Uptown Minneapolis house rich with elaborate wood carvings lists for $849K
The home, built in 1906, is a prime example of decorative dark wood features that were popular at the turn of the 20th century, and that look might be making a comeback.
The Minnesota Star Tribune In an era where the monochromatic “Millennial gray” color scheme has conquered so many homes’ interior design, the dark and elaborately carved wood decor in this Minneapolis house feels boldly different.
Cris DuBord’s 7,405-square-foot Lowry Hill East home is filled with all sorts of elaborate ornamentation popular among affluent homeowners in 1906, when the house was built. Penny tile, stained glass, an engraved fireplace grate with a hummingbird design.
But most prominent are the dark wood carvings that embellish the beamed ceilings, crown moldings, wainscoting and door and window frames. They’re also present in the ornamental plate rails with grooves to display dishes and the large fireplace mantel adorned with what Minneapolis professional wood-carver Erik Wyckoff called “the scrolly stuff.”
“It’s really kind of a feast for the eyes to see all the different styles, all the original things that were still in place,” DuBord said. “It is an absolute love-at-first-sight kind of house.”
She enjoyed being in the house after buying it in 2018. But she is no longer living with her former husband, and their four kids have left home. So DuBord downsized to a home in Edina and listed the Minneapolis house at $849,000.
The house has six bedrooms, four on the second floor and two in the attic. There’s a bathroom on each floor.
The main floor also holds a mud room; large living, kitchen and dining rooms; and a music or sitting room. There’s a grand staircase leading to the second floor along with a stairway at the back of the house that climbs up to the attic.
The primary bedroom on the second floor includes a little bump-out room likely designed to hold a baby’s crib or bassinet. DuBord didn’t need it for that purpose — her kids were teenagers at the time — so she put a TV in it. That helped turn the room, which also has a fireplace, into “a grown-up’s sitting room, with an office, TV room and reading room,” she said.
The couple then picked a different room for their primary bedroom.
The basement is partly finished, and was a place for the DuBords to watch TV, do homework and share a pizza.
“It was home to so many sleepovers, so many fun times for the kids, because it’s giant and has a kitchenette,” DuBord said.
The attic, where two of the kids had their bedrooms, appears to have once been servants’ quarters. The teenagers loved the space, DuBord said.
“It’s like having your own apartment up there, with its own bathroom and giant rooms with views of the city,” she said.
The house has a small front yard but a large backyard, mostly paved as patio space. Around the patio, the DuBords “landscaped the heck out of it” with perennial borders, Duboard said. They also professionally installed twinkling lights above the patio.
“It’s very private and really kind of magical in the summer,” she said.
Other improvements included updating the bathrooms, adding new insulation that prevents ice dams and refinishing the floors.
The house has a three-car garage and is within easy walking distance of restaurants, shops and stores along nearby Hennepin and Lyndale avenues in Uptown, she said.
The home’s original occupant, Charles F. Osborne, co-owned the Osborne-Clark Lumber Co. that professed to be “distributors of everything in hardwood,” per an ad at the time, said Kathy Kullberg, who has led walking tours of the area.
Although elaborate wood carving is a feature in a lot of mansions upper-class Minnesotans built around the turn of the 20th century, Osborne’s profession could partly explain the abundance of a particularly valued kind of wood in his home.
The house has a lot of “figured lumber,” or wood with an attractive grain pattern, said David M. Smith of Fresh Air Finishers.
“It’s interesting that the home was built by a lumberman; this would explain the selection of some of the most figured flamed birch I have seen in a Minnesota home,” said Smith, whose company specializes in the restoration of historic woodwork and wood finishes.
Flamed or flame has a curved pattern resembling fire. A dark stain helps further accentuate the carving, Smith said.
Intricate European designs with a lot of carved wood also likely inspired the home’s style.
“At that time, there was a huge influx of highly trained immigrant labor,” Wyckoff said. “Really highly skilled woodworkers and wood-carvers from Germany, Italy, Switzerland.”
Some designers and decorating magazines have indicated complex carved wood, even in darker hues, is coming back en vogue after years of sleek streamlined looks and blond wood.
“Interior designers at the really high end always need to be one step ahead of the mass market,” said Wyckoff, who works on wood-carving jobs throughout the country. “They pushed minimalism to its outside edge. On both coasts, they’re moving back to highly detailed design. Maximalism is in again.”
Correction: A previous version of this story misattributed a quote. Wood-carver Erik Wyckoff:said "At that time, there was a huge influx of highly trained immigrant labor. Really highly skilled woodworkers and wood-carvers from Germany, Italy, Switzerland.”
