If you love wine — and hosting other connoisseurs — your dream home awaits on Lake Minnetonka.
But you'll need a fat wallet — at $11.9 million, it's the most expensive home currently listed on the Minnesota Multiple Listing Service.
It's a European-style estate on Maxwell Bay with a huge lower level modeled on a real French vineyard — formerly a medieval monastery — in the Burgundy region. Like its inspiration, this shrine to wine in Orono features rustic stone walls, hand-carved woodwork and stained-glass windows. There's a wine cellar with storage for thousands of bottles, an Old World tasting room, a black-walnut paneled bar and lounge with pool table, and even a catering kitchen.
"It was done for entertaining. It's a fabulous house for big parties," said real estate agent Bruce Birkeland of Coldwell Banker Burnet.
The rest of the house is pretty luxurious as well. Built in 2002, it includes 16,000 square feet filled with handcrafted details and custom artisan finishes, 10 bathrooms, seven fireplaces, seven garage stalls, a French-inspired movie theater, a guest apartment with its own entrance and kitchen, and a boathouse with kitchenette.
Outside, in addition to lakeshore, the house comes with more than 5 acres of land that abuts Noerenberg Park and even your own private 3-hole golf course.
"The site is magnificent," said Birkeland.
And the house is the ultimate in comfort and luxury. "It's the nicest house I've been in on the lake," said Birkeland. "When you walk in the grand entrance, you feel like you're in a Four Seasons Hotel."
