa, primary bedroom, and viewing tower, can be closed off completely from the rest of the home to create an expansive private suite spanning all three floors, ensuring the hosts and guests alike can enjoy the North Shore in peaceful solitude.

The home was built to honor natural, tactile materials that represent the region’s landscape, designed with a conscious effort to make the property feel embedded in the environment. Granites, basalts, and various veneers combine to suggest distance and force perspective, always drawing the eye toward the breathtaking Lake Superior view.

Perhaps most unique throughout the home is the use of wine cask redwood, sourced from 16-foot wine barrels in California. Seen on the walls and in the main tower’s staircase, they are crafted with traditional Japanese wooden pegs. Not a single nail was used, lending an artisanal touch to the redwood pieces and honoring their natural beauty.

“When the new owners bought the home, it had mismatched fixtures and dark, overpowering colors,” shares Greg Walsh, Senior Designer at MartinPatrick 3, who designed the home’s interiors. He envisioned a refined, cohesive aesthetic that would complement the architectural vision. “We wanted to preserve the home’s structure and landscape while bringing in the clients’ personality through fresh fixtures and personal touches. In addition to updating the lighting, finishes, and furnishings, we added a butler’s pantry with a wet bar to make for easy hosting.”

“The clients have an extensive art collection,” shares Greg, “which complemented the home’s natural materials, serving as a blank canvas to truly highlight their collection and add even more character to the home.”

If there’s one thing the team at MartinPatrick 3 is known for, it’s their ability to transform spaces into destinations–other worlds altogether. Nowhere is this more evident than in the “Spirit House,” an intimate speakeasy-style bar on the property’s island, just steps from the main home. Drenched in jewel-toned green porcelain-tiled walls with an Oz-like quality, the space is complete with a green vintage fireplace sourced from an antique dealer in Rochester, Minnesota, and branded matchbooks—no detail too small for MP3!—as a keepsake for guests.

Natural light plays an essential role in the estate’s design, with layered lighting thoughtfully incorporated to enhance each room’s warmth throughout the day. “I’ve spent enough time at this property to know what time it is now based on the way the light falls in the home,” says Cheryl. “Bringing this project to life has been the pinnacle of my career, and now that MartinPatrick 3 has woven their magic, the home fully embodies the North Shore spirit in the way I envisioned it.”

With breathtaking views, architectural integrity, and artful interiors that honor its natural surroundings, the Palisades North Retreat truly stands as a gem of the North Shore—a home that captures the spirit of Minnesota’s wild beauty, welcoming all who stay to savor each season’s gifts.

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Not a single nail was used, lending an artisanal touch to the redwood pieces and honoring their natural beauty.

Click here for exclusive video

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Photographs courtesy of Bradley Interiors A | SoHo Studio Haru Ribbon Tan Porcelain Tile B | House of Rohl Modelle Single Handle Bathroom Faucet C | Electric Mirror Elite LED Lighted Mirror D | ICO Calma Bassini Vessel Sink E | Victoria + Albert Barcelona Classic Tub F | SoHo Studio Murray Saratoga Luxury Vinyl G | House of Rohl Modelle Single Hole Floor Mount Tub Filler | visit bradleyinteriorsmn.com

Home never looked so good

bradleyinteriorsmn.com | 218-722-6306 | 1735 Maple Grove Rd, Duluth, MN 55811

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A MINNESOTA

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ICON

HOME

Lutsen Lodge, Edwin Lundie, and the soul of the North Shore WRITTEN BY FRANK BURES | PHOTOGRAPHY BY LUTSEN RESORT ARCHIVES UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED

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I

n the summer of 1885, Charles A. A. Nelson was making his way up the North Shore in his fishing boat when a storm forced him to take shelter in a small bay at the mouth of the Poplar River. Nelson was just 23 years old. Five years earlier, he’d crossed the Atlantic in steerage from Sweden, where his family worked as serf-farmers, seeking the “glorious new Scandinavia” that immigrants were promised in Minnesota.

The inlet was a choice spot for Nelson—in fact, two other people had already staked claims to the land. One was a Frenchman, who disappeared after filing his papers. The other was a tugboat captain who missed the deadline for proving his claim. So Charles dug in his pockets for the $14 required, and the land was his.

Given the remoteness and the ruggedness of the North Shore, stories abound with challenges the family and their guests faced over the years, including run-ins with moose, bear, and incredible hardships out on Lake Superior. Nelson’s place became a welcome stop for fishermen and travelers, and soon he and his wife, Anna, were hosting so many guests in their home that in 1893 they built a new house with additional rooms on the second floor. They called it “Lutzen House,” after the town in Germany where the Swedish King Gustavus II Adolphus had been killed during the Thirty Years’ War in 1632. Later, the spelling was Americanized to “Lutsen,” according to “A History of Lutsen,” by Robert Mc Dowell.

The visitors kept coming and the resort kept growing. Fishermen, hunters, and even John Beargrease, the dog-sledding legend who delivered mail up and down the North Shore, all stayed with the Nelsons. Eventually a post office and a school were built, and in 1918, Charles built a hydroelectric power plant on the river to electrify the resort. Then in 1925, the road from Duluth to Grand Portage was completed and travelers beat a path to Lutsen.

Business was good, and the new Scandinavia was glorious indeed. But soon the gravity of the old world would pull them back into World War II. Charles’s son George Sr. went to Illinois to manage the U.S. Army’s Food Service Program. His grandson George Jr. joined the U.S. Army’s famed 10th Mountain Division as a ski trooper and saw combat in the mountains of northern Italy. It was while training at Camp Hale in Colorado that George Jr. began dreaming of opening a ski area to make Lutsen a year-round resort.

By the war’s end in 1945, Charles was in his 80s, so George Sr. purchased the resort from his parents. It was just in time for a tumultuous few years: in 1948 both a 20-room dormitory and the main lodge burned, followed by the opening of the ski area; in 1949, they built a new lodge designed by St. Paul architect Edwin Lundie. Sadly, the new Lundie lodge burned in 1951, but the architect worked with the Nelsons to rebuild it with minor changes.

Lundie apprenticed under the eminent architect Cass Gilbert, designer of the Minnesota State Capitol and the U.S. Supreme Court building. He then worked as a draftsman for Emmanuel Masqueray, who designed both the Basilica of St. Mary and the Cathedral of Saint Paul in the Twin Cities. After Masqueray died in 1917, Lundie opened his own office. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he was modest and worked closely with his clients to get the result they wanted.

Dale Mulfinger, author of “The Architecture of Edwin Lundie,” says that Lundie began his projects with thorough research. “If he was asked to do a French country house, he would research ‘What

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“At a time when architects were turning to modernism, [ Edwin Lundie] didn’t. He held on to tradition.”

– DALE MULFINGER, AUTHOR OF “THE ARCHITECTURE OF EDWIN LUNDIE”

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PHOTOGRAPHY THIS PAGE BY TRACI BOYER

is a French country house? And where is it drawing from in France?’ At a time when architects were turning to modernism, he didn’t. He held on to tradition. And when he got to the North Shore, he seemed to shift into a Scandinavian style.”

Lundie designed multiple cabins along the North Shore for prominent families on prime parcels of land, as well as other buildings throughout northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. By the time he was commissioned to design Lutsen Lodge, he’d already developed a style that would become emblematic of the place. Given the Swedish, Norwegian, and Finnish background of many local immigrants, Lundie looked to Scandinavia’s stave architecture, dating back to the Middle Ages, for inspiration. Stave churches had ornately carved corner posts, which Lundie incorporated into many of his buildings.

Peter O’Toole, a photographer and author of “Edwin H. Lundie Five Decades - A Journey of Art & Architecture,” says that Lundie exaggerated architectural elements, “and he took pride in that. The fireplace was an exaggerated size. The timbers were oversized. He took architectural elements and visually exaggerated them to have a greater impact.”

In doing so, Lundie changed the look and feel of the North Shore.

He “created a design that became iconic of the North Shore,” says O’Toole. “It’s a local vernacular that has both a cultural significance as well as an architectural significance.”

This architecture that grew out of the North Shore was emulated in countless buildings between Duluth and Grand Marais. And at Lutsen Lodge, it resulted in a masterpiece.

Once the lodge was rebuilt in 1952, it marked the beginning of a long period of growth and expansion. Cindy Nelson, daughter of George Jr., who made the U.S. Ski Team at age 16 and won a bronze medal at the 1976 Winter Olympics, recalls growing up there: “I remember coming home from school and walking down the hill in the dark, in the winter,” Nelson said in an interview from her home in Colorado, “and you could see all the lights in the building and the smoke coming out of the chimney, and you could smell the baked goods and whatever was roasting. I think it was every child’s dream to be raised like we were raised there.

The lodge was just a super special place. It’s the type of grandeur you don’t see often. It was like a national monument.”

Linda Jurek, who worked at the resort during her “ski bum years” and is now the Executive Director of Visit Cook County, recalls the lodge as a North Shore hot spot: “It was the place to go. There have been many iterations of fun, but in that era, there was a Friday and Saturday night scene with a disco bar. I remember the pool being pretty epic, because there weren't many lodges here in Cook County in the 1960s, 70s, 80s, that had indoor pools. And they did. It was always that kind of welcoming, go-to place.”

As the resort grew, it gradually became too much for the family to manage. In 1980, the Nelsons sold the ski area to Charles Skinner. Then in 1988 the family sold the resort and lodge. Scott Harrison, one of the new owners, recalls being struck by the feeling of walking inside the lodge: “Even without the fireplace going, it felt warm. It felt inviting.”

For the next 30 years, Harrison and his wife, Nancy Burns, developed outdoor programming and kayaking along the shore. They hosted senators and governors and held as many as 70 weddings a year, with countless photos of couples taken on the resort’s iconic covered bridge.

By the time they sold the lodge in 2018, the resort employed 145 people and business was booming.

Unfortunately, the resort has struggled under the new ownership.

It was reported to have had various financial difficulties, and the pandemic didn’t help. Then in February 2024, a fire tore through Lutsen Lodge, burning it to the ground. At the time of this writing, the cause was still under investigation.

But no investigation was needed to conclude what a loss it was for Minnesota. “The lodge was an icon on the North Shore,” says Nelson. “I was heartbroken when it burned down. It’s like a piece of my heart also had a hole burned into it.”

For the tens of thousands of people who passed through its doors, there is hope that Lutsen Lodge will rise from the ashes. Skinner, who is still an owner at Lutsen Mountains, put it best: “I hope it gets rebuilt, because it’s really part of the heart and soul of the North Shore.”

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SPONSORED CONTENT

photograph courtesy of Andrea Rugg Photography

photograph courtesy of Jill Greer Photography

cfdesignltd.com | 218.343.0983

SPONSORED CONTENT

Every instance of building on the land is rooted in a story, beginning with the Why, the Who, and the What such accommodation will speak to.

photograph courtesy of John C. Hawthorne

The intricacies and details in The Site – its folds and textures – are visible, because they exist in light. While the acoustics and aromas of sites also play a role in the creation of memories specific to the place, it is luminosity that shows us Form and Contour, along with Corporality and Illusion...observations that activate the process of architectural design at CF Design. To fully realize architecture, observing a site in its full range of light is a prerequisite for crafting the personal stories of people at home there – as “fit” to a specific place as a specific place is fit to them.

CF Design crafts projects that respond to location and landscape, with structure that sets the stage for the eloquent expression of the values and aspirations of our clients. LUMstudio offers exceptional lighting and furnishings to further that expression. Let us help you assemble your story.

lumstudio.us | 218.722.1060 310 E Superior St, #125 | Duluth, MN 55802

PARK POINT PARADISE A wild yet curated backyard bursting with color WRITTEN BY NANCY MONROE | PHOTOGRAPHY BY OLD SAW MEDIA

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hom Lasley was in the backyard of his Park Point home when he heard a young child call out to a neighbor, “Look at that yard, it’s all flowers!”

When asked his opinion, the child replied in awe, “It looks like paradise.”

Paradise is exactly the look the homeowners were seeking when they hired Mike Saline of Saline Landscape and Design to create a stunning outdoor space surrounding this home on the beach.

The two-story, no-nonsense cottage sits close to the road in contrast to a feral backyard that extends to the shores of Lake Superior. “I like the feel of an urban street expanding to the quiet of the lake,” said Lasley, an architect who designed the house with his wife, Sue Herrington, an interior designer. A studio/ office in the same charcoal siding and natural wood embellishment sits at the rear of the property to take advantage of the lake view, which serves as an enviable backdrop for Zoom calls.

Between the street and the lake is a curated wildness teeming with texture and color, mostly bright yellow, but sprinkled with purples, pinks, reds and greens. Asymmetrical natural stone steps in varying sizes meander through the Black-eyed Susans to the sandy shore’s wild grasses.

The flower-filled garden, which is mostly indigenous plants, is not for the homeowner who expects instant gratification. “We’re looking three to five years in the future; that’s the fun,” Saline says about designing indigenous gardens, adding that initially, “installs are not always impressive.”

Which is why it takes someone with both the patience and vision to appreciate a soon-to-be spectacular garden that can weather all four seasons. Fortunately, Herrington is a master gardener, who not only enjoys the process, but has a name for its three-year schedule: “sleep, creep, leap.”

Herrington and Saline enjoyed collaborating on this ambitious project. The two worked together planning all the details and Saline’s team came up with the storyboards depicting the garden’s different stages.

The first stage was installing the hardscape, including a bluestone patio facing the lake, large boulders, and the freeform stone path, creating a balanced outdoor space. Then they planted thousands of seeds, along with indigenous and hybrid plants to bloom with color and provide interest all summer long.

It’s a sort of management versus maintenance landscape style—and the homeowners absolutely love the finished product. Even if it feels like it’s complete already, they enjoy taking the time to watch this unique Park Point paradise continue to evolve.

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HOME

WHEN NORTH isn’t NORTH Enough Backcountry skiing at Sol Mountain Lodge in British Columbia

BY AMY CARLSON | PHOTOGRAPHY BY SOL MOUNTAIN LODGE, AMY CARLSON

Click here for video

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W

e line up behind our guide, Mark, at the top of the steep face, trees scattered throughout the waist-deep powder.

One at a time we ski, snow blasting our faces, perfect turn after perfect turn. Our legs ache but we can’t stop—it’s way too much fun. Finally, we reach the bottom, gathering to watch the skiers behind us. I pull out my phone to video our friend hitting this perfect powder run: arced turns, no stopping, cold smoke to the face, our cheers following him down. As though it were scripted, he hits an unexpected compression on his last turn and executes a perfect front flip. More cheers as he gets up, unfazed, and skis down to join the group. Huge smiles, laughter, not a care in the world.

And it’s just a regular run at Sol Mountain Lodge.

Our group of six are mostly from Duluth—despite two of us hailing from Michigan and California, we are collectively known as “Minnesota.” Getting here was a challenge: flight problems, missing luggage and ski gear, waiting on low clouds to clear so the helicopter could fly us to the lodge. Two of our party lost a day of skiing after flying so close they could see the lodge before the helicopter was turned away by low visibility. Once we were finally all there, we joined about 15 other guests from Canada and the U.S. for a magical six days of skiing.

The lodge is perched on a flat ridge above Bill Fraser Lake and surrounded by Monashee Provincial Park, about 40 miles south of Revelstoke, British Columbia. When flying in by helicopter—the only access in winter—the lodge serves as a beacon: warm, inviting, and dwarfed by the dramatic snow-covered mountains encircling it.

Backcountry skiing–or Alpine ski touring–is unique in that it combines both Nordic and Alpine skiing. Skiers “skin” or ski uphill cross-country style with boot heels released and adhesive skins on the bases of the skis for traction. At the top, skiers transition by removing the skins from the ski base, then locking down the heels of the ski boots to ski down. This allows skiers to access untracked powder almost anywhere.

It is not without risk, however. The guides at Sol Mountain are some of the most knowledgeable snow experts in the world, and each morning they spend significant time discussing and calculating snow conditions and avalanche danger based on local reports. All guests walk through

avalanche safety protocols and rescue scenarios before any skiing begins.

Other hazards include tree wells—empty snowless pockets surrounding trees that can easily swallow people, injuries—even the most basic could require complicated evacuations in the wilderness, and exposure—staying warm and managing layers is crucial.

Those risks are well worth it for experienced, conscientious skiers when they are rewarded with seemingly endless runs of deep, untracked powder. When skiing through pristine glades, the only obstacles are the trees. Large boulders become huge jumps with pillowy soft landings, the steepest of chutes many would not dare ski at a resort suddenly become accessible, and there is so much terrain here that guides can literally ski different areas for days. James Minifie, a longtime Sol Mountain guide, says he “can always get people skiing. No matter how high avalanche hazard is, no matter how bad the weather is, I always have a place here I can take people for a great day of skiing.”

Each morning begins with a hearty breakfast and a meeting with the guides outlining the day’s plan. Next, we pack our lunches and gear, boot up, and head outside. We generally ski with a lead guide and a tail guide, departing the lodge in a few small groups. Depending on snow conditions, we head out to areas with names like Blind Faith, Banana Belt, Chainsaw Massacre, and Chicken Knob, each offering different terrain. We fall into a rhythm marching up the uptrack, the intense quiet of snowflakes falling around us and the smell of fir trees baking in the sun. We eat lunch during transition times, carrying water in our packs to stay hydrated after long climbs. We log around five to eight runs each day. When you earn your turns, each one is savored, each run memorable.

At the end of the day, the comfort of the lodge awaits. We strip off our wet gear and let everything dry in the boot room, then head upstairs where Jamie and Sandor, the lodge chefs, have set out an amazing après spread for us to enjoy while we relax and share a drink. We help ourselves to the fully stocked fridge full of local beers or Okanagan wines, which we track on a clipboard throughout the trip. We consider a trek to the sauna building and a shower before changing into warm, dry clothes for dinner. Each night, we eat as a group, our meals delicious and expertly prepared with organic and locally-sourced ingredients. After dinner, we have time to continue conversations, play music or games, or head upstairs to stretch in the dedicated yoga room. Finally, we fall into bed exhausted, grateful we get to do it all over again tomorrow.

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THE DETAILS Sol Mountain’s backcountry ski trips are five or six nights, though they are often booked up to two years in advance. Most are fully guided and catered, meaning they provide guide services as well as all meals, and range from $3500-$4000 CAD, including helicopter transfer to and from either Revelstoke or Cherryville. Visit solmountain.com for more information.

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HAPPY DAYS The unique experience of Stout’s Island Lodge

WRITTEN BY RUDY MAXA PHOTOGRAPHY BY STOUT’S ISLAND LODGE UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED

Click here to view Stout’s Island

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EXPERIENCE

PHOTOGRAPH BY SUMMER STREET PHOTOGRAPHY

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he Rockefellers had one. So did the Vanderbilts. And in the mid-1990s, John Rupp and Tom Dow brought one back to life, too: an Adirondack-style family camp on Red Cedar Lake in Birchwood, Wisconsin, that today allows guests to live like robber barons from a century ago.

It’s called Stout’s Island Lodge and it sits atop a hill on a 12-acre forested island. With cedar logs from Idaho, redwood timber from California, and Italian stone in the dining room fireplace, you can squint your eyes and imagine boys in knickers 100 years ago playing hide and seek along forest paths, ladies tiptoeing along the edge of the lake in bloomers, and fathers sipping scotch by an outdoor fire after dinner.

The island was bought in 1887 by Frank D. Stout, a wealthy lumber baron, and a partner, Thomas Wilson, Jr. It was a time when Jack London’s “Call of the Wild” painted a picture of the romance of outdoor life. Nature. A place away from urban smog, the smoke of chimneys, and the clatter of carriage wheels on cobblestone streets.

While there were plenty of grand family estates in the late 1800s and early 1900s, very few remain today. Stout and Wilson envisioned a men’s fishing and hunting camp; it eventually became a family retreat as the women in his family also realized the beauty of the island.

Stout bought out his partner and rebuilt the enormous main lodge in 1912, purposely styling it after the great Adirondack camps. Stout himself coined the nickname “Island of Happy Days” as he gathered there with family and friends throughout his life. Sadly, while attempting to reach the island one last time in 1927, he only made it as far as Rice Lake before dying. The island was later sold after his wife’s death in 1949.

Today’s owners, St. Paul developer John Rupp and retired Eau Claire ophthalmologist Tom Dow, both know Stout’s Island is a rarity.

“It speaks to a different time,” says Rupp, “these places don’t exist anymore.”

When Rupp joined Dow in buying the island, the lodge was in poor shape, the island overgrown. They renovated the main lodge and cabins and updated the mechanical systems to create a sense of rustic luxury, perfect for romantic getaways and family gatherings.

Today, guests approach the island via a ten-minute ride aboard the resort’s classic Elco watercraft ferry. Docking at the two-story, all-wood boathouse, a delightful upstairs game room awaits arriving guests, complete with a deck overlooking the lake.

Perfect.

After crossing the elevated walkway from the boathouse, it’s a short hike up a hill—a golf cart can accommodate non-walkers—to a great

lawn and the lodge that was once Stout’s family home. If Jay Gatsby owned the lodge today, he wouldn’t be out of place greeting you on the front lawn.

The day I arrived, three sisters—the only guests on the expansive lawn—were seated in Adirondack chairs sipping afternoon cocktails in the sun. I asked them what they thought of the place.

“It’s like stepping back in time,” said Sheila Loy from Hudson, Wisconsin, “but with Wi-Fi.” Featured in “Travel + Leisure” last year, the resort’s season runs May through October. Offering more than 40 rooms between the main lodge and the several cabins scattered around the island, guests can rent individual rooms or an entire cabin for larger groups.

The foyer in the main lodge provides a warm welcome to all guests, including authentic period furnishings and scores of original photos of the Stout family. Overlooking the lake, the main lodge’s dining room serves upscale and locally-sourced regional cuisine—though the ferry runs every half hour until 10 p.m. if you wish to dine off the island or play a round of golf at nearby Tagalong, originally owned by Stout and inspired by St. Andrews in Scotland.

Take a walk around the grounds and you’ll find the south lawn behind the lodge where a tent stays up in the summer to host weddings, as well as a bonfire area, croquet court, and swim dock nearby. A clay tennis court is to the east, and just beyond you’ll cross a small metal bridge—a gift to Stout from Andrew Carnegie—leading to East Island.

With nearly six additional acres to explore, the trail is perfect for a quiet walk through the woods along the shoreline.

While all the cabins are owned today by Rupp and Dow, the pair have an exit strategy they’ve already set into motion. The plan is to offer cabins—and lodge rooms—for sale to individual owners, sell club memberships, and eventually convert the resort into a private club.

Rupp conceded the resort’s upkeep is considerable. “It’s all wood!” he exclaims, but he’s hopeful that a more diversified ownership would share the costs.

“If you have 20 or 25 families who own residences here and 100-200 club members,” says Rupp, “then, if you want a vintage boat or a pickleball court, you now have several hundred people paying for that instead of two.”

Rupp expects it’ll take a few years before the property can be open only to owners and club members who, he says, will be able to enjoy a “fantastic experience for kids, parents, and grandparents. And that’s what it’s going to be. On a grand scale.”

Maybe not on a Rockefeller or Vanderbilt scale, but guests are nonetheless transported back in time to an elegant and historic grand lodge experience.

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EXPERIENCE

“It speaks to a different time.

These places don‛t exist anymore.”

– JOHN RUPP, ST. PAUL DEVELOPER AND STOUT'S ISLAND LODGE CO-OWNER

THE DETAILS For more information on staying at Stout’s Island, visit stoutsislandlodge.com.

For more information on membership and real estate options, visit stoutsislandlodge.com/club.

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THE ANDERSON Lee Anderson reveals his love affair with vintage boats & cars

BY RUDY MAXA | PHOTOGRAPHY BY SPACECRAFTING UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED

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L

ee Anderson likes to say he graduated at the “top of the fourth quintile” from West Point because “no one quite knows what a quintile is.”

For a Minnesota billionaire, Anderson is a charmingly self-effacing kind of guy. He doesn’t mention that he’s the most generous financial donor in the military academy’s history.

He doesn’t mention other impressive philanthropic activities or how he grew a St. Paul plumbing business into an empire.

And even though I first met and wrote about him 13 years ago, he never mentioned his eye-popping collection of vintage cars and boats.

But Anderson recently invited NORTH magazine to tour what qualifies as a museum even though he doesn’t call it that. To walk through his private collection of cars and boats—located on the shore of Nisswa Lake in the Gull Lake chain of lakes—is to touch history.

GROWING UP, HIS FAMILY HAD A MODEST CABIN with a screen porch and outhouse on Nisswa Lake—on the same property as the Andersons’ lakefront home today. During Anderson’s childhood, theirs was the only cabin on the lake without indoor plumbing—a bit ironic for a plumbing contractor.

“My dad wouldn’t put in indoor plumbing because he thought outdoor plumbing built character,” Anderson laughed. “I told him I’d work on my character if he’d put in plumbing, and he finally did but said he did it for my mother. And only she could use it. That lasted about two weeks, and then he finally gave up.”

ANDERSON ATTRIBUTES HIS LOVE OF BOATS to a particular wooden boat, a 1939 Chris-Craft that his dad owned when Anderson was a boy. He began racing boats after seeing a Rayson-Craft drag boat while stationed in Arizona, and he went “nuts,” racing during the 60s and 70s until he scared himself: “Going over 100 miles per hour in the straightaways,” he noted, “with boats so close you could reach out and touch them causes a person to think.”

So he transitioned to collecting and restoring classic boats instead.

Today, he houses more than 40 boats in two custom boathouses, each the size of a commercial airplane hangar and complete with mechanical boat launches. A massive floating dock system keeps additional boats at the ready. With museum-quality placards describing each boat’s lineage—races won, awards received—his collection isn’t open to the public, but if you’re a serious boat or car enthusiast, Anderson says he’s happy to show a visitor around.

A full team of car and boat mechanics keeps his collection show-worthy. And also drive-worthy. Anderson can drive all his boats (and cars) because his staff takes them out regularly so their engines remain in top working shape. During our visit, he even took us for a ride in one of his favorites, Tolka.

Originally owned by Alexander Graham Bell, Tolka was built in Nova Scotia and registered in 1929. Its weathered skeleton was found abandoned in Canada, but the sleek, 36-foot boat has been restored to the point that it looks like it just came off a showroom floor.

The Horace, a 30-foot runabout, is one of only five Belle Isle Super Bear Cats in existence. Once owned by the son of the founder of the Dodge Motor Company, the boat was rumored to have a history as a rum runner and stories of its confiscation persist. Resurfacing in the 1940s in LaPointe, WI, owner Frank Roffers (grandfather to another Frank Roffers, editor-in-chief of this magazine) used it for recreational racing on Madeline Island. Later, Mickey Paulucci, the son of the founder 76 | NORTH

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PHOTO COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY OF ST. THOMAS

of Jeno’s pizza fame, purchased it for $12,000. Anderson acquired it in 2007 and restored it to his usual standard: mint condition.

Then there’s the Baby Bootlegger, a 30-foot torpedo of a boat that won major races in the 1920s. Powered by a World War I Hispano-Suiza airplane engine, it was described by boating writer Alfred Scott as “perhaps the most beautiful wooden boat ever built.” Its original owner was Caleb Bragg, an American racing driver, speedboat racer, aviation pioneer, and automotive inventor in the ‘20s and ’30s. Anderson acquired it for $2 million and estimates it’s worth more than twice that today.

But wait, there’s more. Lots more.

THE BOATHOUSES ARE LINKED BY AN ADIRONDACK great camp-style living area featuring rustic log construction, twig work, and peeled bark siding. Anderson says, “Penny and I have long been interested in Adirondack architecture. All the great camps like the Rockefeller properties used cedar wood…that’s all part of the Adirondack architecture.” Sitting around the fire surrounded by Oriental rugs, Tiffany lamps, and a chandelier of miniature prancing deer, it feels like we’ve been transported back in time to upstate New York.

Anderson’s extensive collection of Native artifacts and birch-bark canoes are showcased throughout the space, and his vast knowledge of each piece is incredible. Off to the side are a few oddities, including two 19th century Ethiopian Coptic Bibles with handwritten text on animal skin. His love of hunting is also clear thanks to numerous trophy mounts of big-game animals. He recently earned the Pantheon award, the most prestigious award in big-game hunting; there’s a massive trophy on display to commemorate his achievement.

Nearby is an equally impressive showroom created to house his gleaming collection of vintage cars. It’s difficult to tell whether Anderson’s heart belongs more to his boats or his cars as he points out some of his motor pool’s gems.

Here’s one of Queen Elizabeth’s cars. Here’s a car owned by Ethyl Mars, a former Minnesota school teacher who married into the Mars candy empire. And here’s a 1937 Cadillac V-16 Cabriolet.

One of his favorites is a 1932 Duesenberg Model J Figoni Sports Torpedo that was named Best of Show at the 2022 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, the Olympics of car shows.

A huge cabinet against a wall caught my eye—it looked like a giant music box, and in a way, it was. It’s an orchestrion, a machine that plays music, emulating an orchestra. Anderson said they were common in Austria long ago and were powered by young boys pedaling furiously behind the scenes. Anderson turned one on and suddenly the cavernous space was filled with sound. He'd purchased this particular one in Miami and had it trucked to Nisswa in several large pieces to be reassembled.

As I said, the guy likes to collect things.

AT 85 YEARS OLD, WITH SNOW-WHITE HAIR and standing a lean six-feet, six-inches, Anderson still has a military air about him. Yet he comes off as an enlisted man—chatty, amusing, and hospitable. A regular Minnesotan.

Anderson left a promising career in the Army Air Corps after just four years to honor his father’s request to help run his plumbing contracting business. Shortly after, Lee met his wife, Penny, a former Miss Edina and Miss Downtown Minneapolis. Lee’s mother fixed them up on a date, and they were married just a few months later. This year, they are celebrating their 60th anniversary.

It was his father’s business that provided the basis for Lee Anderson to begin acquiring companies, few of whose names are recognizable to most folks, even in Minnesota. They weren’t sexy businesses, but his industrial fire sprinkler, mechanical contracting, and pipeline service companies prospered. Eventually, his company, APi Group, had 15,000

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PHOTOGRAPHY THESE PAGES COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY OF ST. THOMAS

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“My dad wouldn‛t put in indoor plumbing because he thought outdoor plumbing built character.”

– LEE ANDERSON

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employees who also helped build tunnels, dams, and highways—big projects that keep this country moving but rarely make headlines. After selling APi in 2019, Anderson considers himself retired. But that’s not quite true.

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HE AND PENNY TRAVELED TO Croatia in 2001 to provide aid to citizens of nearby post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Already big wine aficionados, the couple decided to buy a vineyard along the coastline of Croatia.

When I visited that vineyard with him 13 years ago, I looked skeptically at a shell of a former barracks for Soviet soldiers on the property. Anderson told me he wanted to convert that desolate-looking building into a luxury hotel.

And he did. Today the Andersons not only own Villa Korta Katarina—named after their daughter, Katharine, who runs the vineyard from Minneapolis—perched on the edge of the Adriatic Sea, but they’re also renovating a second hotel in the same village, Orebić, an easy drive from Dubrovnik.

Generously funding conservation, humanitarian, and education efforts at home and overseas, the Andersons have established a conservation education program with the Boone and Crockett Club. They’ve also donated to the construction of the Defenders Lodge, a facility for veterans seeking care at the Palo Alto VA Medical Center. Because he’s been a longtime trustee at the University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul, the school has been a principal recipient of the Andersons’ philanthropic efforts. In 2007, the Andersons donated $60 million to St. Thomas for an athletic complex—at the time marking the largest single donation ever made to a Minnesota university. They later donated $75 million for a hockey and basketball arena that’s scheduled to open this fall.

While they winter in Florida, the Andersons also spend time in Duluth, where they restored two London Road mansions built in the 1900s by Chester Congdon of Glensheen Mansion fame. Both Chanticleer and Lochmoor—built by Congdon for his children—were returned to their architectural splendor inside and out.

For Lee and Penny Anderson, an obvious commitment to philanthropy and hard work—perhaps stemming from his father’s tough-love tactics when Anderson was a boy—as well as a desire to preserve artifacts as varied as autos, boats, and even classic mansions—stand in contrast to their relatively low profile.

At the very least, Lee Anderson can safely say he’s still in the top of the fourth quintile.

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KING OF COLD The lens of photographer Layne Kennedy finds beauty everywhere in the North, even in its most extreme moments

BY JEFF RENNICKE | PHOTOGRAPHY BY LAYNE KENNEDY

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To see more of Layne Kennedy’s work, visit his website at www.laynekennedy.com/index and order his new book “Beyond the Light: The Stories Behind the Photographs”.

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hirty-eight degrees below zero in the Boundary Waters this morning and Layne Kennedy is smiling.

“Cold is cool,” the Minnesota-based photographer says with a wide grin to the participants of his dogsledding photo workshop.

This is the kind of cold where even your teeth ache. “The colder it is,” he announces to the group, his breath crystalizing in puffs of white steam, “the more inspired we become.” For Layne Kennedy, photography is nothing if not inspiring.

Featured in magazines worldwide, covering subjects as varied as pink dolphins carving the waters of the Amazon River and Inuit hunters in Greenland, Kennedy is known for conveying a strong sense of place in his work. The reach of his nearly 40 years of work, portrayed recently in a retrospective book entitled “Beyond the Light: The Stories Behind the Photographs” is truly impressive; yet with Layne Kennedy you get the feeling that his best photograph will be his next one.

Despite traveling the world throughout his storied career, Kennedy has found his creative home in the Northwoods—from the BWCA to the Apostle Islands and beyond. There is a culture of the outdoors here, he says—a sense of place in wood smoke, wool jackets, and pine needles—that draws him in. It is the love of saunas and the ache of shoulders on a long portage. And the light: soft green light filtering through the pines, the blueness of a winter evening, the silver starlight over a lakeside campsite. With the right light, almost any moment can draw a reaction, and those reactions draw the photographic eye of Layne Kennedy.

“Over the years, I’ve learned that if something makes me laugh or cringe, it’s worth photographing,” he says. “It’s my reaction I pay attention to. If something barks out to me, there’s a reasonable percentage it will make a good photograph.” It was a “bark” that led to one of his bestknown photographs.

In keeping with his love of sled dogs, Kennedy was watching Minnesota musher Chuck Gould prepare his team for a training run.

“Watch my lead dogs,” Gould shouted over the chaos of barking as he turned three dogs loose. They bolted with an outburst of energy that made Kennedy laugh out loud. “It was a whirlwind of fur and feet and energy contained only by a low metal fence,” Kennedy says, “and as soon as I saw the fence, I knew what I had to do.”

Kennedy grabbed his camera and ran, making quick calculations about shutter speed and depth-of-field, while at the same time guessing which section of the fence the dogs might try to leap, if they leapt at all.

They did.

Kennedy had just thrown himself on the ground beyond the fence when he heard the thumping of all those dog paws. “I heard them. In my mind, I saw them…I held the shutter down and hoped.” When he developed the film, the moment caught his breath: a trio of sled dogs caught in mid-flight, a moment of flying frenzy and fur, a portrait in exuberance.

It is this kind of exuberance that Kennedy himself is known for.

With boundless energy, he teaches a busy array of photography workshops from Ireland to Cuba, from Africa to Greenland. But it is always the Northwoods to which he returns.

Back in the deep freeze of the Boundary Waters, Kennedy is setting up a shot for his workshop participants. “In extreme cold, the wilderness is a different planet,” he says. Snow squeaks, breath crystallizes, your eyelashes freeze, but the cold also offers opportunity. Mix a little science with thirty-eight degrees below zero and the results can be magic. Kennedy is about to show his group some of that magic.

Like a little kid with a secret, Kennedy boils a pot of water on the camp stove and then has polar explorer Paul Schurke carry it on to the ice of the frozen lake while the photographers gather. At Kennedy’s signal, Schurke swings a ladle of that boiling water into an arc over his head, the sub-zero air instantly vaporizing the hot water into frozen fireworks, a kind of ice rainbow, eliciting “oohs” and “ahhs” and a flurry of clicking shutters from the photographers.

It is a moment of wonder in the frozen north, and living proof of Layne Kennedy’s belief that beauty can be found everywhere in the Northwoods.

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“The colder it is, the more inspired we become.”

– LAYNE KENNEDY

Click here for “Beyond the Light”

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NORT H S HOR E M AGIC From frozen to fabulous WRITTEN BY LAURENCE RESZETAR | ILLUSTRATION BY KRISTINE RE

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n a snowy evening celebrating New Year’s Eve at a Grand Marais restaurant, I witnessed a uniquely northern Minnesota phenomenon: the magic bathroom.

My wife and I had just moved to Minnesota largely sight unseen.

We settled in St. Paul while I attended school in Minneapolis. But as new Minnesotans, we wanted to experience the state in full. We were in our BC era (before children), so we looked for opportunities to celebrate special occasions around the state. Memorial Day in Alexandria.

A birthday in Rochester. An anniversary in Duluth. And, on this one night in particular, a New Year’s Eve in Grand Marais.

The drive up was easy. We explored the Gunflint Trail. We had dinner plans and a B&B reservation. But then the weather changed.

The blizzard was everything you’d expect from a winter’s storm: fluffy snow pouring down from a low sky. Concerned, we called the restaurant to confirm they’d be open. A quizzical “Yeah” was what we got. After all, why would they not be open? So we pulled on our cold weather gear and walked the few blocks down to the waterfront from the B&B. When we arrived the restaurant staff acted as though it were any other night despite the snow globe outside.

Seated, we started to notice something. Whenever the front door opened, what we assumed were people walked in. Everyone and everything entering was wrapped head to toe in snowmobile gear. Helmets.

Thick gloves. Bulky coats. Snow pants. Boots. The guys sat down and switched out their winter boots for shoes and dropped a layer or two.

But their companions? They disappeared into the women’s room. When they returned, it was as if they emerged from a chrysalis: Sequined dresses. Sleek blowouts. Heels. Skirts. No one else noticed. No one turned.

The others kept drinking, laughing, eating as if there wasn’t magic in the air. There was no awareness of what was unfolding just inside the front door of the restaurant. Maybe it was ordinary to them, but it was extraordinary to me.

Over the course of the next few hours, we watched these North Shore women enter with an arctic blast and then emerge from the women’s room as if they were walking a runway. It made me realize that the ethos of the North Shore is different–and I loved it.

We didn’t hear any complaints about the weather or the annoyance of stepping into the bathroom to change or men bothered by carrying high heels for their partners. They accepted the weather and acknowledged that a little bit of preparation and a dose of patience can keep a night festive.

Sometime after midnight, after the champagne was popped and the streamers thrown, everything flowed in reverse: the women entered the magic bathroom and exited once again, this time ready for the outside.

But now I knew: the glint in their eye, the confetti in their hair, and some glitter on their cheek—they embraced their magical winter lives.

They were North Shore women.

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FINDING her BEET Molly Yeh thrives in the North

WRITTEN BY BETH DOOLEY PHOTOGRAPHY BY ASHLEY MOYNA SCHWICKERT, STUDIO MOYNA WINTER 2025 | 99

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n a brilliant autumn afternoon, under the wide blue prairie sky, I drove up to a white clapboard farmhouse ringed with tall trees. I was in East Grand Forks, Minnesota, at the HQ of Molly Yeh. Star of Food Network’s “Girl Meets Farm,” creator of the blog “my name is yeh,” author of four cookbooks—including “Molly on the Range” (2016) which catapulted her into the national spotlight, and her latest, “Sweet Farm!”

(2025)—and owner of Bernie’s, a local farm-to-table bakery and café.

Molly greeted me warmly, welcoming me into her family room/ kitchen. The space was strewn with picture books, stuffed toys, and a toddler-sized teddy bear leaning against the couch, while handprints, kids’ drawings, and family photos decorated the refrigerator. She and her husband, Nick Hagen, clearly embrace life with their two young girls, Bernie, 5, and Ira, 2.

Dressed in jeans and a pink- and red-striped sweater, bright as her signature sprinkles, Molly is a natural beauty: tall and slender with long glossy black hair and glowing complexion. She took a seat on a kitchen stool, and we chatted casually while a make-up artist refined what appeared, to me, perfection.

We soon moved into her studio kitchen, built to keep work and home separate. It’s here that Molly tests recipes, shoots photos, and films her TV series. It’s scattered with the same colorful knick-knacks that evoke her kid-friendly farmhouse vibe. On camera, Molly is as genuine, calm, and encouraging as she is in person. On both her show and in her books, no matter how many steps the recipe calls for or how involved the cooking techniques are, Molly explains them all in a soft, confident tone, tossing in a few jokes all the while. But underneath that poise and culinary acumen is a creative businesswoman of discipline and determination, one who leads a thriving food enterprise in our remote corner of the country.

That discipline began while growing up in suburban Chicago, the daughter of a Jewish mom and a Chinese dad. Their home was filled with music, and Molly went on to Juilliard as a classical percussionist, performing with orchestras around the world and playing at Lincoln Center. After graduation, she explored the New York City food scene— the restaurants, food trucks, delis, and bars. She started “blogging for fun” to share her adventures of the meals and chefs she met and the recipes she developed, expertly styling and photographing them to share on social media.

That passion became her profession when she and Nick, also Juilliard-trained, sought a simpler and calmer life by moving to Nick’s home in East Grand Forks. Nick joined his dad farming sugar beets and wheat, while Molly earned her pastry chops working the night shift at Dakota Harvest Bakers. Ironically, it was the kind of job she’d been denied in New York City for lack of training and experience. The bakery was known for its artisan breads, scratch-made cookies and sweets, and wonderful sandwiches.

After Dakota Harvest closed, she and Nick opened Bernie’s— named for their oldest daughter—in 2022. “The restaurant gave me the chance to do something different. I came here as an outsider, so I could see all of the good things other people take for granted. Our menu focuses on local cuisine, showing how special it is,” she says. This includes hotdish: “I wanted to show it through a different perspective. I would like to think I brought fresh eyes to it, to show how the cuisine here is awesome…I’m a hotdish convert.”

Bernie’s menu puts Molly’s quirky Jewish-Asian dishes into play with the same attention to beauty and detail she gives to her show and 100 | NORTH

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“I think moving to a small town in the North is not for everybody, but it was for me.”

– MOLLY YEH

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photography. There’s the taste of her Jewish heritage in her potato challah, mandel bread, and coconut macaroons; the Scandinavian sensibilities of Nick’s family origins shine in cardamom buns, smoked salmon, and soft-boiled egg open-faced sandwiches; All-American winners such as a salami, ham, and havarti-stuffed Wondersub; and of course, hotdish specials are always crowned with tater tots: Chinese hotdish, harissa chickpea hotdish, Passover brisket hotdish, and of course, chicken and wild rice hotdish.

As staples of the North, hotdishes and cookie salads were introduced to Molly by family and friends at potlucks. When her sister-inlaw said she was bringing a salad to a work gathering, “I thought, ‘Good, there will be piles of greens,’ but instead, that ‘salad’ was a jumble of broken cookies in pudding and whipped cream. It blew me away. I thought, ‘this is a salad?’ But cookie salads are fun if you can get past the fact that they don’t involve vegetables.” She adds, “Cookie salad is like hotdish, it’s a great way to make use of what’s left from a previous meal. At Bernie’s we use our delicious day-old cookies. Nothing gets wasted.”

Molly fully embraces her life on this northern farm, where she preserves produce and adopts Nick’s family traditions as well as her own: “Living up here, with such a short growing season, we really appreciate fresh vegetables and make good use of everything. I’ve developed an affinity for pickled vegetables. It’s just what we do. It connects us back to the older generations who had to can and put things up…there is

something so special about preserving that heritage.” She continues, “we always have lefse rolled up with butter and sugar at our holiday dinner tables. Nick’s aunt has this great recipe for blotkake, a fluffy cream cake.

We had a Norwegian blood sausage-making party shortly after Nick and I got married. That was an eye-opening experience,” she laughs.

As Molly finished filling a fist-sized, perfectly round pistachio sandwich cookie (see recipe on page 105), Nick entered the studio and snatched one off the pan. He is tall and lean with rangy good looks and a crooked smile and was covered in a veil of dust from his fields. “Nick, do you really have to wear that?” Molly lightly chided, noting his beaten leather hat with its rumpled rim. Just then, Ira appeared, sleepily reaching over to Nick for a hug before being carried upstairs for a nap. She welcomes the interruptions and enjoys the variety and richness of her daily life—as everyone steps to the beat of this very sweet beet farm.

We moved from Molly’s studio out into the golden afternoon light sifting through the tall trees. As we picked the last of the cherry tomatoes tangled with the fading herbs in her garden, she concluded, “I think moving to a small town in the North is not for everybody, but it was for me.”

Molly’s life and work nourishes our desire for comfort and goodness and community. And despite, or perhaps because of this remote northern location, the Molly Yeh brand—the blog, cookbooks, TV show, restaurant—thrives.

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PISTACHIO SANDWICH COOKIES

by Molly Yeh from “Sweet Farm!”

These are basically a pistachio variety of homemade Nutter Butters.

You could do your morning weight workout with these heavy cookies and promptly balance it all out by eating the cookies. But it would be worth it, obviously, for the chew and the nuttiness and the big, satisfying mouthful. These are cookies that mean it. You could make this recipe with other nuts, but the love story between the pistachios and creamy lemon filling here is real. Add to it the pretty green color in both the cookie and the nuts around the filling and you’ve got A-plus tone-ontone aesthetic.

MAKES 14 BIG SANDWICH COOKIES COOKIES • 1 cup (226 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature • 1 cup (200 grams) plus 6 tablespoons (75 grams) granulated sugar, divided • 1 cup (200 grams) packed light brown sugar • 2 large eggs • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract • ½ teaspoon pure almond extract • 1 cup (128 grams) finely ground unsalted roasted pistachios (if you only have salted, reduce the added salt to 1 teaspoon) • 3½ cups (455 grams) all-purpose flour • 2 teaspoons baking soda • 1½ teaspoons kosher salt FILLING AND ASSEMBLY • 1 cup (226 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature • ½ cup (64 grams) finely ground unsalted roasted pistachios (if using salted, reduce the added salt to just a pinch) • 2 cups (240 grams) powdered sugar • 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt • Zest of ½ lemon • ½ teaspoon pure almond extract • About ¼ cup (32 grams) coarsely or finely ground pistachios, for rolling

PREHEAT the oven to 375 degrees F. Line 2 sheet pans with parchment paper.

IN a stand mixer fitted with a paddle, combine the butter, 1 cup (200 grams) of the granulated sugar, and the brown sugar and mix on medium until creamy and combined, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition, followed by the vanilla and almond extracts, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed to ensure that everything combines evenly. Stop the mixer and sprinkle in the pistachios and flour. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt evenly over the pistachios and flour and give the ingredients a rough little whisk to combine, then turn the mixer on low to incorporate the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.

PLACE the remaining 6 tablespoons (75 grams) granulated sugar in a shallow bowl or rimmed plate. Scoop out rounded 2-tablespoon (50 gram) balls, roll them in the sugar to coat, and place on the prepared sheet pans, 3 inches apart, spacing out 7 cookies per pan. (You’ll need to bake these in batches.) Flatten to a ½-inch height with a fork to create a crosshatch pattern.

BAKE until very lightly browned; begin checking for doneness at 9 minutes. Let cool on the pans for 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. For the best results, bake one pan at a time in the center of the oven. If you’re short on time, you can bake two pans at a time, on the upper-middle and lower-middle racks, switching each pan to the other rack and rotating the pans 180 degrees a little over halfway through the baking time.

TO make the filling, in a stand mixer fitted with a paddle, combine the butter, pistachios, powdered sugar, salt, and lemon zest and mix on low until you’re confident the sugar won’t fly everywhere, then gradually increase the speed to medium high and continue to mix until smooth and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the almond extract and mix to combine.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed to ensure that everything combines evenly.

SPREAD or pipe the undersides of half the cookies with a thick layer of filling going almost all the way to the edges and sandwich with the underside of the remaining cookies, pressing so the filling smooshes to the edges. Roll the edges in the ground pistachios.

STORE in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week or so.

Unbaked balls of dough that have been rolled in sugar can be stored in an airtight container in the freezer for up to 3 months. Bake from frozen and add a few minutes to the baking time.

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SAUNA NIRVANA A ROUND L A K E S UP E R IOR On a 750-mile road trip through the heart of sauna culture in the United States, a writer searches for the perfect combination of steam, heat, and cold WRITTEN BY STEPHANIE PEARSON, NEW YORK TIMES PHOTOGRAPHY NEXT PAGE BY ETHAN SCHULTZ OF SHOT X SCHULTZ, PAGE 111 ANGELA JO PHOTOGRAPHY

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I

t is never a good idea to pause between a 194-degree sauna and the mind-bending frigidity of Lake Superior in February. As sweat cools on skin, the rational mind kicks in. Why submit the body to such unrelenting shock, it asks. I know this voice well.

Yet here I am, on a cobblestone beach in Grand Marais, Minn., with precious heat steaming off my head, pausing to contemplate the wave-sculpted ice that appears to be growing toward the sky like stalagmites.

By the time the lapping waves hit my calves, my feet are already numb. The air temperature is 30 degrees Fahrenheit, a heat wave for February. So, I take the plunge, submerging myself into the 34-degree water long enough to feel the full-body electric tingle before hurrying back to the warm embrace of Sisu + Löyly Nordic Sauna (its Finnish name translates to “Grit + Steam”). With a red exterior and a dramatic perch on a jagged rock ledge above the lake, this 90-minute, $86 private experience makes me feel like I’ve been transported to a spa on the Baltic Sea. Back in the sauna I ladle water onto the electric stove, which is a pile of rocks in a wire basket, and wait for the löyly to wash over me, relaxing every muscle. As I take in the bruised sky above a slate-gray winter lake, framed like a painting by the picture window, I realize that if I’m going to make it through this 750-mile-long, sauna-hopping road-trip, I’m going to need to drink more water.

THE SAUNA BOOM The culture of sauna — the only commonly used Finnish word in the English language — is exploding in the United States. The U.S. sauna market is projected to grow to $526 million by 2028, up from $390 million in 2023, according to the market research firm Technavio.

Steam baths have always been popular in Minnesota, where I live.

Long before it was a state, the Ojibwe created sweat lodges for purification. And when Scandinavian immigrants settled here in the 1800s they brought sauna culture with them. My great-grandfather emigrated from Sweden to Minnesota in 1883. My family’s sauna has stood for more than half a century along the shoreline of Lake Vermilion, a 62-squaremile body of water known for its massive muskies.

There’s still some question about the health benefits that saunas provide, but one would be hard-pressed to find anyone in the upper Midwest who does not believe in the life-giving properties of the hot-cold, one-two punch, especially the ever-expanding cadre of saunapreneurs, like Duluth-based Justin Juntunen. With his business partner Joel Vikre, Mr. Juntunen created Cedar + Stone Nordic Saunas, a company with a tripartite business strategy: They host tens of thousands of people each year in their own sauna “experience” locations, including one on the rooftop of the Four Seasons Hotel in Minneapolis. They also design and build commercial sauna projects around North America. And they design and build private residential saunas that average $50,000 to $80,000 a pop.

My family’s old cabin sauna has gaps in the floorboards making it hard to heat in the winter. And I have yet to build or buy one for my own Duluth backyard. That’s why, one dark December night, I began to fantasize about a sauna-hopping adventure that would link the Scandi-chic saunas cropping up around Lake Superior. The world’s largest freshwater lake by surface area has become the beating heart of the hot-cold-seeking subculture in the United States.

I hatched a plan to make a U-shaped road trip around the westernmost tip of the lake, first hitting Sisu + Löyly in Grand Marais, then returning to Duluth, to steam in Mr. Juntunen’s floating sau108 | NORTH

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“... a magical space that emanates an earthy, real feeling, one in which people can have a life-changing experience.”

– GLENN AUERBACH, MINNESOTA’S ORIGINAL SAUNAPRENEUR AND THE HOST OF THE SAUNA TIMES PODCAST

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na in the harbor. The following morning, my partner, Brian, and I would drive to Bayfield, Wis., to sample the Sauna Haus at Wild Rice Retreat, a destination spa nestled in the woods. Finally, we’d drive to Michigan to Takka Superior, a solitary sauna sitting on the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula.

On Google, these places looked like Sistine Chapels of steam. But I wondered if they had what Glenn Auerbach, Minnesota’s original saunapreneur and the host of the Sauna Times podcast (he interviewed my parents in their cabin sauna) described to me as “spiritual patina.” It was a quality he told me that our family has in spades, “a magical space that emanates an earthy, real feeling, one in which people can have a life-changing experience.”

Considering Cedar + Stone, the most expensive sauna on this road trip cost $108 per person for a 90-minute public session, it had better at least be hot.

has come to löyly the rocks for us, using water laced with hot pepper essential oil.

“The biggest thing I try to drive home about sauna is to encourage people to listen to their bodies. There’s no right or wrong way to sauna.

It’s just a matter of what your body needs,” Ms. Decker explains before quietly exiting, leaving us to breathe in the spiced-up steam.

“You know how a frog gets slowly boiled alive?” says our new sauna companion, a woman originally from Brazil. “I think that would be me.”

Brian and I make a break for the plunge pool, speed walking down the pier in wool socks provided by Ms. Decker, dodging unsuspecting hotel guests and feeling like high school kids misbehaving at their parents’ pool party. I descend the ladder feeling the icy hot daggers pricking my skin, until I can’t stand it any longer, clambering out and shivering in the dark to make sure Brian, who is still bravely treading water, doesn’t die.

THE FLOATING SAUNA The reigning crown jewel in Cedar + Stone’s growing inventory of community saunas is built atop a 40,000-pound barge that floats in a small slip off the Duluth Harbor adjacent to the parking lot of Pier B Resort.

It looks like an upscale Ikea toy boat, with sleek lines, a rooftop deck with jumping platform, and a back deck where sauna-goers can chill out. Roughly 50 yards down the pier is an enclosed plunge pool with a circulating pump that keeps the water from icing over and two ladders that descend into the frigid harbor water.

Inside the sauna, which comfortably fits 10, there are two powerful Iki Finnish stoves with a window to their fiery innards. Their steampunk look matches the industrial surroundings. Brian and I enjoy the 200-degree heat in silence, basking in the glow of the city lights through ample windows and feeling the sway of the barge, propelled by winds gusting up to 20 m.p.h. outside. We are soon joined by a couple from Minneapolis on holiday and Jordan Decker, the sauna guide who

SAUNA CHIC I sleep well that night and am still so relaxed the next morning that I forget to make coffee for our drive to Bayfield.

Our next stop, Sauna Haus, is in the middle of the 100-acre Wild Rice Retreat designed by David Salmela, a Minnesota architect renowned for his modernist Scandinavian style. Guests stay in one of three room configurations, all of which have light wood interiors and oversized windows overlooking the mixed hardwood forest and they can choose from a myriad of retreats like the “Winter Generative Writing Adventure” with Pam Houston. (When we visited, the resort was offering day passes to the sauna for $20 a person, though it now is open only to guests; a two-night Resort Stay package for two starts at $758, with retreats extra.)

We make a beeline straight for the sauna, a stand-alone building that resembles a Finnish farmhouse. With wide, long benches, the sauna is large enough to host an intimate hot yoga class, but it’s midmorning

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and we have the place to ourselves. Through the small window there’s a distant view of Lake Superior and the electric stove is maxing out at 150 degrees. The warmth feels calming, but it’s not nearly hot enough to make a run for the lake.

That’s good because, while Wild Rice is adjacent to Lake Superior, it sits atop a steep cliff. Jumping into the lake would be a one-way experience. Instead, Brian and I cool off in Adirondack chairs clustered around a fireplace, enjoying the silence of the woods. Maybe it’s partially the bright sunshine on a bluebird day in early February, but the world feels brighter after a 9:45 a.m. sauna.

THE SAUNA AT THE TOP OF THE PENINSULA To drive an additional 215 miles to the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula, which juts like a hitchhiking thumb into Lake Superior, merely to take a sauna seems off-kilter. So, we make a day of it, stopping to Nordic ski at Active Backwoods Retreat, a trail system near the Upper Peninsula town of Ironwood with almost 47 miles of groomed trails.

After skiing, we stop for the night at The Vault Hotel, a cleverly rehabbed boutique hotel that was once home to the Houghton National Bank, established in 1887, in the college town of Houghton. It has a basement speakeasy with thousands of pennies scattered below the glass-topped bar, hand-carved ice in the cocktails and mellow jazz in the air.

Our sauna appointment is at 2:30 the next afternoon, but we rise early and drive 48 miles to ski the more than six miles of Nordic trails at Keweenaw Mountain Lodge, a historic resort built under the Works Progress Administration in 1934. But a bad year for snow and the freeze-thaw cycle have turned the groomed ski trails into a block of ice that would be suicidal to attempt.

When we reach our last stop, Takka Superior (“Takka” means fireplace in Finnish), three miles west of Copper Harbor near the tip of the

peninsula, we meet our sauna host Megan East, who is wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with the words “Cold Water Swim Club.”

“Our last guests jumped in the lake eight times!” she says, leading us down a private path to the sauna, which opened in August 2023 and was so popular that the owners Jason and Lynn Makela decided to keep it open all winter despite closing their adjacent nine-cottage resort, Fresh Coast Cabins, for the season. Then they collaborated with Mr. Juntunen to grow their Upper Peninsula sauna empire to include a sauna experience in Hancock, which is just across the Portage Lake Lift Bridge from Houghton. Their urban addition, Takka Portage, opened in time for Halloween.

Takka Superior, which has a changing room, an interior cooling off area, and a sliding-glass door leading to a deck, sits so close to Lake Superior that waves from winter storms splash on the full-size window that frames the jagged shoreline and lake beyond. It offers private, $65 per person 75-minute sauna sessions.

Inside it’s 201 degrees Fahrenheit, the stove stoked with wood cut on the Makelas’ 23-acre property. The sauna temperature boils my blood in the best possible way and I’m ready to dive into Lake Superior after about 15 minutes of steaming.

To cross the ice-covered rocks to the shoreline, they’ve provided us each with a trekking pole and neoprene bootees that we use to access a perfectly round natural wading pool, formed by rocks that have been sculpted by bashing waves, then bridged by a layer of ice. The air temperature is 36 degrees, two degrees warmer than the water. I lower myself into the shallow water and linger as long as I can, lasting less than a minute.

The lake is so calm, the breeze is so light, and the sun is so brilliant in the blue sky that it feels like a surreal Midwest summer day. On the spiritual patina scale, this sauna rates about a nine. It would be a perfect 10 if our sauna never had to end.

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NORTH SHORE RETREAT Lake Superior views from Eastridge Estates

PHOTOGRAPHY BY LAURA JEAN MEDIA

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127 MONTAUK LANE DULUTH, MN 55804 Beds 4 | Baths 4 | Gar. 2 | Sq. ft. 5,135 $2,490,000 Lake Superior Views! Perched high above Lake Superior on a beautifully wooded, 4-acre lot in the coveted Eastridge Estates, this extraordinary home by SALA Architects masterfully blends natural beauty with sophisticated design. The interior boasts a sleek open floor plan anchored by a massive stone fireplace and wall-to-wall windows that capture breathtaking lake views from nearly every room. A gourmet kitchen equipped with Sub-Zero and Wolf appliances creates an entertainer’s paradise, complemented by a full pantry and coffee bar. The walkout lower level is a retreat unto itself, featuring a dedicated movie room, full exercise room, wine storage, bar, and a private guest suite. A custom red cedar sauna adds a luxurious touch. The upper level hosts three bedrooms, with the primary suite offering an ensuite bathroom and private deck. Outside you’ll find extensive landscaping, outdoor spaces, and hiking trails. Constructed by Bruckelmyer Brothers, this home is unparalleled in both quality and design. This home is more than a residence—it’s a timeless work of art harmonizing with the magnificent North Shore landscape.

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MODERN LUXURY A David Salmela treasure in Hartley Estates

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555 MARSHALL ST DULUTH, MN 55803 Beds 5 | Baths 4 | Gar. 3 | Sq. ft. 5,334 $1,900,000 Experience modern luxury in this extraordinary 5-bedroom, 4-bath Hartley Estates home designed by renowned Duluth architect David Salmela. Aptly named “Double Cantilever,” this masterpiece seamlessly blends with its private, wooded surroundings at the edge of a 700-acre nature preserve. Featuring Salmela’s signature style of clean lines and open spaces, the home boasts natural materials like zinc, slate, cedar, and maple. Floor-to-ceiling windows flood the interior with light and showcase breathtaking views from every room. The main level offers a spacious foyer, office, bedroom, ¾ bath, dining room, living room, and open kitchen, perfect for entertaining. A separate wing includes a guest suite with a private balcony. Upstairs, find four bedrooms with skylights, including a luxurious three-room master suite. A partially below-grade recreational area features a wet bar, entertainment center, and workout space. With a 3-car garage and heated workshop, this home combines serenity and quality in a prime location.

Tracy Ramsay | RE/MAX Results 218-390-6747 | tracy@tracyramsay.com tracyramsay.com

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4410 LONDON RD, DULUTH, MN 55804

3725 N RIDGE RD, DULUTH, MN 55804

Beds 4 | Baths 5 | Gar. 2 | Sq. Ft. 3,557 SOLD: $1,750,000

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1912 CHINOOK DR, DULUTH, MN 55811

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Beds 5 | Baths 4 | Gar. 3 | Sq. Ft. 3,123 SOLD: $1,000,000

Beds 4 | Baths 3 | Gar. 4+ | Sq. Ft. 3,123 SOLD: $980,000

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1922 VALHALLA DR, DULUTH, MN 55811

3840 E SUPERIOR ST, DULUTH, MN 55804

Beds 4 | Baths 4 | Gar. 2 | Sq. Ft. 3,545 SOLD: $835,000

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Beds 4 | Baths 3 | Gar. 4 | Sq. Ft. 2,462 SOLD: $780,000

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Beds 4 | Baths 4 | Gar. 3 | Sq. Ft. 4,148 SOLD: $725,000

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Tracy Ramsay + Partners | RE/MAX Results | 218-390-6747 | tracy@tracyramsay.com | tracyramsay.com WINTER 2025 | 121

1557 ROCKY POINT RD TWO HARBORS, MN 55616

$3,999,000 BD. 4 | BA. 5 | SQ. FT. 4,587 | GAR. 2

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Nestled on a sprawling 62-acre estate with over 2,000 feet of accessible shoreline, this breathtaking property is a unique blend of rustic charm and refined craftsmanship. The shoreline is a natural masterpiece, featuring a pebble beach, dramatic cliffside views, and striking ledge rock formations, offering endless opportunities to explore, relax, and enjoy nature’s beauty. At the heart of the property lies the stunning 4,587 square-foot main residence with 2 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms. Guest home is an additional 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Designed and built within a meticulously restored barn frame from the 1600s, this home exudes history and character with hand-hewn white oak timbers sourced from central Ohio.

This property is an exceptional retreat, offering both modern comforts and historical allure, all set against the serene backdrop of untouched shoreline and expansive landscapes.

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6 CROCUS HILL | ST. PAUL, MN 55102 BD. 8 | BA. 8 | SQ. FT. 9,188 | GAR. 3

$1,999,000 Located in Crocus Hill, this iconic Georgian Revival estate is a stunning example of the visionary work of renowned architect Clarence Johnson. This remarkable home had extensive renovations in 2023 which seamlessly blend the rich history and elegance with modern comfort and sophistication, offering a unique living experience.

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The North is home to Makers and Builders

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PARTING THOUGHTS

T HE TOP O GR A P H Y of MOUR NING On losing the Lutsen Lodge & other beloved places WRITTEN BY ALYSSA FORD | ILLUSTRATION BY MIKE TESTER

A year ago, the Lutsen Lodge burned to cinder and ash. Nearly the entire compound was eaten up in the flames–the Mesabi Red-painted timbers, the hand-carved corner posts, the stuffed polar bear in the lobby, the whole grand place.

But context is everything. And it’s important to remember that before there was a Lutsen Lodge, there was nothing but trees and flowers on that bit of pre-Cambrian metamorphic rock near the mouth of the Poplar River. For thousands of years, that part of the North Shore existed without any kind of human-built structure. From its beginnings in 1885 as a fishing camp, the most recent iteration of the Lutsen Lodge came along in 1952, and now it’s gone again. In the great cosmic play, the whole Lutsen Lodge-era was but a blink of inconsequence, a micro-moment of staggering insignificance.

It didn’t feel insignificant, though. Not to us mortals, who are also just flickers in the time continuum. And so after the Lutsen Lodge burned, we steered our cars toward the scene of the catastrophe, causing serious backups on Highway 61 for days after the fire. We went online and posted our old photos, the digital equivalent of lit candles and memorial plushies. We posted watercolor paintings of the resort, blurry fishing snapshots, mock-terror selfies with the polar bear. We wrote about dinners in the pub and checkers games in the lobby and agate-hunting expeditions on the beach. We described the loss as “devastating” and “heart-breaking.” We said the hurt felt like a “body blow” and a “gut punch.” We took it hard because even though the Lutsen Lodge existed for just a millisecond, it was our millisecond.

The ivory tower has a fancy term for this powerful connection.

Geographers and their academic kin call it “place attachment.” In 1950, French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs wrote that people “may well be more sensitive to a certain street being torn up, or a certain building or home being razed, than to the gravest national, political or religious events.” The same year, philosopher Hannah Arendt observed that Germans were seeking out and sending picture postcards of their towns, cities, and villages as they appeared before WWII. Even as

thin paper reminders, Germans needed their cathedrals, markets, and bridges as they were, back before the bombs of war wiped them from the landscape.

At mid-century, academics like Halbwachs argued that old buildings anchor people in time. With their continued presence, stalwart places create a comforting veneer of safe sameness. Contemporary scholars, though, have a much more radical view. “Place,” writes urban studies professor Rebecca Madgin, “is not just ‘space’ or a location but rather the foundation stone of individual and collective life. It is an inherently emotional construct.” Preservationist Thompson Mayes put it like this in his book “Why Old Places Matter”: “Old buildings help us understand deeper layers of our existence.” Academics say that the word “nostalgia” no longer gets at the truth of the thing and so they’ve come up with a new word: “solastalgia.” It’s the feeling of nostalgia, but deeper, with more layers of distress and pain. It’s the jarring feeling we get when a loved place is threatened or lost.

If solastalgia is real, then the burning of the Lutsen Lodge is more than an unmooring, it’s a breaking. Not just at the heart-level but also at the community-level and the human-level. And it means we should be even more aware of the psychic fallout when we do things like tear down the Border Theatre in International Falls or give beloved historic schools the wrecking-ball treatment. But there’s still time to save places like these. In Duluth, the Armory is moving toward achieving its next life as the Armory Arts and Music Center.

As for the Lutsen Lodge, the current owners say they will rebuild, as much as is feasible and possible, considering the dearth of massive logs. But even the most stunningly accurate replica must start empty.

The storehouse of social memory can only be filled by generations of hands on bannisters, feet on tile, laughter echoing through the hallways.

There's a fancy term for that, too. It’s the Latin phrase genius loci, which means “spirit of place.” One Lutsen Lodge mourner on Facebook put it plainly: “I don’t think it can ever be replaced no matter how hard they try to replicate the lodge. The truth is: it’s gone.”

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