November 15, 2010: Fire destroys Pastoret Terrace, aka “The Kozy”

On this day in Duluth in 2011, fire ripped through Pastoret Terrace at 109 N. Second Ave. E., better known as the Kozy Bar and Apartments, severely damaging the building and displacing its tenants. According to the Duluth News Tribune, “The fire broke out about 10:13 p.m. in Room 32 of the building. At least 51 people were displaced. The building…was condemned for habitation the following week.” The brownstone building was once a Romanesque masterpiece, designed by Oliver Traphagen, but its life as a tony townhouse did not last. As downtown living fell out of fashion, most of the building’s luxury units became rental apartments. After Prohibition its ground floor restaurant became a tavern and the six townhouses were divided into many apartments—forty by 1961, fifty by 2009. In about 1960 the tavern became the Kozy Bar. Soon the entire building was known simply—and notoriously—as The Kozy. Read a history of Pastoret Terrace here.

Pastoret Terrace, a.k.a. “The Kozy,” as it looked shortly after construction in 1887. (Image: Duluth Public Library)