Minnesota mini-golf with a twist is your summer fun destination

Bruce Stillman says he had the idea of creating a mini golf course designed by artists before the Walker Art Center did, and shopped it around to local municipalities. He suggested Boom Island Park in Minneapolis as one possible site, and he floated the idea to officials in St. Louis Park and Minnetonka, too. He got shot down each time.

So Stillman decided to create a course of his own on a 17-acre former dairy farm that he purchased in Minnetrista. Big Stone Mini Golf opened in 2004, and it involves a lot more than putting greens.

Next to Big Stone sits a sprawling sculpture garden filled with an eclectic and sometimes colossal mix of close to 80 installations by 16 different artists. There's a turtle the size of a UPS delivery truck made of shiny black rubber, and a gleaming life-size rhinoceros made of Harley-Davidson mufflers, plus a sly reference to the Walker's most famous work.

Stillman's oversized metal spoon and larger-than-life red cherries on display serve as playground equipment for a troop of goats.

In addition to miniature golf and not-so-miniature sculptures, Big Stone is a petting zoo of sorts, with about 15 goats on hand. You can pay $1 if you want to feed them. There's a shaggy Scottish highland cow and a miniature mule. Chickens might wander by as you're trying to line up your putt.

While you're golfing and perusing art in a rustic, wooded setting, you can also play table tennis on a pingpong table made of a massive granite slab or chess with pieces the size of a fire hydrant.

One polished silver bloblike artwork is reminiscent of the famous "bean" sculpture in Chicago, except Stillman's version rotates on a turntable.

You can turn it to face the sun, then swing up a metal arm holding a pan to a spot where the sun's beams are focused by the curved, mirror-like metal on a spot above the sculpture hot enough to cook a pizza.

Stillman calls it "bake bean."

Speaking of names, the reason it's called Big Stone: The sculpture garden and some of the holes feature several massive, multi-ton stone monuments. Add in large tree trunks, and the effect is part Stonehenge, part Flintstones.

"There's nothing like it literally in the world," says Minneapolis miniature golf aficionado Tom Loftus, who along with his wife, Robin Schwartzman, run the acoupleofputts.com website devoted to all things mini golf.

"It's really immersive," Schwartzman says. "The scale of it. You feel much smaller."

The couple had their first date at Big Stone and later got married there.

"It's just kind of an experience," says Stillman, now 64 and a lifelong artist.

The space lets him take advantage of a knack for acquiring unusual, oversized raw materials for his art. For example, Stillman acquired the hull of an old 34-foot long Chris-Craft boat and turned it into a feature on the golf course. (You putt standing inside the upside down boat.)

He cut dozens of holes in the hull and filled them in with translucent colored plastic originally intended to make eyeglass lenses. The light filtering through the holes reminded Stillman of the light from the stained-glass windows in a church, so he calls the work "Holey Ship."

Stillman created Big Stone to lure visitors off the beaten path to see sculptures in far-flung Minnetrista. It's been working. He says about 45,000 people visited the mini golf course in the 2022 season (and more than a half million since 2004). Current prices are $14 for adults and $12 for 8 and under.

If you go, bring cash or checks. They don't take credit cards. If there's no cashier, leave the money in the donation box and grab the putters and golf balls that are always set out.

The golfing fees help support a nonprofit Stillman started, Big Stone Advancing Arts, which runs an art museum and gallery in Mound.

"I just like art, being surrounded by it," Stillman says. "Everything I do, I try to make it creative."

Big Stone Mini Golf

7110 County Road 110, Ext. W., Minnetrista, bigstoneminigolf.com. Adults $14, kids $12; cash or check only.