4829 Colfax Ave S
Minneapolis, MN 55419, USA

4829 Colfax Ave S, Minneapolis, MN, USA

4829 Colfax Ave S Home History
Purcell Feick and Elmslie, 1913

A superb Prairie Style house. The broad gabled roof, carefully grouped windows, side porch, and meticulously worked entry sequence are all classic features of Purcell and Elmslie's work. The entrance, behind a brick-walled terrace that extends across the front of the house, displays one of George Elmslie's finest ornamental designs: a fret sawn arch and frieze above the door. Beams and a pair of pendants extend to either side. Elmslie served for many years as Louis Sullivan's chief draftsman, and the ornament here, with its dazzling combination of geometric and botanical forms, is very Sullivanesque even though it sports Elmslie's signature "V" motif. Elmslie also designed a leaded- glass window in the front door as well as other windows through- out the house. Inside, the house has the usual open plan and includes many built-ins as well as a large brick fireplace.
Charles Parker worked for a wholesale fruit company before becoming co-owner of an auto parts firm. He built this house after he married his partner's daughter, Grace Robertson. The couple stayed in the house for only six years before selling it. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1992 and has been extensively restored.

Citation: Millett, Larry. AIA Guide to the Minneapolis Lake District. Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2009.

National Register of Historic Places - The Charles and Grace Parker House

Excerpt from the Statement of Significant:

The Charles and Grace Parker House is eligible for the National Register under Criterion C for clearly illustrating through distinctive design characteristics the Prairie School style of architecture. The building is significant as an important work of Purcell, Feick and Elmslie, one of Minnesota's most prominent architectural offices. It was built during the firm's most active and influential period. In their Guide to the Architecture of Minnesota, David Gebhard and Tom Martinson assert that the years from about 1908 to 1917 produced "the largest single group of buildings of consistently high quality in Minnesota's architectural history." They credit several architects, but "above all the houses, small banks, and other structures designed by Purcell and Elmslie . . . pushed Minnesota once more onto the national architectural scene." The particular distinction of the Parker House is emphasized by the fact that the principals included it in an overview of their work published in The Western Architect in 1915. It has since appeared in a number of important architectural history studies, including H. Allen Brooks' The Prairie School; Frank Lloyd Wright and His Midwest Contemporaries. The design is particularly noteworthy for the unique entryway ornamentation of sawn wood, and for the building's pure, sculptural form."

History of the Charles and Grace Parker House The 1910 Minneapolis city directory lists Charles J. Parker as the secretary of Grinnell, Collins and Company, wholesalers of fruit and produce. Shortly thereafter, however, he became involved in the burgeoning automobile business. According to the 1911 directory, he continued to work for Grinnell, Collins, while also managing Tri-State Rubber Company, distributors of "Swinehart" tires. In March 1912, he and Alex Robertson, presumably a relative by marriage, bought out the Western Motor Supply Company, an automotive supply retailer and wholesaler, located at 1018 Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis. The city directory in that year shows W. W. Robertson as president of Western, A.D. Robertson as vice president, and Parker as secretary and treasurer. In January 1909, Parker had married William W. Robertson's daughter, Grace.

The Parkers apparently began discussing construction of a new house with Purcell, Feick and Elmslie in 1912. On January 6, 1913, William Purcell wrote to George Feick Jr.: "Mrs. Parker has looked over the drawings and the plans seem to interest her very much." On June 10 of that year, Mr. Parker applied for a building permit for a two-story, 42'10" by 34'4" "plaster-ven." house on a concrete foundation. Purcell, Feick and Elmslie are listed as the architects, with Henry Ingham as the builder. The house was to be completed by October 10 of the same year, at an estimated cost of $6,000. Plumbing and electrical permits were applied for in mid-August.

Plans for the house appear to have been altered quite significantly during the design process. In Purcell's January 6 letter, he wrote that there were several items "absolutely fixed in Mrs. Parker's mind and should not be varied": The terrace with steps at the right-hand end and a curving walk passing between the end two of three cedar trees. The sunroom must not project beyond the front line of the house. The wall of the terrace must not exceed one foot in height above the terrace platform, the idea being not to cut off the view of the flower box from the street, in looking up. Ample flower box to extend full length of front windows.

While the curved walk does pass through a row of cedars and lead to a terrace, the steps are on the terrace's left end. Although the sun room does not project as much as similar rooms in most contemporary designs by the firm, it does indeed protrude beyond the front plane of the house. The long window box below the front windows became, instead, two square planters flanking the terrace.

Purcell's comments on the roof line seem even more contradictory. On one hand, he asserts that house will have a "flat hip roof, pitch say 5 to 12, as usual." In the same letter, however, Purcell claims that Mrs. Parker looked at the initial plans and "has apparently had the other system of roofing pretty definitely in her mind and tells me that she has drawn out for herself such an elevation a great many times." Whether the "other system" was a gable or some other roof design is unclear, but Purcell adds that "she asks us . . . if we cannot make for her an elevation with the other system of roofing so that she could more easily decide for herself what she is going to like."

Among Mrs. Parker's "absolutely fixed" items was a "roof sun parlor like Leuthold's iit>eral projections." The Ward Beebe House, also known as the Leuthold House after Beebe's in-laws who financed the construction, was built at 2022 Summit Avenue, St. Paul, in 1912. The house included a petite polygonal sitting room complete with built-in furniture, on the second floor above a screened porch extending from the eastern wall. Although the Parker House is well equipped with porches — a "living" porch off the living room on the south side, and two screened porches in the rear — none resemble the Leuthold's sun parlor.

Plans for the house dated April 28, 1913 are initialed M.A.P. (Marion Alice Parker) and L.A.F. (Lawrence A. Fournier). Both had also apparently worked on the Leuthold residence. The plans were checked by George Feick. They show the building essentially as it now stands, but some details were not completed. The plans call for leaded glass in nearly every window, but this appears only in the front door, the doors to the living porch, and the adjacent bookcase doors. The fireplace was to have had a glass mosaic above, where there are now plain plaster panels. These details were probably cut due to financial constraints, given Parker's contemporaneous investment in Western Motor. Capital limitations may have also eliminated the Leuthold—like roof sun parlor, as well as the garage. The site of a "future garage" is outlined along the house's north wall, but ironically Parker, who made a living in the automotive industry, never had a garage at this house. The detached garage behind the house was erected in 1922 by John Schruth, a general contractor who had acquired the property from the Parkers by 1919. The building permit indicates that the construction was to be done by day labor at an estimated cost at $300. No architect is given.

The house's attic displays another change. The drawings show it unfinished, with a "future room" sketched in at the top of the stairway along the eastern wall, where a bathroom is now located. The large shed-roof dormer in the south roof which provides light for the attic's front room, is certainly not original. The style of the attic woodwork, however, suggests that the attic was finished not too long after the house's construction. It appears that this modification was undertaken during Schruth's ownership. Several permits for plumbing and plastering are recorded for the building in 1921; between 1923 and 1958, no permits were issued for 4829 Colfax. It is possible, but unlikely, that such a large project would have been undertaken without a permit. It thus appears that the attic construction occurred in 1921.

Purcell, Feick and Elmslie and the Parker House
The life of the firm of Purcell, Feick and Elmslie, more commonly known as Purcell and Elmslie, was brief, tumultuous, and brilliant. William Gray Purcell came from an affluent Chicago family active in literary and artistic circles. He studied architecture at Cornell University, and had a brief stint working for the prominent Chicago architect, Louis Sullivan. He and a college friend, George Feick Jr., moved to Minneapolis in 1907 and established an architectural practice. In 1909, they were joined by George Grant Elmslie, who Purcell had met in Sullivan's office. Elmslie's family emigrated from Scotland in 1884. He attended public school in Chicago until 1888 when, at age seventeen, he began an apprenticeship with Joseph Lyman Silsbee, a prominent Chicago architect. He was hired by Sullivan a year later, and was appointed the office's chief draftsman in 1893 when Frank Lloyd Wright left that position. Although Purcell had urged Elmslie to come to Minneapolis earlier, he remained in Chicago, producing much of the elegant ornamentation credited to Sullivan, until lack of work forced Sullivan to let him go.“

The Parker House was built in 1913, during the most successful period of their practice. Purcell was an energetic promotor, and kept the office busy with a number of commissions, particularly for houses and banks. They had just completed one of their most famous commercial works, the Merchants' National Bank in Winona (1911-12). Houses for John H. Adair (Owatonna, 1913), Ward Beebe/John Leuthold (St. Paul, 1912), J.W.S. Gallagher (Winona, 1913), Merton S. Goodnow (Hutchinson, 1913), E.S. Hoyt (Redwing, 1913), Oscar Owre (Minneapolis, 1911-12), and Purcell's own home in Minneapolis (1913), all date from this era and all are listed on the National Register.

But this was also a very unstable time for the firm. George Feick, who was primarily an engineer, left in 1913 to run a family business in Ohio. In August 1912, Elmslie's young wife died suddenly, plunging the architect into a prolonged depression. He returned to Chicago to stay with his sisters, and decided to open a branch of the firm there, leaving Purcell to run the Minneapolis office singlehandedly. The long-distance business dealings soon became strained. Although Purcell and Elmslie was not officially disbanded until 1920, and the men continued to have a friendly working relationship for a number of years thereafter, the productive, golden age of the firm had ended by the late 1910s.

The firm's fame was earned by its creative designs in the Prairie School style. This style was partly a reaction against the various period revivals popular across the United States in the late nineteenth century. Promoted as the first truly ^erican style of architecture, the Prairie School was born in Chicago by designers influenced by Louis Sullivan and the concept of "organic" architecture. Led by the motto "form follows function," these architects sought to reflect the nature of a building's structure through its design, rather than hide the structure beneath a facade mimicking a pseudo-historical style. Organic architecture also respected a building's setting and the materials used in its construction. As a result, the Prairie School style, as its name implies, adopted the horizontal lines and earth tones of the Midwestern prairie. Exterior walls were usually tinted stucco and brick, shaded by the roof's broad eaves. Simple wood trim highlighted structural elements. Ribbons of casement windows emphasized the horizontal and also blurred the distinction between interior and exterior space. Houses featured open floor plans revolving around a substantial, central chimney.

The most flamboyant and famous champion of the Prairie School style was Frank Lloyd Wright, an acquaintance of both Purcell and Elmslie in Chicago. Wright's most well-known residential commission in Minnesota, the Little House (Northome, 1913, demolished), was a contemporary of the Parker House. Other Chicago Prairie School architects made a mark in Minnesota as well. The work of George W. Maher in Homer (King Estate, c. 1912), Minneapolis (Winton House, 1910), and Winona (the unusual "Egyptian Prairie" Winona Savings Bank, 1914) is particularly noteworthy. Although other Minnesota architects eclectically adopted the Prairie School as they did Sullivanesque and period revival styles, Purcell and Elmslie was the only firm in the state to consistently use and develop the Prairie School style. Thus, when the Parkers selected them to design a house, there was no question about the type of architecture desired

As indicated by the single piece of correspondence available regarding the construction of the Parker House, William Purcell was responsible for working with the Parkers, and his hand is clearly evident in the design. The high gable, brick base, banded casement windows, and glazed sun porch are reminiscent of the Prairie School house that Purcell designed for his parents, in River Forest, Illinois in 1909. In the Purcell House, however, the brick covers the entire first story, instead of serving as a high basement as at the Parker House. Also, the orientation of the Purcell House gable, which parallels the street, gives a very different feel to the design. The use of a relatively high gable stands in contrast to the low, hipped roof more typically advocated by Prairie School architects. The firm designed a number of gabled residences during this period, including the Gallagher House (1912-13), the Leuthold/Beebe House (1912), the P.E. Byrne House (Bismarck, North Dakota, 1909), the E.C. Tillotson House (Minneapolis, 1912), the Margaret Little House (Berkeley, California, 1915), and the Henry Einfeldt House (River Forest, Illinois, 1914-15). In many of these buildings, the structure is articulated by wood strips in an almost Stick-Style manner on the wall plane: horizontal bands delineate floors, lines highlight the juncture of eave and wall, vertical trim marks wall corners. Gable ends are sometimes treated decoratively as well, filled with diamond-shaped or triangular windows. Elevations are often stratified horizontally by the use of different materials. Cross gables interrupt side elevations. The Parker House, however, displays the Prairie School style in a much purer form. It is essentially a straightforward cube tucked beneath the protection of the gablets broad sweep. The roof of the sun porch not only echoes the gable's line, but is incorporated into it as well. The original earth tone of the stucco, making less of a contrast to the wood trim, showed off the building's simple, sculptural form even more prominently. The obligatory screen porches are tucked out of sight on the rear elevation.

The facade's simplicity provides a fitting setting for the building's jewel, the ornate doorway. In his dissertation on Purcell and Elmslie, David Gebhard cites the Parker House door as one of the most important sawn wood designs produced by the firm. The door's arch is reminiscent of the semi-circular window beneath the front gable of the Leuthold House, extended wood blocks and all. As an artistic statement, however, there is no comparison. The sawn wood ornamentation exuberantly proclaims the Parker House's entrance. This is clearly the work of Elmslie, who continued to create eloquent ornamentation despite intense grief over his wife's death. His sketch survives for a square filled with delicately coiled vines, highlighted by a soft blue background. This was used for the impost blocks beneath the arch. .The drawing is labeled "Panel 'C' of Sheet 100." Sadly, only one other drawing of any ornament remains. Labeled "Parker" with the notation "this motif," it was apparently a working sketch for a design that, ultimately, was not used. Sawn wood ornamentation was used on other buildings designed by the firm during this period, including the J.W.S. Gallagher House, the Bradley House (Woods Hole, Massachusetts, 1910), and the E.L. Powers House (Minneapolis, 1910). In most cases, however, the wood ornamentation played a secondary role in the structure's design, such as serving as infill beneath a gable. The prominence and intricacy of the Parker House door is indeed exceptional. The only disappointment is that the original polychrome is no longer extant.

Another unusual design element of the Parker House is the front terrace. The main doorway in many Purcell and Elmslie houses was often recessed and covered by a small roof or porch. It is not known if the wish for an ornate entryway brought the Parker's door to the front plane of the house. More likely, it was the desire of Mrs. Parker for her flower boxes that lead to the development of the terrace, thus providing a canvas on which to display an artistic doorway. Mrs. Parker appears to have been the most important voice in the couple's design decisions, and as Purcell later reminisced, building owners "were not just our clients but partners in the enterprise." The high, secluded site was certainly a factor as well. A terrace would not be of much use alongside a very public street such as St. Paul's Summit Avenue but could be a pleasant retreat in a quiet Minneapolis neighborhood, on a site high atop a hill shielded by a row of cedars.

The Charles and Grace Parker House displays the features that brought national prominence and distinction to Purcell, Feick and Elmslie: Prairie School styling, respect for setting, careful selection of materials, open plan interior. The unique doorway shows the genius of one of the most talented and original designers of the early twentieth century, George Grant Elmslie. The building's excellent state of preservation makes the Parker House an important illustration of the Prairie School style and of the work of Purcell, Feick and Elmslie, one of Minnesota's most important architectural firms.

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