175 East Wabasha Street
Winona, MN, USA

Watkins Manor House

The Watkins Manor House is a historic mansion in Winona, Minnesota, United States. It was built from 1924 to 1927 for Paul Watkins (1865–1931), second-generation leader of the J.R. Watkins Company and progenitor of its famous door-to-door sales strategy. It was designed in the Jacobethan style by architect Ralph Adams Cram. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984 as the Paul Watkins House for having local significance in the themes of architecture and commerce. It was nominated for its associations with Paul Watkins and the Watkins Company, and for its architecture, being a rare and unaltered example of a house designed by an architect better known for his churches and institutional buildings.

The manor is now part of a senior housing complex, containing apartments and community spaces.

National Register of Historic Places - Watkins Manor House

Statement of Significance:

The Paul Watkins House is significant for its architecture and for its association with Paul Watkins and the Watkins Products Company. Commissioned by Paul Watkins, the house was designed by the firm of Cram & Ferguson, particularly by Ralph Adams Cram, who was the architect while Ferguson was the business manager. The house was begun in 1924 and completed in 1927.

Ralph Adams Cram (1863-1942) is "the foremost Gothic revival architect of the United States" and was one who "exercised a wide national influence" (Macmillan Encyclopedia of Architects, v. 1, p. 471). In Marcus Whiffin's discussion of the Late Gothic Revival, Cram (along with his earlier partner, Goodhue) is virtually the only architect mentioned. The Watkins House is one of five Minnesota buildings associated with Ralph Adams Cram and the only house. Cram is universally known for his Gothic and Jacobethan (and Collegiate Gothic) revival designs for churches and institutional buildings. Houses are relatively rare among his designs, especially during his later years. The 1929 book on The Work of Cram and Ferguson^ Architects includes only four residences and the most heavily illustrated is the Watkins House (although it is misidentified as being in Winona, Illinois). It also is the only one clearly in the Jacobethan mode. The Watkins House is one of the few houses that Cram designed and today survives virtually unaltered on both exterior and interior.

Cram thought enough of his work on the Watkins house to describe it in a well-illustrated 1928 article in The American Architect. His primary design consideration, he noted, "was the providing of a right setting for a very remarkable collection of works of old art and craftsmanship gathered during many years from various parts of Europe. This collection of artworks. determined very largely the type of house that must be made to house them." Thus, Cram concluded, the "modified English Vita century form, partly Tudor, partly Elizabethan" seemed best. The same consideration also let Cram to pay particularly close attention to the interior, notable the Elizabethan Great Hall and Georgian drawing and dining rooms. These rooms, especially the Great Hall, are virtually unaltered. The Great Hall, in fact, still contains the tapestries and furnishings visible in photos accompanying Cram's 1928 article, even though the house is no longer a private residence.

The Watkins House exterior and interior, especially the more decorated areas, are largely unaltered. Only the porte-cochere was altered to any noticeable degree when a large new building was built to the west, and that alteration consists primarily of filling in the arched openings. The new building construction did destroy extensive landscaping on the west grounds. Located at the southeast corner of the property is a large, two-story garage designed like the house and at the same time. The garage has four large round-arch doors.

The Watkins Company, headquartered in Winona, is significant for having been the largest direct-selling company in the United States from 1915 to 1940. It began as one among many medicinal remedy’s firms in the late nineteenth century, employing travelling "wagon salesmen." It survived, prospered, modernized and expanded its product line, and brought the selling technique into twentieth century cities, establishing distribution warehouses throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, South America, and elsewhere. It became Winona's largest business and has been extraordinarily influential in the city's financial growth.

Paul Watkins was the nephew of Joseph Ray Watkins, founder of J.R. Watkins Company, a patent-medicine liniment firm in Winona. Joseph R. Watkins had purchased an existing business and expanded it into one of the largest of its kind in the world, producing ointments, liniments, vanilla, and spices of all kinds. The products were sold in a unique system by the travelling "Watkins Man," a sales device which reportedly made Watkins a household word. J.R. had brought the business from Plainview to Winona to take advantage of the city's rail facilities. His nephew Paul was brought to Winona in 1892 as vice-president when business had increased to multi-million-dollar proportions. Paul became the firm's second president in 1911 and held that office until his death in 1931. His wife lived in the house until 1956. Paul Watkins is considered largely responsible for the development of the company's door-to-door marketing technique by the travelling "Watkins Man," a device which helped to expand the firm's product line and market area while dramatically boosting profits.