Simple yet splendid Mission-style Kenwood home hits market for $1.25 million

When Richard Ihrig and Colleen Cooper purchased their Minneapolis home in the Kenwood neighborhood, they were impressed by its unique but effortless look.

"What drew me to it was its simplicity. It doesn't have that fussy ornamentation that sometimes obscures the basics such as the hardwood," said Ihrig. "I would call it a Mission-style home in the sense that it's less ornamental than Arts and Crafts and even Prairie-style homes for that matter."

While simple in style, the 1909 home had durable and well-thought-out features such as deep windows, thick doors, solid woodwork and stucco siding.

After living in near Cedar Lake and Lake of the Isles for more than three decades, the husband-wife duo recently listed their four-story, 3,890 square-feet, five-bedroom, four-bathroom abode, which includes a lower-level apartment.

Other amenities include an eat-in kitchen and a light-filled mezzanine (used as an office) that leads to an open top-floor space. The home also features a sunroom, balcony and fenced-in yard.

"The home is a beautifully preserved Mission-style house filled with restored quarter-sawn oak and some of the most incredible large, original windows I have seen," said listing agent Michael Olafson. "Apart from the living spaces on the main level, my favorite spot in the house is the [top] floor, which consists of one large wood-paneled room with windows along all four walls. A homeowner could use this space for virtually any purpose."

The house was built by builder S.W. Heath for about $14,000, according to permit entry cards from the Minneapolis Central Library. The permits also revealed that it was altered in the 1920s to expand the front porch and add an attached garage.

Other owners also made upgrades to the home, as have the current homeowners. But one thing has remained the same — no one took any of their projects too far.

"The thing about the house is no one had wrecked it," Ihrig said.

That may be because the house was "unusual for a house of that era," he said, in that it had an open floorplan, with the dining room, living room, sunroom and foyer flowing together. "It makes it a wonderful place to entertain," he said. "That floor plan is modern in that sense. Often in that era, houses were built more compartmentalized."

While Ihrig and Cooper have made updates over the years, they were always careful to maintain the simple aesthetic.

When they expanded the kitchen by removing an adjacent passageway, they created a custom eat-in chef's kitchen.

"We had maple square cabinets made to be faithful to the architectural style, right down to the knobs," Ihrig said.

In addition to refinishing the quarter-sawn white oak on the main floor, staircase and upstairs bedroom, materials brought into the home were fit to match. A large bathtub was updated too, and a white oak surround was built around it.

Cabinetry installed in the mezzanine was made from quarter-sawn white oak. Quarter-sawn red oak was installed in a top-floor room the owners call "the treehouse" for its wrap-around windows, which offer a bird's eye views of oak and maple trees in the yard.

"All of that was done by carefully selected craftspeople," Ihrig said. "That was necessary to make the rooms faithful to the rest of the house."

In 1987, when they moved in, Ihrig and Cooper found boxes in the basement left behind by previous owners. They ended up being a treasure trove.

"We found pieces such as light fixtures and knobs and some of the quarter-sawn oak that we could use to be faithful to its origins," Ihrig said.

The couple found that the house easily accommodated their family. When their kids were young, they had a nanny. So they built an apartment with its own kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and sitting area off of the garage.

Now that they're spending less time in the home, Ihrig and Cooper have decided to sell.

"We've purchased a condo up on Mount Curve, but we also have a home in Wisconsin, a small farm on a lake. We're sort of evolving toward that being our family abode," Ihrig said. "It's time to entrust it to someone else."

And if the next homeowners share an appreciation for the era of the home, it will be mission accomplished.

"You're walking into a house as if it were 1909," Ihrig said. "Obviously there were updates ... but almost exclusively anything that was done was done keeping with the simplicity of the house."

Michael Olafson (mikeo@lakesarearealty.com; 612-229-5910) and Gary Bennett (gary@lakesarearealty.com; 612-229-6972) of Lakes Area Realty have the $1.25 million listing.