Peter Hall, architect and preservationist, dies at 82

Peter Nelson Hall, an architect and visionary who in the 1970s helped kick-start the revitalization of the Minneapolis riverfront from a derelict industrial space to some of the city’s most sought-after and celebrated real estate, died April 16. He was 82.

A convivial raconteur who could draw crowds and promote a cause, Hall used his talents to bring attention to the many historic buildings along the Mississippi River that had fallen out of use by the 1960s, purchasing a southeast Minneapolis machine shop that he converted into the trend-setting restaurant Pracna on Main.

“It wasn’t about the building, it was about saving the area,” said Christine Hall, Hall’s first wife. Main Street was scheduled to become a truck route, she said, but the restaurant’s 1973 opening — and the Hall’s hosting of city fathers and others at the spot — was key to the revival of southeast Main Street as a destination for dining, entertainment, and riverfront living.

The Halls moved with their two young sons to Stillwater, where Hall took over the preservation of the city’s rundown freight house building near the St. Croix River. “We used to wish there were more restaurants along the river and so we bought the Freight House,” said Christine.

City records show Hall presented to the Stillwater Planning Commission in 1976 a renovation plan for the 200-foot-long limestone and brick structure. The Freight House — built in 1883, used as a passenger depot until 1955 and today home to a bustling restaurant of the same name near the center of the city’s riverfront — is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Hall returned to Minneapolis in the late 1970s with his second wife, Jennifer Bong, and lived in the so-called “industrial building” of the largely empty Washburn-Crosby Milling Complex overlooking the Mississippi River. The mill, shuttered since the 1960s, had been sold to a private owner when Hall struck an agreement to lease a portion of it and help promote its development.

“It was such a beautiful space facing the river,” said Bong, who also had a photo studio in the 12-story building. Hall was enchanted by the Mississippi, said Bong, and from their perch they could watch boats pass through the St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam or wake to the horn of the morning Amtrak train crossing the Stone Arch Bridge en route to Chicago. Their loft space combined a grand piano and large paintings with the 19th-century milling equipment left behind by the flour industry.

“It was magic. We were the only people living there in the beginning,” she said. They sometimes rode the freight elevator for fun, going up and down the 11 floors it served. Dancing in the rain on the building’s partly uncovered 12th floor was one of Hall’s fondest memories of life there, said Bong.

They sometimes drove to Stillwater to ply the St. Croix River in Hall’s boat, a 1930s Matthews Cruiser. The boat was named Spirit Island, a reference to the once-prominent landmark and sacred Dakota site below St. Anthony Falls that was destroyed by quarrying and dredging. Hall thought the Mississippi should be fully restored in Minneapolis with the return of Spirit Island and St. Anthony Falls, said Bong.

Hall maintained his Peter Nelson Hall Architecture office on a separate floor of the Washburn-Crosby mill. His employees included Sarah Susanka, of “The Not So Big House” books fame, and Tom Meyer, who later designed the award-winning Mill City Museum. The architects who trained at the University of Minnesota, as both Hall and Meyer did, were drawn to the river because in 1970s Minneapolis, “there was nobody else down there,” said Meyer. He first met Hall at a party above Pracna on Main, and several years later took a job with Hall’s office at the mill complex.

“We had this little cadre of people working there … There wasn’t another human being within a block of us in either direction,” said Meyer. With Hall as their ringleader, the architects showed visitors and potential clients the intrinsic value of the mill and its riverfront setting.

“Once anybody kind of looked at the river without seeing abandonment and maybe scariness, once you could kind of see the beauty of it, then there was excitement, too,” said Meyer. “And that’s what Peter shared with everybody.”

Hall rented spaces in the mill to artists, acting as a sort of landlord for the building’s owner, according to his son, Evan. Star Tribune columnist Barbara Flanagan, a booster of all things Minneapolis, made Hall a frequent interview subject and helped expand his influence. Parties at the mill building had artists mingling with prominent business owners, including John Cowles Jr., the former owner of the Star and Tribune newspaper company, and his wife, Sage Cowles, a dancer, who eventually opened a dance studio in the mill.

In 1984, Hall and Bong moved their family to a riverfront house on Marshall Street NE. where Hall could keep a boat on a dock. Hall later bought and renovated the creamery building in Maiden Rock, Wis., and lived in a house he had long owned there with a view of Lake Pepin.

“He was a really good storyteller,” said Evan. “He just loved engaging with other people and hearing their stories.”

Besides Evan, Hall is survived by his children Eric Hall, Corwin Hall and Kysa Lubovich; nine grandchildren, and one great-grandchild; his life partner Kathy McNay; and sisters Jean Hall and MaryAnn Holmberg.

A public celebration of his life will be held at 4:30 p.m. on May 31 at the Mill City Museum, 704 S. 2nd St., Minneapolis.