Preservation Month! May 2008

In honor of Preservation month, here’s the story of the
rescue of my favorite house…

For details on the Bardwell-Ferrant house, see the first
post in this blog…the house had a grand beginning but
like many others gradually devolved into a neglected,
run-down rooming house.

In 1971 a young Charles Nelson, (the first state historic architect
with the Minnesota Historical society) had a mission
to identify and photograph historic buildings in Minneapolis
and St. Paul. He noticed the house and recommended
that the city grant it local historic designation…
this did not happen until 1984…13 years later!

When Mary Lou Maxwell bought the house in 1985
it was vacant and looked like this…click

The porch was sagging and the original spiral posts
were covered with ugly blocky ones. The furnace was
broken and the pipes had burst. Water had leaked
through the holes in the roof onto the parquet floors
and plaster. Some of the stained glass, brass doorknobs,
a brass statue and fireplace tiles had been looted.

Mary Lou Maxwell was the daughter of an Atlanta
architect Arthur Norman Canton. She had
renovated several houses in West Phillips and
had been interested in the Bardwell-Ferrant house
long before it was for sale.
Her friend Jean Stewart; a social worker with
the St. Paul School district, joined her to
manage the renovation of the house.

Maxwell and Stewart assembled a great team.
Architect Rolf Lokensgard restored original historic
features while adding modern elements that
fit the house’s structure without aggressively
changing it.

Peter Holly, a master woodcarver and wood turner
completely recreated the exotic flower shape
of the wrap around porch, and its delicate
spiral columns and then surrounded it with
a porch skirt with fanciful cut out designs…
Peter’s work can also be seen on the Healy
block at 31st and 2nd ave in Minneapolis
where he lives.

Ron Preiffer, a stained glass artist designed
windows using colors inspired by the remaining
original windows and added his own jeweled flourishes.

Maxwell and Stewart used Federal tax credits,
a grant from Honeywell and their own money
to restore the house. They painted it a lovely
ashes of roses and highlighted all of Struck’s
Moorish details with contrasting colors.

The house was entered into the National
Register of Historic places in 1985 and won
a preservation award from the City of Minneapolis
in 1986.

Maxwell and Stewart no longer own the
Bardwell-Ferrant house. In recent years
it has experienced cycles of neglect and
repair by a series of owners, most of whom
consider it little else but a source of rental
income. Houses around it have
been torn down and replaced by concrete
apartment towers.

Land values have increased while building
values have decreased.

The young art students with romantic notions
of living in “the pink palace” are often frightened
away by violent realities of the neighborhood.
Residents have carelessly placed an old
charcoal burning barbeque on the porch
roof and tried to hide it by pushing it
up against the wood siding. One stray
spark, one missed coal, and the house
would burn down.

Neighborhood thugs spend the summer
throwing rocks through the windows and
crashing their cars through the cast
iron fence.

As neighborhood residents struggle
to improve living conditions in West Phillips
the future of the Bardwell-Ferrant house
remains uncertain.