Thank you Ken. I live in Minneapolis and have walked around Lake of the Isles many times. There are still many beautiful mansions that still stand around the lake.
A great house and with so much potential to be well-used even if not as a family home, torn down after standing for so few years and being occupied for even fewer years. Of the houses featured in "This House", I think the story of the Gates mansion is the worst waste of a house I've seen.
Living near the area all of my life the “Lakes” were a big part of my childhood, swimming, bicycling and walking. This house is one of many extremely memorable places that surrounded the area of Cedar, LOTI, Harriet, Theodore Wirth, Brownie, etc. Sadly, many hardworking folks didn’t hand the work ethics they had over to their children and this was the result.
Historic buildings in Minnesota are usually deemed garbage and are destroyed. Duluth tore down an old hotel building that was connected to John Jacob Astor.
@@brendamartini2165It's because rich people from other places are looking at MN as their new playground. Those people don't give a damn about anything but money and feeding their own ego.
Lake-of-the-Isles Parkway in Minneapolis is lined with beautiful old mansions, each one outdoing the next. This house may have been the crown jewel. What a shame it didn't survive.
What an enjoyable video. I pause at every floorplan presented. Thank you for including these for those of us who really like examining such details as layouts and house design. From the beginning of the video I was wondering how much it would cost to heat such a behemoth in those brutal Minnesota winters. Apparently quite a bit.
I got to work in a couple of the mansions on Summit Ave in St Paul with my dad's company back in the '80s and learned of the practice of shutting down and sealing off much of the house during the coldest and hottest months, specifically to save on the astronomical utility bills.
Well, when you asked what became of this house, I knew it must no longer exist. I just can’t believe these houses that were built for the ages were demolished in so short a time.
I drove by this lot every day for 10 years. Had no idea about the history. The house that sits on the lot now was only built recently. There was a large 'modern' 1970s or maybe 1980s home there when I lived in the neighborhood.
We have several museums based out of the former homes of wealthy residents in the Twin Cities. The James J Hill house and the American Swedish Institute spring to mind.
Only 19 years in existence wow. The replacement home sold for 7.3 million in 2021 , a staggering sum for Minneapolis, a rather small somewhat forgotten metro area in the USA.
Have you been to Mpls? The population of Mpls is approx. 400k. The population of the Twin Cities metro is approx 3 million. Not small by any standard. Home to Target Corp., United Healthcare, 3M and General Mills, etc. Also, home of the largest privately held company in the United States, Cargill. Nothing forgotten about Mpls.
Quick everybody lets buy plane tickets to Minneapolis for sightseeing, said no one ever. Minnesotans are twisted too tight, it was said in jest. I was merely setting the stage for the price of the replacement home, which even if at 10 million would mean nothing in DC, San Fran, New York, LA....
@@pavelow235 The median price of housing in DC is $615K. The median price of housing in San Francisco is $1,216,087. The median price of housing in NYC is $979k. The median price of housing in LA is $972K. As I used to tell my staff when I lived and worked in Mpls: “Manage by facts”. You may want to give that a try.
*_Fifty-Thousand Square Feet?!_** (it was the Gilded Age version of "The One" in Bel Air)! A 0.40 acres chunk of its original lot sold in 2021 for $2 million.* *(John Gates was legendary Wall Street speculator nicknamed, "Bet-A-Million Gates." His story easily merits its own turn on the History Channel)*
The fireplace is exactly what I was thinking about too. It’s beyond a shame that magnificent buildings like this weren’t preserved with public funds or other means. It would have brought a great deal of money to the city from visitors. We no longer have the craftsmen to construct anything of this quality. 😢
An obscenity of riches. No single family would ever need to live in a house that size. I wonder what a 37 yr old man could die, in his sleep, from? Was it ever determined?
House after house has the same story. Rich person builds a house to beat out all other houses. No thought to if it can be maintained. Rich person dies before completion or after spending a summer or two there. No one can afford to buy house. It’s then demolished. Rinse and repeat. The greed of that generation was incredible.
It seems when people, anybody, gets that kind of money they think they'll live forever and that the money will always roll in. Then real life steps in and ends it. Too many of those people back then built houses that were just plain TOO BIG and expensive to keep up and they ended up torn down. This was the worst as it was only used for such a short time. The depression knocked off a lot of these houses.
I found that it was a bit like a hotel, more so than a house! It has the same 3 or 4 common factors with other big houses, the owner only gets to enjoy it for a few years, or no years like this one, the wife lives in it for a bit until they can't afford it, they sell it to a contractor who rips it down to build apartments or houses. Often the 1929 stock market crash can add to that!
Lake of the Isles has some of the most beautiful old world homes and mansion to this day. Obviously the nutter that built that house made it way too big as if money grows on trees
What a waste of a beautiful home - to be replaced by a house not half so big or beautiful! It could have been used as a church retreat or school, instead of being demolished. If preserved, it would be worth millions today. The demolition was an appalling waste.
While beautiful, that Gates history isn’t very interesting. Forepaw Mansion or Grigs Mansion in St Paul have interesting history and are still standing on Summit ave.
He reminded me of the foolish man in the Bible who built more & more for himself. And he died that night. And this guy never even lived in it!! Tragic all the way around.
Such a gorgeous home! All that marble! Again, such a shame it couldn't have survived to be enjoyed by this and future generations. I hope they were able to repurpose lots of that marble. And what about the grand fireplace carved from one piece of marble!? I hope it was saved by someone.
I'm getting demolition burnout watching This House. I understand this is an historical survey, but it would be a great relief to have a happy ending thrown in once in a while. Maybe start with a house museum and work our way back.
Absolutely an utterly beautiful and astounding house... such a shame no one could figure out a way to reuse it...much more grander and beautiful than what replaced it... thank you again for a nice visit
Such a beautiful house, Ken. It seems so many owners of these homes never live in them , or, live only a short time in them. Have you noticed that many of the children of tycoons squander their inheritance? What a shame! Love your videos!
Curse of Turtle Island. The majority of the rich here aren't supposed to be here and are subject to a curse published centuries ago as punishment for the rebellious colonization that resulted in the likes of wasteful construction such as the subject of this video.
Curse of Turtle Island. The majority of the rich here aren't supposed to be here and are subject to a curse published centuries ago as punishment for the rebellious colonization that resulted in the likes of wasteful construction such as the subject of this video.
Recall that my grandmother used her inheritance to also buy a house in Minneapolis around 1905 for the grand sum of $2,000 on Fremont Ave. North near St. Olafs.
This house is stunning. But so many of these magnificent houses suffered the same fate. How thoughtful it would have been if the people who built them put as much into the future upkeep as they did trying to show off their wealth.
A white elephant doomed to a very short life! The exterior was a very nice design but looked more like a very grand Post office or municipal court building than anyone's house. And the interiors are hard to love - but maybe it's the photography. The ballroom is odd - it needs some tall windows and doors considering its ceiling height. And I doubt how appealing that mass of glaring white marble would have been in real life. What a waste.
The beautiful Mediterranean style house pictured right next to it at 1:34 is still standing and it looks absolutely beautiful! One of my favorites on a walk around Lake Of The Isles, my old neighborhood. The South Minneapolis "Chain Of Lakes" area is loaded with beautiful old 19th and early 20th century homes.
My least favourite word of yours "lost". Another marvel that deserved a long and illustrious life, but didn't get it...it looks like a younger sibling of the glorious The Breakers.
This is what I would have done if I won 1bill powerball. See how long it takes to spend it all. With all that money could have have family set for generations, F that I’m gonna spend it. It cool interesting story though
A Beautiful home but such a short life span . This really was a grand estate . It breaks my heart to see lovely homes as grand as these are be left to disrepair and then be demolished.
Before the Preservation Society of Newport County was established many of these illustrious mansions went by way of the wrecking ball. One of these mansions could not be demolished by a wrecking ball. A dynamite crew had to be hired. Sadly these magnificent mansions of the Industrial Revolution no longer exist. Gladly many of them can be visited on Bellevue Avenue.
Beautiful So.Much Character Design And Interior So Well On Place Architecture So On Point Sad To See So.Much Creative Idea's And History Demolished Should Have Been Regenerated And Preserved Until The Of Many Centuries To Come
Love your vids Ken this was unreal ,A air-conditioning (that was such a grand marvel at that time ) that ball room (fans myself) so sad , the poor house did not want to come down either ❤
What a shame it's gone. Such a spectacular old house. Somewhere there are people who still have those pieces salvaged from it before the wrecking ball did it in, handed down by their elders who took them. Probably most have no idea where the items were from, and were thrown away or donated to thrift shops. But some may have been told what and where they were from. Lovely video. Thank you. Need to check and see if you've ever done the Greene & Greene Gamble House in Pasadena, CA. If not, it'd be a great one for you to do.
What loss. Wish it still stood. What a grand home and would be awesome even today. Wish I could live in it. With marble walls the fireplaces would have warmed the rooms and held the heat while the cool stone in summer would have kept it cool. Such a shame to loose such a grand place.
At 925 S.E. 6th st there is a mansion. It was turned into a rooming house. I lived there for about 10 years. It was beautiful. The man who owned it and took care of it died. It went to his sister who sold it to the U of M. Now a bunch of frathouse dipsticks are beating it to crap, so the university can eventually dose it. Breaks my heart to think about it.
