Demolished Pillsbury mansion's contents to be sold this weekend in Minneapolis

Southways, the century-old Pillsbury mansion on Lake Minnetonka, was demolished last week. But its contents will likely live on in homes around the Twin Cities.

Items removed from the 32,000-square-foot estate — including furniture, outdoor furniture and accessories — will be offered for sale at an Uptown consignment and antique store starting Friday morning.

Doors open at 10 a.m. but you might want to get there early, say 7 a.m., advised Jonathan Campbell, manager of H&B Gallery.

"There's a lot of interest," he said. "We've been getting calls all day long."

Numbers to get into the sale will be issued at 9:30 a.m.; the consignment store has to limit the number of people it can let enter at one time, Campbell said.

Items for sale will include approximately 40 pieces of furniture removed from the mansion, including an 18th-century English four-pedestal dining table ­­— the most valuable single item, according to Campbell — and 16 Georgian-style 19th-century dining chairs. Also for sale in H&B's Terrace Showroom will be benches, tables, outdoor furniture and urns, as well as two carousel rocking horses, and even what's described as a "Guthrie Theater magical doll's house."

Kaye Monroe, a dealer at Loft Antiques in Minneapolis, agreed that interest in the Southways estate sale is likely to be high. Antiques and collectibles associated with large well-known Minnesota businesses and their founding families are popular with buyers, she said.

"If you can say, 'This is from the Pillsbury mansion,' that will bring out a lot of people to see it. This stuff is special," she said. "They're not going to have any problem selling things."

While the furniture and other pieces for sale came from the Pillsbury mansion, they are not former belongings of the Pillsbury family, who built the mansion in 1919 and used it as their summer home for many years. The items being offered for sale belong to the mansion's more recent owners, James and Mary Jundt, who purchased it in 1992 and undertook an extensive renovation.

Karen Melvin, who photographed Southways for the 2010 book "Legendary Homes of Lake Minnetonka," recalled its furnishings at the time as "very high quality, the best of the best — the design and the weight of the furniture. If it's hard to lift, it's real furniture," she said.

The mansion's signature ironwork by American artisan Samuel Yellin, including an original metal door with a peacock motif, will not be part of the sale. Neither will the bronze fireplace door, also with a peacock motif, designed by his granddaughter Claire Yellin decades later.

"We wish we would have had more of the architectural stuff," said Campbell. "Those were removed." But custom fireplace tools, a bar cart and bench designed by Claire Yellin will be included, he said.

Other small items, not from Southways but added for the sale, will include jewelry (both fine and signed costume pieces), more than 150 vintage handbags and cosmetic compacts, said Campbell.

Sale hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sept. 7 and 8, and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 9. H&B Gallery is located at 2730 Hennepin Av., Minneapolis.

Kim Palmer • 612-673-4784 @Stribkimpalmer