It took Darlene Luken and Scott Austin 35 years to restore their 1900s Colonial Revival home -- and just a couple of bad winters for them to decide to put it on the market. "If it weren't for Minnesota winters, we would never leave," said Luken, who plans to retire soon. "We wish we could ship the house to a warmer state." The couple are rightly proud of the work they've done to preserve the traditional brick home, which was built in 1903 by lumber baron Samuel H. Davis. The once-glamorous 4,600-square-foot home in Minneapolis' Whittier neighborhood had been converted to a rooming house, then fell into disrepair. When Luken and Austin bought it in 1976, unsightly plywood walls divided the many bedrooms, the back summer porch was crumbling and the hardwood floors were covered with army-green carpet.Luckily, the home's rich Victorian-era details remained intact, from the artistic stained-glass windows to the intricately carved woodwork. Even the Portuguese oak buffet was still in the dining room.
"The outside of the home is plain," said Luken. "When you walk in the door, it feels like a museum from the Victorian times."
The couple did much of the cosmetic work themselves. They tore down metallic 1960s wallpaper, scraped linoleum off the wood floors and replastered cracked ceilings. They stripped the white paint off the exterior bricks to reveal their original golden hue, cleaned the five chandeliers on the main floor (soaking the one in the dining room to flush away decades of grime) and Luken spent the better part of a summer stripping and painting 10 columns that support the large front porch.
Although their goal was to retain the home's period flavor, they also updated it by remodeling the kitchen and converting the ramshackle summer porch into a cozy family room with a gas fireplace.
The back-yard carriage house had long ago been converted to a four-car garage. But Luken and Austin took it a step further by turning its second story into an apartment, with a kitchen, living room, bedroom, bathroom and a stained-glass window that matches windows in the main house.
Today, the historic home has plenty of modern features, but they don't outshine its Victorian-era beauty.
"When we're sitting with friends on the big front porch with the fluted columns and beamed tongue-and-groove ceilings, we're transported to another era," said Luken.
Lynn Underwood • 612-673-7619
