House House

The 1904 House residence ca. 1910, photographer unknown. [Image: Kevin Evans]

2210 E. Superior Seet | Architect: William T. Bray l | Built: 1904 | Extant

Frank E. House was president of the Duluth and Iron Range Railway when he and his wife Minnie tapped William Bray’s design talents for their new home. Bray’s take on the popular Tudor Revival style, the two-and-a half-story dark-red brick Scott house includes a few Gothic surprises. You’ll find the multigabled roof and stucco with false half-timbering as expected, but also limestone-capped tower buttresses, a few Gothic-arch windows, and a limestone Gothic arch framing a Tudor-arch doorway. Other Tudor flourishes include wide overhanging eaves with large brackets and projected, stylized rafter tails. House was born in 1855 in Houseville, New York, named for his family. At twenty-two he took an engineering job at a Nevada mine before working for the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad. He moved on to different railroads and higher positions until he took charge of the D&IR in 1901. In 1920, the Houses’ daughter, Dorothy, married Edward Congdon, and the Houses moved to 519 North Hawthorne Road, across the street from the newlyweds. Francis passed away in 1926 and Minnie—born in Iowa as Mary Viola McCracken—died in 1942 at age eighty-three. Bray’s Tudor-Gothic hybrid was purchased by widower and attorney Francis W. Sullivan, who lived there with his son Francis C. until he married widow Elizabeth French in 1940; the younger Sullivan remained in the house with his wife Rose Mary until 1954. The house has been a private residence ever since.