When I started researching different things to see around Minnesota that I’ve never been to before, this place was the first thing that stood out as it’s a giant mansion built in the 1900s which was around the same time period as Downton Abbey. Plus add on that it looks like some of the buildings have a Tudor style, which is my favorite style of architecture and I booked myself right away to experience the full estate tour.
I’m not going to go into full details of the estate as I want to highly recommend that if you get the chance to make it to Duluth, MN that you take the tour yourself. The family donated this estate to the University of Minnesota Duluth in the 1970s to preserve for educational and historical purposes, and all money for the tours and donations go right back into the house to restore everything.
What I will say about the history of this estate is it was built in 1905-1908 on Lake Superior along the North Shore, and belonged to the Congdon family. Currently the estate is on 7.6 acres of property but during their time living at the estate, they had around 22 acres in total. The property does have 39 bedrooms in total if you account all the buildings on the land. Chester Congdon, the head of the household, was a lawyer that made the bulk of his money from selling his shares of the Iron Mines in Minnesota to J. P. Morgan who formed U.S. Steel Corporation. Chester was also the president of several businesses around the United States and served two terms of Minnesota House of Representative. The other members of the household were Clara, his spouse, and their children: Walter, Edward, Marjorie, Helen, Elisabeth, and Robert. As well as their nephew, Alfred, that they took care of after he was orphaned at the age of six.
So you can’t take video inside of the estate that just the architecture alone would cost 22 million dollars to recreate. And that doesn’t include the furniture and artwork that is inside the estate. Add on that the beds in each of the children’s bedroom is custom made to their size along with the linen that goes with those beds. You can just imagine how gorgeous the estate is. I didn’t take photos of everything inside the estate as I was trying to enjoy the full tour but I love the photos I did manage to take. Plus I have a lot of photos from outside the estate and maybe too many photos of Lake Superior.
Now let’s get onto the photos and the vlog from the grounds of the estate.
Estate Grounds/Vlog
Inside the Estate
What historical estate around the world is your favorite? Or what estate would you have loved to see when it was in it’s prime?
