Historic Lake Minnetonka Homes

The stories behind the historic homes of our great lake.

By: Eric Dregni | From the issue: March 2011

Photo: Jim Kruger, courtesy of Ellen DeHaven

The Brooks House

Only a few of the homes that line Lake Minnetonka have stood the test of time. Many are properties that came to be by tearing down a bit of our olden days to make way for something new. Here, we uncover the history behind four of these storied structures. Pull up a chair, dear reader, and enjoy these tales of the past.

The Brooks House: An English Cottage

The “most beautiful road” of Wayzata extends on a little spit of land into Lake Minnetonka and originally had a railroad bridge connecting the peninsula to the other side, making Gray’s Bay more of a lake than a little cove of Wayzata Bay. Bushaway Road is the most historic area of Wayzata and even houses a trapper’s cabin that supposedly dates from before 1750 (which is unlikely because that would make it pre-Revolutionary War and nearly 100 years earlier than the oldest house in Minnesota).

More fascinating is the Brooks House, a Tudor Revival style home that seems like a transplanted English cottage in the middle of the north woods. Though she didn’t live here, you can easily imagine Beatrix Potter concocting tales of Peter Rabbit in the gardens of this house with rough timbering and wrap-around roof that looks like a Shakespearean-era classic. A huge stone chimney evokes evenings sitting by the fire drinking chamomile tea as the rain and fog set in for the evening. Vines wiggle up the stucco by the multi-pane leaded windows, and turn bright red and yellow in the fall.

After summering many years in a cottage on Big Island, Dwight Brooks, a Minneapolis banker, and his family built the house in 1919 in the Locust Hills neighborhood. Closer to the road, carriage and caretaker’s houses were erected in the same quaint style and entice drivers along the road to take a peek into what sort of timepiece is the main house that is a bit hidden behind the trees.

Because Bushaway Road doubles as Highway 101, the Minnesota Department of Transportation has attempted to expand the road that weaves through this neighborhood. So far, the local homeowners have succeeded in keeping back the ever-expanding asphalt from knocking down the historic Brooks carriage house along the road and have preserved the classic feel of this enclave on the lake.

From Screws to Swiss Chalets: The Fruen Cabin

William Fruen came to Minneapolis to make screws. Having learned the screw business in Boston, he set up a machine shop off Glenwood Avenue just east of Theodore Wirth Park in the Bryn Mawr neighborhood of Minneapolis. He soon converted his screw machinery to make water wheel governors to protect Minneapolis mills from another explosion, such as the Washburn Mill that famously blew up downtown.

Fruen’s factory happened to have the best spring water in the city and in 1884 he patented a “liquid drawing device” that would dispense a perfect cup of water for a penny. Jugs of artesian well water were lugged around town to offices and homes, and the company soon took up the now famous name of Glenwood Inglewood.

Fruen’s son Arthur took over the Fruen Cereal Factory at this location in 1909 and used some of the profits to buy up a choice piece of land on the southeastern point of Big Island to get away from the hustle of the city. He built arguably the most charming cabin on Lake Minnetonka high atop a hill covered with oak trees. While many millionaires built manor houses to inflate their importance, the Fruen cabin had no running water or electricity, and Arthur had to hop in a boat to get across the lake in his daily commute to Minneapolis.

Built in 1927, the Fruen House boasts a cozy sleeping loft upstairs and rustic wood built-ins. The stone steps and walls along the shore took four years of work and many trips over the frozen ice with loads of field stone. Apart from the large screened-in porches and the tree-covered deck overlooking the lake, the most prominent feature, from the lake anyway, is the Swiss-style chalet and boathouse on the shore. While construction along the water is now prohibited, these green and red structures offer a glimpse of historic Minnetonka when simple cottages lined the lake.