Revival and Rejuvenation: The 10-Year Restoration of a Minneapolis Mansion

Nestled in the charming Minneapolis neighborhood of Loring Park is an equally charming mansion. Built in 1889, the house had changed hands a fair number of times, and in the fall of 2013, a brochure was displayed throughout the community stating that the property was once again up for sale. On a stroll through the neighborhood, Dr. Paul Mittelstadt happened to come across one of these brochures. He immediately fell in love with the 6,000 square foot home. By December 2013, the wonderful residence was his, and he was eager to begin fixing the property up.

The mansion had been built in 1889 for a famous realtor and his wife, Henry and Anna Ladd. Without children, the Ladd family sold the property to a business partner. The new owners had no children of their own but had adopted a child in 1920. Together, they lived in the Loring Park mansion before they lost it in the Great Depression in 1938. Mittelstadt shares his experience meeting the grandchildren of the adoptive child soon after he purchased the property.

“That child had three children, three biological children,” Mittelstadt says. “He must have been quite a character because his grandchildren and two of his children stopped by, maybe eight years ago, to see the house. They’d never been in the house. But they told me the history. They told me which house or which room on the third floor was his bedroom.”

Seemingly an indicator of the economic hardship prevalent in those times, the bedroom in question was a small room. It was about the size of a large closet, according to Mittelstadt, with a small balcony that one could step out onto.

The mansion next became a business college in 1938. Although he is unsure about the exact duration of time that the mansion had been a business college, Mittelstadt shares that some of his friends’ parents had once attended the college back in its days of operation.

After the business college closed, the mansion became a group home for individuals with mental illness. This transition occurred in 1970, and once the group home closed its doors, the property fell into the hands of Mittelstadt.

Upon gaining ownership of the mansion, Mittelstadt got to work on planning its restoration. This process was not without its difficulties. Not only was the mansion being reviewed for historical preservation by the city, but there was also work to be done on both the interior and exterior of the house.

Before any work could be started, the house was stuck in a waiting period wherein the city’s historical team wanted to review the house and all its details. Mittelstadt did his best to work around this obstacle by using this time to look for people to help in the restoration process. The first individual who was to begin the renovation process sadly passed away the winter before. Then, the next person hired had to back out due to a terminal diagnosis. On his third attempt to find someone to help restore the property, Mittelstadt ended up going with Platinum Remodeling for the interior of the house and Goodrich Construction for the exterior.

Meanwhile, the battle with the city’s historical team was still ongoing. It had already been a year since it first started.

“They started the process … in March of 2014 to get all the approvals, but this man just kept getting in the way with all his demands. So, I finally, finally got a hold of an attorney,” Mittelstadt says. “We were ready to … sue him because he’d been such an obstructionist with all his detail. Well, the day before I was ready to sue him, I made a call to the department head of the permit society … for the City of Minneapolis. He was a gay man. He was very interested in our house, my house in particular. And he was not aware that we were having this much difficulty. We had all our permits the next day.”

Once the permits were acquired, the restoration was fully underway. Because of the age of the house, many things had to be replaced. This included all the electrical wiring and plumbing, as well as the coal fireplace, which had to be converted to gas.

Despite all the difficulties and the amount of time that it required, there was much to adore about the home. All the woodwork was kept nearly intact. Further, there was a wonderful hidden gem found during the renovation process. On the third floor of the home, there was a hidden ballroom that had been converted into two bedrooms and an office. Mittelstadt and his team decided to restore it to its original state upon this discovery.

Just over a decade later, the Loring Park mansion is almost completely restored. With the last touches being a few weeks out, Mittelstadt is ready to finally call his home complete.

“It’s a good project to take on, but I never realized it would take 10 years. … if I had an unlimited amount of funds, it wouldn’t take us so long,” Mittelstadt says. “But, you know, it’s just, part of it’s money, but part of it is how much renovation do you want to go into? … I would not do it again. It’s a beautiful house. It’s fun to entertain. Fun to entertain.”

With all the love and work, along with the history and charm, the house is indeed very beautiful inside and out. Almost fully restored, the gorgeous mansion now stands on a land full of hostas in the quaint and charming neighborhood of Loring Park.