Call it a working mansion

One-of-a-kind doesn't begin to describe the property Russ Underdahl Sr. is trying to sell.

It's a grand historic mansion with a Pillsbury pedigree. It's also an office building, with 29 individual offices, a kitchen/lunchroom, an elevator and a 40-car parking lot. And if the buyer wishes, the property can be sold furnished with rooms full of French and Asian antiques that Underdahl has spent a lifetime collecting.

"I like pretty things to come into this building," he said. "I'm a collector who never got rid of anything I collected."

For almost four decades, the unusual 24,000-square-foot structure in south Minneapolis has been the headquarters of Pinecrest, the luxury architectural door and mantel company that Underdahl founded in 1954. His own office is in the mansion's ornate living room, where he works at a gilded Louis XIV desk, underneath a crystal chandelier from Czechoslovakia. "It took five years to get [it] through the Iron Curtain," he said.

He's surrounded by jade carvings, Tiffany-style stained-glass lamps and a herd of mounted animals -- including many exotic species -- trophies from his other lifelong hobby: big-game hunting. He took his first pheasant when he was only 7, a "country boy" in Ronneby, Minn. After more than 400 hunting trips, he's accumulated so many mounts that he once donated 49 of them to the Bell Museum for its "Touch and See" room.

"I've hunted every continent," said Underdahl, whose collection includes 214 species. Why? "The thrill." And observing is just as thrilling as shooting, he said. "Some of my best hunts, I didn't take an animal."

Underdahl also hunted jade, an avocation that once landed him on the TV game show "What's My Line?" Many of the jade pieces in the home were mined and cut by Underdahl himself, a skill he learned from his father, who was in the granite business.

At one point, the building housed 33 workers, he said, but it's now down to seven, a combination of a slow economy and changes in the industry, including the move to computerization. The company will continue, but Underdahl, its chairman of the board, and his son, Russ Underdahl II, its chief executive officer, would like to move its operations to a smaller facility.

The mansion started out as a single-family home, albeit a very fancy one -- with six fireplaces, a ballroom, a billiards room and a loggia. Built in 1913, it was originally owned by John Pillsbury Snyder and his wife, Nelle, according to Tracy Baker, house historian for the Minnesota Historical Society. The couple had survived the Titanic disaster the year before, while returning from their honeymoon, according to Encyclopedia Titanica.

They lived in the house for several decades and raised their three children there. But after John Snyder died, his widow donated the house to a church, which converted it to a nursing home and put on a large addition in 1962.

The building had been vacant for years, except for a caretaker, when Underdahl bought it in 1978. His company operated out of a building a few blocks away, and he had driven past the mansion for a decade before he decided to take a look. It was in very poor shape, he recalled, with many of its grand formal rooms divided into smaller ones during the nursing-home era.

But Underdahl liked the home's architectural features, including its six fireplaces, Honduran mahogany dining room, box-beam ceilings and herringbone floors. He paid $360,000 for the property, he said, and spent about four times that much returning it to its former glory.

She also told him stories about its origins. The mansion's original design was inspired by French chateaux, and workers were brought from Europe to do the work. "The family had been to the Vatican and liked the floor there, so they used the same marble from the same quarry," he said.

That marble-floored great hall, with wide staircases at both ends, has been the site of some grand entertaining. "We used to have Christmas parties of up to 250 people here," Underdahl said. "We had the Golden Strings playing."

The lower-level ballroom still has its original orchestra stage and raised podium for greetings guests. But now there's no room for dancing; it's currently Pinecrest's showroom, where samples of its luxurious doors are arrayed for viewing.

Underdahl, who is selling the building himself, without a real estate agent, said he's heard from several companies with an interest in buying it. He's asking $2.99 million for the structure alone, which is appraised for tax purposes at just under $2 million. Underdahl is willing to negotiate on the furniture, too.

"I always liked the building," he said. But he's ready to move on. "My memories are more important."