Along Lake of the Isles, a new house will rise where the city's largest home was a century ago

It's round three for one of the most storied pieces of land in the Twin Cities.

A century ago, at the corner of Lake of the Isles Parkway and West 25th Street stood the largest house ever built in Minneapolis — the Gates Mansion, a three-story, Italian Renaissance splendor that disappeared in the Great Depression. In 1958, a single-story home rose on the same property in the sleek, then-new style that became known as midcentury modern.

Last week, that house also came down to make way for a third one that will have a smaller footprint and leave more green space along the parkway.

Hundreds of houses have been torn down around the city in recent years, replaced with bigger ones by people who find it too costly to maintain or upgrade an existing house. The action at 2505 E. Lake of the Isles is both an extreme example of the phenomenon and reminder that it's nothing new at all.

The lot and home cost $3.5 million to buy and the new owners will likely spend millions more for the teardown and to build the 8,800-square-foot house they proposed to city officials. "When a house like this one gets torn down, you hope the replacement is of good quality, but this is just part of the natural process," said Larry Millett, an architectural historian. "It's also in a real way a sign of the vitality of the neighborhood."

The ultra-mod house demolished last week was designed by Chicago architect Henry L. Newhouse Jr. for Twin Cities businessman Arthur Melamed. Rhea and Fred Isaacs, who had been chairman of American Iron & Supply Co., lived in it for three decades and completely remodeled it in the late 1980s. The house was known for its massive atrium with a white grand piano visible from Lake of the Isles. There was a large car parking area, several patios and a big pool that occupied much of the yard.

When the Isaacs decided to sell the house several years ago, it was the city's most expensive listing. But as with other multimillion-dollar properties, it took several years to find a buyer. "It could have been remodeled, but it needed so much renovation — why not start anew?" said Debbie McNally, the listing agent on the house.

As the house came down last week, crews dug into what was once the foundation of the far larger mansion. It was built by Charles Gates, a financier and son of the founder of a steel and wire company that in 1901 became part of U.S. Steel. In 1911, he married Florence Hopwood of Minneapolis and agreed to build a house they would live in during summer and fall, while spending the colder months in Florida.

At 38,000 square feet, it was the size of a Best Buy store and it was said to be the first in the U.S. with air conditioning in the whole structure. But after construction started in 1913, Gates was on a hunting trip in Wyoming with the Prince of Monaco and Buffalo Bill Cody. One day after a hunt, he returned to his private rail car, called "Superb," to rest. There, he died at age 37, never seeing the finished mansion.

Hopwood remarried in 1915, moved into the mansion with her new husband and gave birth to their first child in it. In a recording made in the 1950s, she described furnishing and living in the giant home. Bob Glancy, a retired real estate agent and historian in Richfield, obtained a copy of the recording and some photos of the house from descendants of Hopwood and the man who bought the mansion in the 1920s.

"When it was first put up for sale, it was a white elephant," Glancy said. "There were not very many willing buyers."

The mansion's second owner died in 1929 and his survivors tried to sell it again. But with the country in the throes of the Depression, no one came forward and it was torn down in 1933.

For a quarter-century, the property stood empty and the mansion's story took on a mythical quality. "The folklore I often ran across was that it was never lived in," Glancy said. "But it was."

Then, Melamed built his modern house on three-quarters of the mansion's former lot. A house designed by a well-known local architect, Edwin Lundie, was built on a remaining portion. That house still stands along West 26th.

Millett, whose book "Minnesota Modern: Architecture and Life at Midcentury" came out in 2015, said large, midcentury houses like Melamed's are rare today because they are often torn down. "They don't have the amenities and goodies, video rooms and giant kitchens, that people want today," he said.

Across the Lake of the Isles, Twin Cities businessman Bill Pohlad recently built a 13,567-square-foot house on the site of two houses, one that burned down and one that was razed to make room for the new one. Similar situations are happening in southwest Minneapolis neighborhoods such as Linden Hills, and the practice is spreading into adjacent neighborhoods where the houses are slightly more affordable.

"This is just a story that's happening in a lot of places," Millett said. "It's often the big fancy houses that are the most difficult to save. There's big money chasing them, and they're always going to be in jeopardy."

The new house at 2505 E. Lake of the Isles will be perpendicular rather than parallel to the lake's shoreline. That will create more green space around the house, which has been designed by Peterssen/Keller Architecture of Minneapolis.

According to a document filed with the city, it will feature three stone pavilions with either cedar shake or copper gable roofs. These "traditional forms are reminiscent of older stone homes along Lake of the Isles," according to a description by the architect.

The plans also call for tearing down and rebuilding the most visible remnant of the Gates Mansion, a short, retaining wall along the public sidewalk, with a version that is better for catching water and preventing erosion.

Other parts of the massive house survive. The pipe organ from the mansion is at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Minneapolis. Kelly Chatman, the church's pastor, said it isn't played much anymore. "Glad to have people know about it," he said via e-mail. "Please let us know if you hear of someone who would like to come and play it some time."

Some stone columns and a parquet floor from the house are in the Church of St. Anne in Hamel, west of Plymouth. Some chandeliers are in the Wabasha Street Caves complex in St. Paul. Several homes in the Twin Cities have stonework and other elements from the Gates' garden, Glancy said, and he owns two doors from it.

"It's still sort of with us, spread around, here and there," he said.

Staff writer Evan Ramstad contributed to this report.

Jim Buchta • 612-673-7376