623 Bushaway Rd
Wayzata, MN 55391, USA

1916: Lewis Piper House - 623 Bushaway Road

Excerpt from the History of Bushway Road and Its Neighborhood (1858-2009) by Irene Stemmer, of the Wayzata Heritage Preservation Board (HPB) as a means of preserving the history of the Bushaway Road and its neighborhood.

This house reflects the influence of shingle and craftsman style architecture with wide eaves and exposed rafter tails making the form more distinctive. The house was built in c.1916. Although the original architect is unknown, an addition was designed by Liebenberg and Kaplan, Architects in 1923 for Louis Piper to expand the house to the rear. The house is located on the hill overlooking Wayzata Bay but the property actually extends across Bushaway Road to Gray’s Bay.

Louis H. Piper, one of the four sons of George F. Piper, Sr., was a Minneapolis investment banker and a pioneer in the airlines industry. He was President of the Universal Aviation Corporation until The Aviation Corporation acquired control of the company at which time he relinquished the presidency and continued with the new corporation as chairman of that board. Aviation Corporation later became The American Airlines we know today. He was one of the chief figures in establishing a faster air-rail schedule between New York and other eastern cities. Piper also gets the credit for inaugurating dining service on the Universal planes. He died in 1929 at the age of 43 from complications of pneumonia. According to the abstract for the property, his estate sold the house to Mrs. Georgie L. Brooks in 1931. It appears that she owned the home until the time of her death in 1939 or 40 and was sold to Paul Cosgrove 1952. The present owner purchased the house about 1956.

Early Piper Family History
George F. Piper, Sr. was born in 1856 in Minneapolis. His parents, Jefferson and Mary (McDuffee) Piper were natives of Wolfboro, New Hampshire, who moved to Minneapolis in 1854 and three years later to a farm near Mankato. Their son, George, attended a rural school and after completing the eighth grade became a country school teacher himself. He saved his money and attended the University of Minnesota for one year, returning home when his father was in need of the money to pay off a serious debt. In 1881, while teaching in Mankato, George Piper met and married Grace Brett. Grace was the daughter of Cyrus and Mary Hunter Brett, natives of Maine who became pioneer residents of southern Minnesota in 1864. The Pipers had four sons; Clarence B., Louis H., Harry C. and George F., Jr. and one daughter, Alice, who died when she was 2 years old. Three of the brothers later had summer homes on Bushaway Road—Louis at 623, Harry at 421 and George, Jr. at 55.

George Piper, Sr., returned to Minneapolis to begin a business career centered on the milling and sale of linseed oil and the building of steel elevators. He was an active participant in the purchase and development of land in Midwestern Canada, a project that succeeded in the colonization of that area with settlers from the United States, much to the delight of the Canadian government. While living in Minneapolis, the Piper family was members of several of the social clubs including Woodhill and Lafayette Clubs at Lake Minnetonka and the Manitoba Club of Winnipeg. Mr. George F. Piper, Sr. died in 1917.