Historic Homes

The wonderful thing about houses is they can be retrofitted. I live in a house built in the 1850s.  It didn’t have wifi back then and there was an outhouse in the backyard. Central heating was added at some point and so was a water heater.

Today it has “smart home” technology, which in most cases is super easy to install and use.

Understanding old houses is an important part of my job. I have rarely met an old house that I don’t like. Sometimes people ruin them when they remodel so that the house has some character from the turn of the century and some from the 1980s.

The oldest houses in St. Paul are those that are the closest to downtown. The newest houses are in the Eastern and Western edge of the city. There are newer houses here and there and even some new construction.  Half of all houses in St. Paul were built before 1920. The chart is a screen print from a city of St. Paul planning report.

The house I grew up in was a beautiful craftsman-style house in the Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood. It was built in 1926 and is the newest house I ever lived in. It had an ancient boiler that burned oil.  I well remember the great oil shortage and taking turns with my dad hauling containers of diesel fuel from the local gas station and using it as fuel for the boiler. That same boiler was later converted to natural gas.

The weather has me thinking about the furnace. We bought a new one back in 2014. The older models can last a long time. Most are not as energy-efficient as today’s models but they will heat your house.

Some of the companies that service boilers and furnaces are quick to suggest buying a new one when a part is all that is needed. Do a little research and get a second opinion before you replace your furnace or boiler.

Here is a collage of old furnaces and boilers that are still hard at work in St. Paul homes.  There are some fine old heating plants in the picture. The furnace that is pictured on the top and in the center is an ancient gravity furnace. They can take up most of the basement.

If you are buying a home with an older unit in it I recommend having the furnace or boiler tuned and certified by a licensed HVAC specialist. The best time to have a furnace put in is during the cooling season. The oldest boiler dates back to the 1920s.

Even though central heating seems essential for Minnesota homes there are a few in St. paul that do not have it.

What is historic on the outside may look like it was built in the 1980s on the inside. There must have been a lot of condo conversions in the 80s. 

The original woodwork was replaced with blond oak and the floors are carpeted. The “old world” charm can not be found on the inside. In fact, sometimes there isn’t anything charming about the interior.

There are several buildings in downtown St. Paul that were factories or warehouses that were converted into condos. The kitchens are all new but the buildings still have exposed brick and timber. They retain their historic charm.

The developers restored unique historic features rather than just gutting the building and starting over. River Park Lofts, The Great Northern, and the Rossmor in downtown St. Paul were all converted from industrial buildings to condos while retaining original walls, windows, ceilings, and flooring.

Some of our historic buildings are disappointing on the inside because they were chopped up and made into small apartments that don’t make sense. Who wants a north facing condo with one window? The original flooring is gone and brick walls are covered with drywall.

Historic preservation districts have rules about how the outside of a building has to look but no rules about the inside. You can’t judge a building by how it looks on the outside.