An Acre in the City: The Estates That Defined Lowry Hill

The 2.5-story house has 10 bedrooms and 11 bathrooms and was built around 1903 for Charles J. Martin, secretary and treasurer of the Washburn-Crosby Company, the flour-milling firm that reorganized in 1928 to become General Mills. Minneapolis architect William Channing Whitney designed it in the Renaissance Revival style, with beige brick walls, stone accents and a driveway that arcs from the street to the entrance, screened from the parkway by a wrought-iron fence and mature trees.

The roughly one-acre lot is the rarest thing about the property. When the Martin House came up for sale, it was on the market for the first time in 35 years, and listing materials marketed the grounds as much as the house. Lots that size survive on the hill because of when it filled in: the lumber, milling and merchant families who built along the ridge after the streetcar lines reached it wanted room for the house, the carriage house and the lawn, all within a streetcar ride of downtown. Little of that undivided land remains this close to the city center, which is part of why the hill's largest parcels still sit at the top of the Minneapolis market.

The grounds are also part of what is legally protected. The Martin House was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 and designated a local landmark by the city in 1986. The city's Heritage Preservation Commission reviews exterior changes to designated landmarks, so alterations to the building and, in practice, the setting that frames it require city approval rather than an owner's discretion alone.