If you make your way one block south and two blocks west of the Grady Flats, you will be at the Eugene and Christina Villaume House on 123 West Isabel.
Eugene Villaume, born in St. Michel, France, in 1853, came to St. Paul in 1873, following his brother Victor. Like so many immigrants, he started out working with his hands, notably at a firm called Osgood-Blodgett, a maker of prefabricated houses. After several years he went out on his own, making wood boxes, expanding over time to lumber and millwork.
Villaume Box and Lumber became one of the big employers on the West Side. Directly or indirectly Villaume had 250 employees at his death in 1933 -- and he also owned his early employer, Osgood-Blodgett. The Villaume firm continued long after his death, still with boxes and containers, but also skilled millwork and, during World War II, making gliders for the invasion of Europe.
It moved out of St. Paul in 1970, but the firm thrives still today, making trusses, pallets, and heavy-duty packaging, and the site of its West Side installations is easily seen nestled along the railroad tracks near Robert Street.
The house’s prominent round tower, steep roof, and gingerbread ornamentation mark it unmistakably as a Queen Anne.
]]>Located a short distance further east from the Heimbach House are the Grady Flats - a beautiful rowhouse with parapets, turrets, and finials at the roofline.
]]>Located one block south and one block east from the Minea House is the Edward and Elizabeth Heimbach House at 64 West Delos.
Martin Brueggemann (see John and Mary Minea House) also built this one for his daughter Elizabeth upon her marriage to Mr. Heimbach. The couple’s fathers hoped that the marriage would cement a long commercial alliance.
Gottfried Heimbach, another German immigrant, ran a West Side saloon sufficiently profitable to finance his big house at 76 Prospect Terrace (two houses west of the Durkee House, above.) Edward and John Bruggeman, Elizabeth’s brother, were great friends -- enough so to persuade Gottfriend to switch his beer business from Yoerg’s to Bruggeman’s.
But things went sour and then litigious. Edward apparently forged Martin Bruggeman’s name on a $4000 note to Germania Bank. To avoid scandal -- and maybe to keep his son-in-law out of prison -- Bruggeman paid the note but also demanded a mortgage in that amount against Gottfried Heimbach’s homestead. There was a foreclosure and bitter lawsuit that resulted in a complete Bruggeman victory. There must have been some tense family gatherings in the mid-1890s.
Despite the foreclosure, the elder Heimbachs stayed in their house for years after, so some accommodation must have been made. Edward and Elizabeth for their part quickly moved to a smaller house near Grand and Lexington, far, far from the Upper West Side. The West Delos house still carries their name, just the same.
Architectural historian Larry Millet calls it “a Victorian Grab bag, mixing Italianate, Eastlake, and Queen Anne with fearless flair.” Queen Anne was a style popular from 1880-1910 and characterized by steep roofs and turrets; it succeeded French Empire as a nineteenth century vogue. Eastlake was a decorative sub-genre of Queen Anne. And Italianate was another 19th century style that featured squared off patterns in imitation of buildings of Renaissance Italy.
]]>There are two Brueggeman residences in Prospect Terrace within a block and a half from one another.
The first is located at 382 Winslow. Martin Brueggeman made a fortune in brewing and spent a lot of it on the bluff. He built this house, with its off-center front gable, for his daughter Mary after her marriage to grocer (and, later, Brueggeman employee) John Minea.
John Minea came to St. Paul as a boy of seven, from St. Joseph, Indiana, in 1856 (thus making him a very near contemporary of John Ireland’s, who was born in 1838 and came to St. Paul in 1852.) His grocery, Minea Brothers, was the second opened on the West Side, around 1875.
Like James Melady (see James Melady House) he made his money on the low ground, first on Isabel Street, later on Dakota (now South Wabasha.) He made business and social contact with another West Side pioneer, Martin Bruggeman, who had a grocery and brewing business on the flats. He was the second brewer on the West Side, after Anthony Yoerg, Sr. (see Yoerg's Heritage tour); he did well with the beer that bore his name, though Bruggeman’s was in time outpaced by both Yoerg and Schmidt.
John Minea married Bruggeman’s daughter Mary, and Martin built the house for the two of them. He also hired Minea as a brewery manager. The Mineas stayed only about ten years in the Winslow house.
]]>Across from the Durkee House is another French Second Empire at 361 Stryker. The James Melady House is believed to have been built around 1885. The term Second Empire refers to the reign (1852-1870) of Napoleon Bonaparte’s nephew Louis-Napoleon, and by extension some styles of architecture that became popular during that time.
Melady was one of the blufftop magnates who made his money on the lower West Side. He came to St. Paul in 1860 and began as a laborer for the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, then became a foreman at the Northwest Fuel Co., then ran his own coal and wood business on the flats at East Indiana Street.
He served on the St. Paul city council in the 1880s and 1890s, at times with Anthony Yoerg (see Yoerg's Heritage tour), and a brother of James Minea (see John and Mary Minea House). They were stalwart Sixth Ward men, business leaders and politicians. Melady retired in 1903, and died at 361 Stryker, living at that time with his daughter and her husband, Eugene P. Shanley.
]]>Across the street from one another in Prospect Terrace are two prominent French Second Empire homes.
The first, the Durkee House is located at 58 Prospect Boulevard. Built round 1875, this is one of the first built on the bluff – a French Second empire with a mansard roof. The mansard, or hip roof, was popularized in France by Francois Mansart and is recognizable by the two slopes, the second more acute than the first. This house has been remodeled over and over, so it has lost some of its original character; to some it resembles a paddlewheeler about to steam over the bluff.
Reuel Durkee came to St. Paul from New Hampshire in 1870 and commenced a long career in the wholesale grocery business, mostly as R.A. Durkee & Co., downtown. According to his grandson, Reuel Harmon, Durkee guessed that Prospect Terrace would equal or surpass Summit Avenue as St. Paul’s prestige boulevard; he got it wrong, but you can see his reasons. Harmon described his grandfather is crusty, with some eccentric ideas; he believed, for example that the moon was getting progressively closer to earth. And when young Reuel asked him what happens to the soul upon death, the old man snuffed out a candle flame.
Reuel the elder died at 58 Prospect Boulevard in 1923. Reuel the younger was born at that address and went to a very successful business career as president of Webb Publishing Company, publisher of The Farmer magazine, a publication founded in 1882 and still going strong today.
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