Lowry Hill's standing as one of Minneapolis's costliest neighborhoods traces to a streetcar-era boom that filled the ridge with mansions, most of which still stand.

By 1906, lots on Mount Curve Avenue and Groveland Terrace held some of the most expensive houses in Minneapolis, according to the Lowry Hill Neighborhood Association's history. The concentration was not accidental. Thomas Lowry, who built the Twin Cities streetcar system, and his father-in-law Calvin Goodrich platted the 75-block Groveland Addition in 1872 and intended the upland portion as an exclusive enclave for the city's lumber, milling and merchant families.
The boom followed the rails. In the 1890s, the extension of the electric streetcar along Hennepin Avenue and west along Douglas Avenue set off a real estate rush, and the characteristic streetscape of broad lawns, boulevard trees and well-spaced houses had largely taken shape by 1900. Most of the district was built out between 1893 and 1916 in period-revival styles of brick and stone.
What distinguishes Lowry Hill from other affluent areas is how little of that stock has been lost. The Charles J. Martin House at 1300 Mount Curve Avenue, completed in 1904, is on the National Register of Historic Places and stands as a surviving example of the "city estates" the neighborhood specialized in. Block after block of early-1900s houses remain intact, a continuity that explains the neighborhood's persistent place on lists of the city's wealthiest addresses.
The setting reinforces the prices. The neighborhood sits between Lake of the Isles, the Walker Art Center's Minneapolis Sculpture Garden and downtown, ringed by freeways that route traffic around rather than through it. The result is a quiet, intact district where the cost of a house reflects both its original grandeur and more than a century of upkeep.

The East Isles Neighborhood Association holds its annual Summer Social on Wednesday, June 14, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Joanne Levin Triangle Park, with a rain date of June 15.

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The Lowry Hill East Neighborhood Association reviews apartment and land-use proposals in the Wedge through its Community Development Committee, the volunteer-led forum where the neighborhood weighs in before projects reach the City Council.

Land use is the recurring flashpoint in Lowry Hill, a neighborhood of Victorian and Prairie-style homes where even a modest multi-unit proposal draws scrutiny under the city's built-form rules and the 2040 comprehensive plan.