306 Main Street East
Wabasha, MN, USA

Lucas Kuehn House

The Lucas Kuehn House is a historic house in Wabasha, Minnesota, United States. It was built in 1878 for Lucas Kuehn (1834–?), the city's leading merchant of the 19th century. The house was the city's first to be designed in the Italianate style. It was also part of a unique trend among Wabasha's merchant class for houses constructed of brick. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994 for its local significance in the themes of architecture and commerce. It was nominated for its associations with Kuehn and for its exemplary Italianate architecture.

Description

The Lucas Kuehn House is a two-story brick building with two main sections slightly offset from each other. A large back porch, now enclosed, fills the rear angle between the sections. In the 1920s a one-story wing extending from the rear of the house was replaced with an attached garage, while a one-story sunroom was added to the side of the front section. Both additions were matched to the style of the original sections. The front of the house once had a full-width veranda. This has been replaced with a small canopy over the main entrance, though it sports an elaborate pair of brackets. The original sections' windows are topped with wooden hoods with exaggerated limestone keystones.

The wide eaves are characteristic of Italianate architecture, though they lack the bracketing common to the style. Other solidly Italianate elements include the boxy two-story massing and tall, narrow windows.

History

Lucas Kuehn was born in the Grand Duchy of Baden in 1834 and emigrated to the United States with his family when he was 18. The Kuehns settled in Ohio for three years, where they worked as miners. Lucas showed such leadership talent that he was promoted to foreman over a crew that included his own father and brothers. In 1855 the family decided to move to Saint Paul, Minnesota. While journeying up the Mississippi River by steamboat from Dubuque, Iowa, however, they heard discouraging news about the availability of housing there and instead disembarked at Reads Landing, Minnesota. Lucas immediately found employment working the river and parted from his family.

In 1858 Kuehn settled in Wabasha. Later that year he married Clara Guenthner, a fellow native of Baden whom he'd met when they were children. In 1862 he opened a bakery, but two years later he changed direction and entered the dry goods and grocery business. In this he prospered, commissioning his own building in downtown Wabasha in 1868 and expanding it threefold into the city's largest store six years later. This building still stands as a contributing property to the Wabasha Commercial Historic District.

Kuehn's business expansion was propelled by the railroad, which had reached Wabasha in 1871.He owned 640 acres (260 ha) across the river in Buffalo County, Wisconsin, which he logged to provide the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad with railroad ties.

In 1878, Kuehn had this house built, introducing Italianate architecture to Wabasha's housing stock. Within a few years he also commissioned two other brick Italianate houses nearby for his newlywed daughters, including the Henry S. and Magdalena Schwedes House next door.

Henry Schwedes, Kuehn's son-in-law, became his right-hand-man in the grocery business. Kuehn also branched out, opening a hotel in the early 1880s since Wabasha lacked any first-class accommodations. He was elected president of a local bank, but resigned after two years because he was so busy with other interests.

Lucas and Clara Kuehn had eight children, though one died in childhood. Clara died in 1917, leaving Lucas widowed after 58 years. The only source giving a death date for Lucas Kuehn claims 1943, which would be an implausible 107-year lifespan.

The Kuehn House is among the more intact examples of some 20 brick residences surviving from the 19th century in Wabasha. All were built by the first two generations of the city's merchant class, forming a distinctive architectural stock that contrasts with the elaborate wood-frame Victorian architecture that characterized most other communities in Minnesota. As time went on the choice of building material appears to have been a matter of local taste rather than accessibility, as Wabasha was not a major brick manufacturer compared to Lake City and Red Wing upriver. With this house and the two he built for his daughters, Kuehn steered the later years of this trend firmly toward the Italianate style.

National Register of Historic Places - Lucas Kuehn House

Statement of Significance:

The Lucas Kuehn House is a good example of the Italianate style and of significance as the residence of Wabasha's premier 19th century merchant. Kuehn's house was the first known to be built in the style and was shortly followed by two neighboring dwellings in the same manner for his daughters, their husbands being principal members of Kuehn's dry goods and grocery business. Kuehn's firm, the Kuehn Mercantile Company, was already established in a brick block a short distance down Main Street and would be joined in the early 1880s by another Kuehn enterprise, the Commercial, Hotel, in the block between the store and the row of houses.

Lucas Kuehn had this house constructed and made his mark in Wabasha during the period embraced by the state historic context of Agricultural Development and Railroad Construction. Arriving in the newly platted town in 1855, Kuehn set up a bakery on borrowed money in 1862, which he exchanged for a general trade business two years later. By 1868, he had erected his first business block. In 1874, three years after the introduction of railroads into Wabasha, Kuehn's block tripled in size and became the largest store in town, a position it held into the 20th century. The Kuehn Block is now listed in the NRHP as part of the Wabasha Commercial Historic District. The railroad era also allowed Kuehn to cash in on land holdings across the river in Wisconsin, which supplied lumber for ties delivered to the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad yard in West Wabasha. Kuehn's mercantile enterprise spanned the entire railroad era, for he was reported to be active into his mid-80s in 1920. Kuehn died in 1943.

The Kuehn House was the first dwelling in Wabasha to be built in the Italianate style, which was the climatic mode of expression in the city's series of red brick houses. The Kuehn House characterizes the design through its box-like, two-story shape and formally balanced elevations. Tall first floor windows which are accentuated by pronounced limestone moldings further enhance the style.

As Wabasha's initial Italianate house and the dwelling of its leading merchant, the Kuehn House holds a major place in the multiple property listing, Red Brick Houses in Wabasha, Minnesota Associated with Merchant-Tradesmen.