1617 Dupont Ave N
Minneapolis, MN, USA

1617 Dupont Ave N, Minneapolis, MN, USA

Property Description: “The 2 ½ story clapboarded Ertl House features a triple gable front with a pedimented porch entry, asymmetrically placed forming an uneven roof line. Gables and pediment are inset with patterned wood shingles, complemented by a shingled belt course. Heavy turned spindle supports and brackets decorate the full-width porch. The dominant front window has small, arched transoms with exaggerated surrounds and spindle pilasters. This is repeated on the second story, directly below a smaller rectangular window flanked by fan lights. The double door is decorative carved. The projecting front gable also features elaborate window surrounds plus carved brackets. The south-facing gable is complementary, with carved barge boards and triple arched windows atop a cutaway bay with carved brackets. The obscured north-facing gable appears to be similar.
The plain, large carriage barn is intact.” 1

Statement of Significance

Here is an excellent example of a Queen Anne residence with Eastlake detailing, representative of northside settlement. It was built in a lightly developed area toward the end of the golden age of Minneapolis (late 1870s to 1893), contemporary with a massive flourishing lumber industry, located predominantly on the north side, and an emerging flour milling industry. By 1898 the immediate area was sufficiently dense to support the Swedish Evangelical Church at Sixteenth and Dupont, but land west of Girard Avenue remained vacant, probably due to economic depression remaining from the Panic of 1893.

Owner Rudolph Ertl was a northside clothier with his store near Plymouth and North Washington Avenues where he also resided. O. Meyer and Thori are listed as architects of the Ertl House.

Note that several northside businessmen (and families) constructed middle class and upper-middle class houses in the mid to late 1880s in close proximity. They apparently wished to maintain residence on the northside, and to be near their work places. The local economy was expanding greatly, jobs were available, attracting heavy migration from rural areas and eastern cities. Thus the existing housing stock was strained, the need for new housing tremendous, and the resources to provide new and qualitatively improved housing were available. The lumber industry in particular fueled this economic engine, supplemented by associated industries and crafts. Skilled tradesmen were therefore in place to construct, not only luxury homes south and west of the young city, but also middle – and upper-middle income residences expanding in all directions from the urban core onto unbuilt land. For a historically brief moment on the northside all these factors converged o create a developmental edge at Dupont Avenue, eight blocks from the streetcar line along Washington Avenue North. The moment ended in the 1890’s, when economic depression determined that further residential expansion and infill construction would be with smaller, less elaborate homes.”2

1. Neet, Fred. Local Heritage Preservation Designation Study - Rudolph Ertl House. Rep. Minneapolis: Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Commission, 1986. Print.
2. Neet, Fred. Local Heritage Preservation Designation Study - Rudolph Ertl House. Rep. Minneapolis: Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Commission, 1986. Print.

First Owner: Rudolph Ertl