212 Cherry St W
Stillwater, MN 55082, USA

Roy G. Staples House

This handsome, two-story Greek Revival style house was built circa 1872. The frame house has a limestone foundation, clapboard siding with corner boards, and a front gable roof. Its gable roof with return eaves and a tall cornice line, and the pedimeted (pointed) door and window surrounds are characteristics of the Greek Revival style. The full-width porch has been replaced by a one-story, front-gabled portico. The two-story, gable-roofed addition on the rear elevation was constructed circa 1880. A two-story sleeping porch is located on the rear elevation of the addition and was built circa 1885. The house features six-over-one, one-over-one, two-over-two, and eight-over-eight double-hung windows. The first known resident of this house was Roy G. Staples, who was living in the house by 1901. Mr. Staples was the grandnephew of Stillwater lumber baron Isaac Staples (Peterson & Thilgen, Stillwater: A Photographic History 1843-1993, 1992:97). Staples and his wife, Clemetine, raised their two children, Eleanor and Wilson, in this house. Over the years, Staples served as the president of the Cosmopolitan State Bank of Stillwater, treasurer of the Washington County Building Loan Association, manager of the Stillwater Insurance Agency Secretary of the Lowell Inn Hotel Company, secretary of the Western Shoe Company, and vice president of the Smith-Staples-Robertson Agency, an insurance firm. After Mr. Staples passed away in this home on October 30, 1931, his family continued to own the property until the 1970s (Peterson & Thilgen, Stillwater: A Photographic History 1843-1993, 1992:97).