1900 Lasalle Ave
Minneapolis, MN 55403, USA

George W. Van Dusen and Nancy B. House - National Register of Historic Places

Photo Continuation

George W. Van Dusen and Nancy B. House - National Register of Historic Places

Statement of Significance:
The George W. and Nancy B. Van Dusen House, completed in 1893, is a domestic symbol of the corporate success of one Minnesota's leading grain processing and distribution businesses. The flamboyant exterior of the massive stone building well-advertised the accomplishments of an otherwise low-profile company founder and president. The property contributes to an understanding of the Business and Industry context outlined in the Minneapolis Preservation Plan and the state context of Urban Centers 1870-1940. The house meets National Register Criterion C in the area of Architecture as an elaborate and eclectic mixture of the Romanesque and Renaissance Revival styles that enjoyed popularity in the late nineteenth century, and as an example of the work of noted Minneapolis architect Edgar E. Joralemon.

The House as a Symbol of Prosperity

The George W. Van Dusen House is among a declining number of properties in what was once a fairly extensive district of many late nineteenth century stone and brick mansions. This area at the southwestern edge of downtown Minneapolis extended from Loring Park across Lowry Hill to the vicinity of Washburn-Fair Oaks Park. In Minneapolis, as in many Midwestern cities, the immense masonry house was a symbol of the success of individuals like George W. Van Dusen and companies like Van Dusen Harrington.
The residential development of this area during the late nineteenth century coincided with the continued prosperity of grain, lumber and railroad interests in Minneapolis between 1880 and 1890, a period when the population rose from 46,887 to 164,738.^^ The impressive residences constructed by business leaders in this period were designed primarily by Minneapolis architectural firms who favored versions of the Richardsonian Romanesque style and employed a variety of Minnesota stone for the heavy masonry characteristic of the style.

The Van Dusen House is an amalgam of Richardsonian Romanesque and French Renaissance architectural ideas. While the expressive approach to the masonry exterior and the use of broken field, rock-faced ashlar and low sprung semi-circular arches is like many Richardson-inspired domestic buildings, the soaring French motifs concentrated at the roofline depart very deliberately from those treatments.

One historian notes that •from the standpoint of the client, French Renaissance design was admirably suited to the purpose of extravagant display," and this characterization probably fits the owner's intention. The house was begun in 1891, the year when the Minneapolis wheat trade increased to more than eleven times its volume of 1876. The Van Dusen firm was mid-point in what would be its seventy-six-year history, and sixty-seven-year-old George W. Van Dusen and his wife apparently chose a design that reflected the rewards of the firm's efforts and accomplishments. The capacity of the city's grain elevators led that of all cities in the world, rising from 29,000,000 bushels in 1884 to 122,165,350 in 1921.The Van Dusen firm had a significant share of this capacity.

Architects' and clients' interest in French Renaissance motifs was inspired by the work of Richard Morris Hunt, whose 1890-1895 exposition of French motifs at the Vanderbilt family's Biltmore near Asheville, North Carolina attracted great national attention. Elsewhere, the steep, soaring roofs and abundance of masonry detail were limited to programs for the wealthiest clients. Architectural historian Donald Torbert notes that in Minneapolis the influence of the style was confined to the period 1887-1893.^® In addition to the Van Dusen House, which Torbert characterized as "crude but flamboyant," the 1887 Merrill residence on E. 22nd Street, by William Channing Whitney, and the 1889 "Zier Row," by W.H. Dennis on 4th Avenue South, were other French Renaissance designs built in Minneapolis during this brief period.(The Merrill House and Zier Row have been demolished.) French Renaissance interiors were evident in a number of prominent houses, as evidenced by the treatment of the main hall at the Samuel Gale House by Harvey Ellis and Leroy Buffington (1889; 1600 Harmon Place; razed)

The creation of the Van Dusen House was well-recorded in the architectural press. The portfolio entitled Orff and Joralemon Architects published in the late 1890s featured a view of the building, and the house interior received significant coverage in the Architect, Builder and Decorator of 1894. Featured rooms showed coved and paneled ceilings, paneled walls, elaborate fireplaces with carved mantels, and an abundance of richly detailed millwork trim. In 1898, Art Glimpses of Minneapolis: The City of Homes featured the Van Dusen House and its interior in a volume that also showed the homes of other prominent grain and commodity dealers such as F.H. Peavey.

Tlie Aircliitect: Edciair E. Joralemon (1859 — 1937)
The Van Dusen house has generally been attributed to the firm of George W. and Fremont D. Orff. According to architectural historian Paul Larson, however, it was Edgar E. Joralemon who designed the house while employed as their draftsman.20 Scholars' recent work on the followers of H.H. Richardson in Minnesota and surrounding states focuses new attention on the importance of Edgar E. Joralemon. Larson credits Joralemon with the design of "the first Minneapolis residence that borrowed heavily from Richardson's vocabulary."21 This was the 1884-86 W.W. McNair House, designed by Joralemon while in the employ of F.B. Long and Company. Between 1884 and 1894, he was involved in at least forty costly residential designs, including those in Minneapolis for Frederick Penny (2000-8 Pleasant Ave. S.; 1885, razed) Joseph E. Badger (2016-20 Pleasant Ave. S., 1885, razed), Edmund G. Walton (802 Mount Curve Boulevard; 1894, razed), Stephen Tooker (820 Summit Avenue, 1894, razed) and T.E. Lockwood (501 S. E. 5th St.; 1894; altered).22 The Chester Simmons House (Park Avenue, 1891; razed) may also be his work.

These commissions of the 1880s and 1890s show little attention to French Renaissance motifs. The Joseph E. Badger House, the showcase house for Badger and Penny's Addition (1885) employed a far more rounded composition. Suggestion of the steep French roof is evident in the design for the Stephen Tooker House although no other work approached the soaring height and general flamboyance evident in the Van Dusen commission.

Over 122 commissions in the period 1884 to 1908 for dwellings, business blocks, churches, schools, city halls and banks have been attributed to Joralemon.24 Most of this work was commissioned in Minneapolis, but buildings also exist in Iowa, North Dakota, Wisconsin, and New York. Much of this work was executed while in partnership with the firm of George W. and Fremont W. Orff.

Joralemon was born in Illinois in 1859 and was the son of a carpenter. He moved to Minneapolis with his family in the 1860s and began his architectural career at the age of 17.2 He apprenticed in the offices of some of the city's earliest architects including Leroy S. Buffington (1875), Haglin and Corser (1877-1880) and Abraham Radcliffe (1881). In 1880-81, Joralemon partnered with F.B. Long for a year and again in 1885-86. In 1887, he was a founding member of the Architectural Association of Minnesota. In 1892, he became a draughtsman for George W. and Fremont D. Orff and, in 1893, their first partner. The Orff and Joralemon firm was in existence until about 1897, when Joralemon moved to Niagara Falls, New York. The Niagara Falls Carnegie Library of 1902 was among his subsequent commissions. He died in 1937 at the age of 78.

A partial survey completed in 1983 indicated that only a handful of residential designs in Minneapolis attributed to Joralemon (as well as G.W. and F.D. Orff) are extant.2 The Van Dusen House and barn, built at a cost of over $60,000, represents the most extravagant of his designs, although the overall significance of his twenty-one year career in Minneapolis is still being assessed.

The Client: Georae W. Van Dusen (1826-1915)
George W. Van Dusen was one of the founders of the Minneapolis grain trade. He began with a small pioneer elevator operation, which he developed into a major, privately-held national firm. His obituary of 1915 noted that he "was the last remaining member of a band of grain trade pioneers who through years of active participation therein, saw the entire evolutionary process in the country's economic life that created the milling industry and grain marketing system that exist today."28 Despite the construction of his very eye-catching house, the elder Van Dusen appears to have led a rather private life in Minneapolis that did not include long-write ups in biographical accounts or other public assessments of his accomplishments.

A native of Byron, New York and a member of a family of Dutch ancestry long established in New York, Van Dusen's experience in the grain business began in 1852 in Pardeeville, Wisconsin, a trade center in Columbia County about 90 miles west of Milwaukee.28 Early in his career, he developed an elevator that elevated the grain by horsepower using the "belt and cup" device.2° While in Wisconsin, he invested in line elevators, which are chains of elevators usually located along a railroad system and typically owned by a grain company, mill or other grain processor.21 When he relocated to Rochester, Minnesota in 1864, he established a line elevator firm under the name of G.W. Van Dusen and Company. In 1873, after also serving as station agent for the Winona and St. Peter Railway and operating that company's grain elevators, he purchased all of the railway elevators and established the first merchant line in Minnesota.22 He also owned one of the largest elevators in Minneapolis, where he sold much of his grain.22 in 1881, Van Dusen opened a branch office in St. Paul, relocating it to Minneapolis in 1883. Charles M. Harrington, who had worked for Van Dusen since 1872, served as manager of the office. In 1890, the main office was moved to Minneapolis and the Van Dusen family also changed their place of residence.

One year earlier, in 1889, Charles M. Harrington and George W.'s son, Fred C., organized the Van Dusen Harrington Company. At George W. Van Dusen's retirement in 1900, they took over the operation of G.W. Van Dusen and Company's elevators. At that time George W. Van Dusen also retired from the board of directors of Northwestern National Bank.

George W. and Nancy Barden Van Dusen (1832-1899) also had one other son, Harry F.(1871-1906). Frank R.(1853-?) and Ralph L.(?-?) were born to George W.'s first marriage. George and Nancy also had two daughters, Lora B. (1886-?; Mrs. John Willis Baer) and Mary (1870-?; Mrs. John A. Cole)

George C. Van Dusen died in 1915 at the age of 89. Services were held at his residence, with Dr. George H. Bridgeman, president emeritus of Hamline University and a life-long friend of Van Dusen's presiding. He was buried in Rochester, Minnesota.

In 1928, the Van Dusen Harrington firm operated four terminal elevators in Minneapolis with a combined capacity of 6.7 million bushels, and 163 country elevators across the northwest. The firm also owned lumber yards and a feed mill. Among their holdings was the King Midas Flour Mill in Hastings, Minnesota.

In 1928, after a public stock offering, the firm was purchased by F.H. Peavey and Company. The Peavey acquisition resulted in the creation of the largest grain and grain elevator firm in the world.

Fred C. Van Dusen (1863-1928)
Fred C. Van Dusen was George W.'s third son and, with his family, a resident of the LaSalle Avenue house after about 1900. He served as Vice President of the Van Dusen Harrington Company, and, after the death of Charles M. Harrington in 1928, briefly as President.^® Born in Pardeeville, Wisconsin, he was raised in Rochester and entered the grain business with his father at the age of 16. He was married to Myra Cross of Rochester in 1884. They had one son, George C. Van Dusen, who succeeded his father and grandfather in the firm, and one daughter, Mary (1887-1927); who married Charles Bolles Rogers).37 Fred C. Van Dusen served on a great number of boards, most in related to the grain trade. He was president of the Minneapolis Foundation, a director of the Northwestern National Bank and Minnesota Loan and Trust Company, trustee of the Farmers and Mechanics Bank, and president of the Minneapolis Fire and Marine Insurance Company. He was also a member of many national committees in the grain trade. He was very active in civic affairs, and served as Director of the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce and chairman of the board of Westminster Presbyterian Church.

In 1906, Fred C. Van Dusen purchased the ca. 1904 estate of C.K. Fulton at Zumbra Heights on Halstead's Bay on Lake Minnetonka. Algoma, as the Van Dusens called the summer estate, comprised the 20-room English Tudor main house, a carriage house, water tower, two farm houses, an observatory, chicken house, bath house and pump house on over thirty lakeside acres.

Fred C. Van Dusen died unexpectedly at the age of 65, only two months after his firm's public stock offering in May, 1928. Mrs. Fred C. (Myra) Van Dusen continued to live in the house until her death in 1937. The building was vacant between 1937 and 1940.

As is noted throughout Sections 7 and 8, the significant architectural features of the Van Dusen House remain intact despite over fifty years of non-residential use and vacancy. The house and its companion carriage house present a striking ensemble on a prominent corner site. The buildings exemplify costly interpretations of the French Renaissance and Richardsonian Romanesque styles as presented by a Minneapolis architect for a prominent client and his family.