Glensheen Mansion
The Glensheen Mansion is a 38 room mansion that was built from 1905-1908 by Chester Congdon. The home was inhabited by members of the Congdon family until 1977. The picture at right is a view of the back of the house taken on our 2001 trip. |
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The home was donated by the family to the University of Minnesota Duluth, who operate it as a museum. As such, 85% of the items in the home were original to the family. You must go on a guided tour through the home, but it was by far the best guided tour I have been on. The docent who led our group was extremely knowledgeable about the house and could answer most questions thrown at her. It was hard to believe she was a volunteer.
The house is truly fascinating, especially since only one family owned it. The house was very practical. It was meant for a family to live in, not a show home like some of the Vanderbilt homes on the east coast. The Congdons had 6 children of their own (3 boys and 3 girls), plus a nephew that lived with them. The girls rooms were on the second floor, along with the master bedroom. The boys rooms were on the third floor. The tour only included the main floor, second floor and basement. There is a separate tour for the third floor and attic, but we did not have time to take that one.
The woodwork, which you get an appreciation of immediately upon entering the home, was all hand crafted in the home as it was being built. They decorated many rooms in themes. For instance, the entry way has many pineapples (representing hospitality) and lions (representing power). Another room had a theme of two birds. Many details of practicality are pointed out as well. For example, the lights in the living room had three lamps. Two were electric and one was gas powered. Electricity was new at the time and also unstable so the gas provided a backup. Mr. Congdon was also afraid the electricity was a fad that would go away. They thought of many little things such as lining up windows in the bedrooms to match with internal windows in the large closets. This allowed them to more easily bring fresh air into the closets. They had a soft metal sink for washing dishes in. That way if a piece of china was dropped, the sink would dent and the dish would be less likely to break.
It sounds like they were good people to work for. They paid higher than average wages to their servants and the servant quarters, which were on the second floor, were on the same level as the family. Often times, servants quarters would be a couple of steps down from the family level to signify a lower status.
After the tour, we were free to walk the grounds and go through the carriage house on our own. It was fun walking around the grounds even though it was cold and rainy. We saw the tennis court, many gardens they had, the carriage house and was able to walk around the boat house (which is now land locked).
We do not have any pictures of the mansion, because you are not allowed to take pictures inside the house. It was raining pretty hard while we were there so we didn't take pictures outside either. There are many pictures of the house on their web site however, which we would encourage you to look at to get a glimpse of what the house is like. The website is at: www.d.umn.edu/glen/.
There was a charge for the tour - $8.75 per person, but it was well worth it. We really enjoyed it and would encourage you to go if you are ever in Duluth. When we go back some day, we will probably take the tour again - at least the third floor and attic tour.
For more pictures, check out our visit to the Glensheen in Duluth 01.