Twin Cities' gems of midcentury modern architecture will be on tour

In the late 1950s, when Golden Valley's remaining farmland was being developed into neighborhoods, Rosemary and Dick Thorsen bought a lot on Bassett Creek, intent on building a house for their growing family.

"We knew we needed an architect, and we liked Prairie style," recalled Rosemary. They admired the work of an architect who had designed a house for some friends, so they sought him out. Franz Gayl was a colorful German-born former Nazi paratrooper who later studied architecture at the University of Minnesota.

Gayl spent more than a year perfecting his design for the Thorsens' house, a split-level tucked into a hillside on a curve of the creek.

"It's set on the site in such a great way," said Karen Rue, an Edina Realty agent and board member of Docomomo Minnesota, a nonprofit group that is hosting a tour of the home, along with six other examples of midcentury modern design in the Twin Cities area.

The tour, an annual event, is a fund­raiser for Docomomo, as well as a way to promote appreciation and preservation of midcentury modern homes. This year's tour will be interactive, said Rue, with current and original owners in most of the homes to chat with tourgoers.

"I'm excited about that," she said. "Other years, we have had great homes, but you go in and out and don't meet the owners. This year, owners will be part of the tour to talk about living in and loving this type of home."

They'll also share insights about remodeling challenges they've faced, such as how to make updates while respecting the architectural integrity of the original home.

For example, when the Thorsens asked Gayl to design an indoor pool several years after moving in with their three young children, he dragged his feet, insisting that the addition would be too expensive.

"He said, 'Take the money and go to Europe,' " Rosemary recalled. But Gayl finally came up with a design, and the Thorsens got their pool.

Their picturesque Bassett Creek setting was a catalyst for Rosemary eventually becoming Golden Valley's first female mayor. Not long after the family moved in, the city proposed widening and straightening the creek, a plan the Thorsens opposed.

"It's such a lovely tributary of the Mississippi," Rosemary said. "We bought the lot because of its beauty." She became an activist, and organized a petition drive that successfully quashed the proposal. "That's how I got interested in local politics," she said.

She later served on the City Council and was elected mayor in 1979, serving two terms.

The Thorsens lived in their creekside dream home for more than three decades before selling it in 1994.

"I thought I would live there until they carried me out," Rosemary said. But maintaining the yard became too challenging for the empty nesters, who now live in a downtown Minneapolis condo.

"I still love the place," she said of their former home. She, her husband and their two daughters will all return for the tour.

Other homes on this year's tour include two additional neighboring homes in Golden Valley, three homes in St. Paul and one in Falcon Heights, in the University Grove neighborhood, an enclave of midcentury modern homes, many designed by University of Minnesota architecture professors.

Two of the houses on the tour were designed by prominent architects — one in the St. Anthony Park neighborhood by Carl Graffunder, who also designed Normandale Lutheran Church in Edina and Bethany Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, and the house in University Grove, which was designed by the renowned husband-wife duo Winston and Elizabeth Close.

That house, built in 1939, was completed not long after the couple started their firm and married — reportedly over their lunch hour. Elizabeth "Lisl" Close signed one of the drawings for the house with her maiden name, Scheu, noted Rue.

The house was cutting-edge for its era, with an open floor plan, organic materials and a flat roof, unusual for Minnesota.

"It's a stunning example of how ahead of her time she was," Rue said. "It's still in great shape."

Unlike many of today's new homes, which feature soaring ceilings and voluminous spaces, the midcentury homes on the tour were built on a comfortable, human scale, Rue said. They're modest in size, at least compared with homes of the McMansion era and later.

"There's not a huge volume inside each house. Some have four bedrooms, but they're not supersized. In that era, bedrooms were for sleeping."

Rue, who grew up in a midcentury rambler in Indiana, said she is a big fan of the era's architecture.

"I find the scale, comfort and simplicity of the aesthetic extremely appealing," she said. "And the people who own these homes love being there, sharing the space and its uniqueness."