Custom-crafted log home in northern Minnesota lists for $3.2 million; proceeds will go to charities

You can’t talk about the house on Thunder Lake without talking about Dennis Olsen.

For Olsen, who grew up in a low-income family and at one time lived in a $7-a-month apartment, the house was a dream. It’s a custom-crafted log house — well, at nearly 7,100 square feet, it’s actually more like a log mansion — in Remer, Minn., that sits on about 1.5 acres, including 107 feet of lakeshore.

In 2020, Olsen died of COVID-19, at age 80.

Earlier that year, he had established a charitable trust that has provided income for his wife, Darlene Higgins Olsen. When she sells the house, the proceeds will go to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Operation Smile, Shriners Children’s and Wounded Warrior Project.

Darlene, who is 73 and still has the couple’s homes in Blaine and Tonto Verde, Ariz., is ready to sell the Thunder Lake house. It is listed at just under $3.2 million.

The house was built over almost three years, between 2004 and 2006, by two Remer-area craftsmen, Ernie Wagenbach and Freddie Dahms. Olson helped, sanding each log. Darlene planned every detail of décor, saving clippings from decorating magazines in separate folders for each room.

“We spent a lot of time on a lot of things, there’s no doubt about it,” Darlene said.

The walls’ hand-hewn logs are cut in half and installed with half inside and half outside around a frame of 2 by 6 inches of lumber and insulation. The result is considered sturdier than a typical log cabin. Because the construction took awhile, the couple had a chance to make changes to their plan along the way. They added a porch, another bathroom, dormers to let in more light. They had a bonus room over the garage connected to the main house by a second-floor bridge, adding extra sleeping space to the main house’s three other bedrooms.

There’s a bunkhouse — a renovated cabin that was on the property when they bought it — that sleeps four. A heated pole barn serves as a “toy shed,” Dennis' term for a place to store his all-terrain vehicle, pontoon boat and handcrafted wooden sailboat.

The house’s living room has a 38-foot vaulted ceiling with a mostly glass wall on the lake side and a floor-to-ceiling fireplace. Darlene thought its flat granite stones give it a formal look.

“I knew I did not want the typical stones that are in a log house,” she said. “The two builders looked at me and said, ‘Really?’ And I said, ‘Really. This works with all of the décor in this particular area and it will look wonderful.’ For them, it was like putting a puzzle together. ... The guys would lay out pieces on the floor and they would put them in one by one.”

On the other side of the wall, the fireplace opens to the primary bedroom. That suite includes a walk-in closet and glass-block shower, as well as a loft that overlooks the bedroom and could be used as an office.

The kitchen has a double oven and a Sub-Zero refrigerator encased in the same cedar wood as the cabinets. The granite island has a wood extension with seating.

The main floor can seat 32 people, including 14 on a large-screened porch that opens to a lakeside deck the length of the house.

The lower level is a walk-out basement with floor-to-ceiling windows on the lake side. There’s a family room with a wet bar, whose counter is made of hardened lava. It also has another wood-burning fireplace (this one of rounded field stones), a sauna, two bedrooms and two more bathrooms.

The second floor has another bedroom, a bathroom and a loft office.

Throughout the house are decorative logs, some of them weight-bearing, that fan out at the base like the trees they once were. A newel post is a bent log, a log standing in the primary bathroom has branches for hanging towels.

The furnishings throughout the home — including its handmade furniture — as well as the dock are available to purchase separately.

Thunder Lake is a glacial lake, with deep, clear water and a restaurant on its shore.

“When you have the ability to go by boat to dinner it adds to the value,” said Carrie Lee, the Evolution Resort real estate agent representing the house. “The shoreline is hard sand with a level elevation. It gets deep fast, so you’ll never been limited in the size of boat you can put in at that dock.”

For Darlene, the house and charitable donations are Dennis' legacy.

“That’s very much what I wanted him to have, a legacy of giving,” she said. “He had a very soft heart.”

Carrie Lee of Evolution Resort Real Estate (218-820-4432, carrie@evolutionresorts.com) has the $3,199,999 listing.