Marielena Radecki remembers the big Crocus Hill house from her childhood, when her family lived a couple of blocks away. Built by an heir to the Theodore Hamm Brewing Co. fortune, the three-story house was often called “the limo house” because of all the fancy parties held there.
Fast forward to a couple of years ago, when Radecki and her husband, Joseph, moved back from the Chicago area to their hometown of St. Paul to care for her ailing mother. When they looked for a home, the limo house “just happened to pop up as available, and I thought, oh my gosh, that house has always intrigued me,” she said.
When the couple, who are now both 60, bought the house, they planned to make it a destination for family gatherings. “This was going to be where we’d all come and stay for the big holidays and birthdays,” Joseph said.
But Marielena’s mother died five weeks after they closed on the house, and the Radeckis decided to move back to Illinois. They have put the house on the market for just under $2 million.
The house was built in 1936 at the direction of Theodora “Pinkie” Hamm, granddaughter of Hamm’s Brewing Co. founder Theodore Hamm. She was married to William Lang, a St. Paul business executive.
The 9,188-square-foot Georgian Revival house on a 2-acre lot was designed by renowned St. Paul architect Clarence H. Johnston, whose other works include the Glensheen Mansion in Duluth, Northrop auditorium on the University of Minnesota campus, and the F. Scott Fitzgerald House in St. Paul.
The three-story house has eight bedrooms and eight bathrooms, two offices and two sets of stairs, including a grand curved front staircase with a brass railing. There’s also a finished basement, a sauna, a full workshop, an exercise room and a lot of almost 2 acres.
“Everyone laughs: ‘There’s only two of you in this house?‘” Marielena said. “But it doesn’t feel that big.”