Summit Avenue house from Glensheen Mansion architect is listed at $1.25M

From the sidewalk, the hulking stone-and-brick mansion at 490 Summit Av. blends in with its grand neighbors — ornate, imposing and unmistakably old-money St. Paul.

Inside, its sheer scale and layered history show in the dark wood paneling and original wall sconces. Even the front door, which only opens from the inside, dates to a time when not personally greeting guests was unthinkable.

The Summit Avenue home has served many roles in nearly 150 years: elite residence, wedding and event venue, even shared living space.

A single resident — Michael O’Sullivan, who purchased the house in 2018 — now occupies the 8,200-square-foot property, which is up for sale at $1.25 million.

“It’s funny because everyone asks how I use this much space, but I work in the living room in the morning, and then in the evening, I watch TV and sit by the fire,” he said. “It’s weird how you get used to big spaces.”

When O’Sullivan bought the house, much of the original craftsmanship hid beneath red carpeting and aging wallpaper.

He quickly began restorations, starting with largely unseen work, like stabilizing the foundation, chimneys and roof. Halfway through the process, he listed the home for sale at $1.35 million.

“A lot of the money wasn’t the fun stuff,” he said.

Built in 1883, the six-bedroom, five-bathroom home was Minnesota architect Clarence H. Johnston’s first residential commission, O’Sullivan said.

Johnston would go on to shape the state’s built landscape, designing Duluth’s Glensheen Mansion, the Minnesota State Fair’s cattle barn and the University of Minnesota’s Northrop auditorium and Williams Arena, among many other buldings.

Addison and Martha Foster commissioned the Romanesque-style house, with its Queen Anne influences. Its Romanesque architecture has fortresslike structures, thick walls, small windows and prominent round arches.

Addison’s business partner, Chauncey Griggs, hired Johnston to design a similar mansion next door for Griggs and his wife, Martha. The men worked in the lumber and coal industries.

Both families lived on Summit Avenue only briefly before moving to Washington state, where Foster and Griggs founded the St. Paul & Tacoma Lumber Co.

Inside the stately former Foster residence, the main floor includes two large living areas, both with gas fireplaces. There’s also a spacious dining room furnished with pieces passed down from owner to owner and a recently remodeled kitchen.

The second floor holds five bedrooms, though one would have served as a dressing room off the primary bedroom. A Jack-and-Jill bathroom connects two of the rooms.

One of the home’s more curious features sits off the third-floor billiards room: a marble shower installed at a time when indoor showers were still a novelty.

“They didn’t think women could be trusted with the technology; it was too stimulating,” O’Sullivan said. “So it was put where only men could use it.”

The now-defunct Saint Paul Globe newspaper included references to the home, including an 1886 ad Martha Foster placed for a “first-class cook” and an article detailing an 1888 party celebrating the Fosters’ son’s return from Yale.

“Over 250 young ladies and gentlemen danced to Seibert’s sweetest strains. Mrs. Foster’s home was illuminated, and flowers, smilax and evergreens made a pretty effect in the four parlors which were all thrown wide open,” the article read.

Much of the home’s history is from word of mouth and scattered clues. Students working on a book about Summit Avenue apparently stole the building permit filing card, meaning the permits still exist but are difficult to locate in city records.

The original blueprints, which reveal slight differences from the final layout, remain and now hang on a wall in a second staircase at the back of the house that staff would have used.

Behind the house sits a 4,000-square-foot carriage house, built before the main residence and now used for storage and garage space.

Many consider Summit Avenue as America’s best-preserved example of a grand Victorian street, lined with former residences of some of St. Paul’s wealthiest figures, according to the city’s preservation guidelines.

The street has been a topic of political discussion in recent years because of a proposed bicycle lane that would dig up the 4-mile stretch, install new sewers and water mains and move a bike lane up to the level of the sidewalk, similar to bike lanes on Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis.

What has made owning this outsized home so rewarding, O’Sullivan said, is Summit Avenue itself — a tight-knit enclave where neighbors gather for monthly soup nights and holiday parties.

“It feels like a little family,” he said. “When I moved here, there were no kids in the neighborhood, and now we have several houses with kids and all different kinds of people.”