Dayton’s Bluff Mansions

Dayton’s Bluff Mansions

Some of St. Paul’s earliest mansions were built  along what is now Mounds Blvd.

Black line shows the route of Hoffman Ave. (now Mounds Blvd.) before Interstate 94 swept through the area in the 1960s (Google Maps)

One of St. Paul’s earliest mansion districts was located along Mounds Blvd., known for many years as Hoffman Ave., in the Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood.

By my count, at least 15 mansions—only one of which still stands—were built between the 1850s and about 1890 on a mile-long stretch of Hoffman between E. Seventh St. and McLean Ave.

Sizable homes also appeared along neighboring Maria and Bates Aves., but Hoffman, which ran along the edge of the bluff overlooking downtown, featured the largest number of mansions.

Unlike Summit Ave., where mansions lined up for block after block, the big houses on Hoffman were scattered amid smaller homes and open lots. Still, in its heyday around 1900, Hoffman would have been one of city’s most impressive residential precincts.

Hoffman was actually the avenue’s second name, bestowed in 1872 to honor James K. Hoffman, who once operated a nearby sawmill and later served on the St. Paul City Council.

Lyman Dayton, ca. 1850

Before Hoffman won the naming rights, however, the avenue bore the moniker of the man who platted it in the 1850s and later became the neighborhood’s namesake, Lyman Dayton (1810-1865). A pioneer real estate developer who seems to have had a fondness for weird hairdos, Dayton thoughtfully named the street after himself and built one of its earliest houses, an oft-expanded Greek Revival home that managed to survive until around 1970.

The most spectacular early mansion on Hoffman, dating to about 1860, belonged to James E. Thompson, a Vermonter who with his younger brother, Horace, founded the First National Bank of St. Paul.  

A mix of the Gothic Revival and Italianate styles, Thompson’s sprawling house, built with walls of local limestone, was among the young city’s first great estates. Its well-tended grounds encompassed a full block on the east side of Hoffman between Euclid St. and Wilson Ave. (I-94 runs through the site today).

James E. Thompson-Patrick H. Kelly House, ca. 1870 (Minn. Hist. Soc.) 

The house was unusual for its time in that it featured two towers. One was hexagonal in shape and had a decidedly Gothic feel. The other, on the opposite side of the house, was square and featured a striking pagoda roof.

Because St. Paul didn’t require building permits until the 1880s, little is known about the house’s construction history. My guess is that a second tower was added as part of an addition built sometime around 1870, but it’s possible both towers were original to the house.                         

A master builder named J. D. Pollock, about whom I know very little, is credited with designing the house. Pollock also designed a towered Italianate mansion for Horace Thompson in Lowertown at about the same time.

James Thompson died in 1870 at age 48 “in the prime of life,” as one publication put it. After Thompson’s unexpected death, a wealthy wholesale grocer named Patrick H. Kelly purchased the house and apparently lived there with his family until his death in 1900. The mansion then became a church home for the elderly and later a private club before being torn down about 1910. 

  Many of the mansions along Hoffman were built in the 1880s, when the massive Seventh Street Improvement Project made access to Dayton’s Bluff much easier than it had been in Thompson’s day.

The most notable of these mansions were built by German Americans who’d prospered in St. Paul. Among them were Andrew Schoch, who operated the city’s largest grocery store (unfortunately, I’ve found no photos of his residence); Dr. Rudolph Schiffmann (or Schiffman, as it’s sometimes spelled), who made a fortune manufacturing and selling patent medicines; and Gustav Willius, who with his brother, Ferdinand, founded the German-American Bank in St. Paul.

Schiffmann’s Eastlake-style, wood-frame mansion was built in the early 1880s on Hoffman near today’s Urban Pl.  The house stood on the west side of Hoffman at the edge of the bluff, where there’s now parkland, and it would have provided Schiffmann and his family with superb views of downtown and the Mississippi River Valley. 

Two views of the Rudolph Schiffmann House, both taken around 1890; the house was  razed in the 1920s, if not earlier (Minn. Hist. Soc.)

Dr. Schiffman, ca. 1908

  A well-known figure in St. Paul, Schiffmann was an early member of the city’s Park Board, and in 1896 he donated the fountain that bears his name in Como Park. As his wealth increased, Schiffmann moved to Pasadena, CA, around 1905. There, he built another mansion, far grander than his one in St. Paul, before his death in 1926.

Gustav Willius’s mansion, also built around 1880, occupied a steeply sloped site on Hoffman between E. Sixth and Seventh Sts. Stylistically elusive but with Italianate elements, the house included two front gables, an inset entry porch and cresting along the roof. With its expansive grounds, the house looked very much like country estate poised atop a hill.

Gustav Willius House, ca. 1888 (Minn. Hist. Soc.)

Like many near-downtown mansions, it didn’t have a particularly long life, coming down in about 1915 to make way for St. John’s Hospital (now the site of Metropolitan State University).

Today, the ca. 1870 Muench-Heinemann House, located above a high retaining wall at 334 Mounds Blvd. between E. Fourth and Fifth Sts., is the only historic mansion still standing along the old Hoffman Ave. corridor. 

However, many large Victorian-era homes can still be found in the Dayton’s Bluff Historic District established by the city in 1992.