When Dan Priebe and Molly Rice hosted guests at their home in Stillwater, they hung out in the limestone-walled "speakeasy" on their lower level. Or, in summer, on the terrazzo patio overlooking the couple's tiered gardens and waterfall.
"We love to entertain, and we had two great spaces, for whatever season," said Rice, a Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef who grew up in the restaurant business. "We had a lot of football parties — any excuse to have people over and feed them."
The couple's stately Victorian-era house once hosted paying guests, as the Overlook Inn and later the Laurel Street Inn during the 15 years it operated as a B&B.
Priebe and Rice bought it in 2004 with plans to convert it back into a single-family home where they could raise their two children.
"We were living in Marine [on St. Croix] and looking for something more in town," said Rice. "I grew up in a Victorian house so it spoke to me."
The home's location, on a bluff across from Pioneer Park, was ideal for a family with kids, she added, just five blocks from downtown and with a view of the St. Croix River Valley.
The house, originally built in 1859, is one of the oldest in Stillwater, with a wraparound front porch and grand double-door entrance.
Its first owner was Hollis Murdock, an attorney and probate judge who served as mayor of Stillwater for one term. He expanded the house a few years after building it, and later added decorative flourishes, including porches, an arched front door and dormer windows. The house also had a front "viewing window" that was used to display Murdock's body, per Victorian custom, after his death, Rice noted.
