Tuesday, June 21, 1966: Dentist buys house for $266
Posted on June 18th, 2007 – 11:14 AMBy Ben Welter
This story presents a bit of a mystery: A four-bedroom Tudor-style house is sold for $266 to make way for Interstate Hwy. 35W. The new owner tells the Star he plans to move it to a vacant lot he owns at 603 SE. 5th St.
Sounds plausible, except that the Horace Van Cleve house, a historic Greek Revival structure, stands at that address now, and has been there, presumably, since its construction in the late 1800s. Hmmm. Maybe the Star got the address wrong. Maybe the Van Cleve house was moved. Or maybe Minneapolis adjusted street numbers after the freeway went in.
I’ll do some detective work this week and see what I can find. Please drop me a line if you can shed any light.
MYSTERY SOLVED: Valentina Yarr, the dentist’s widow, says the city approved the move but neighbors blocked it. And so the lovely Tudor was leveled to make way for the freeway. Also, neighborhood historian Penny A. Petersen confirms that the Van Cleve house has stood at 603 Fifth Street SE. since it was built in 1858 by William Kimball. See the comments section for details and a fresh photo.
FROM HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT
Dentist Buys House for $266
By DAVID NIMMER
Minneapolis Star Staff Writer
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| Nicholas Yarr and his new house. |
Nicholas Yarr just bought a two-story, English Tudor-style house. He got it for $266 from the Minnesota Highway Department.
A bargain? Maybe.
Yarr says he has problems.
He’s got to move the house if he doesn’t want a freeway through the living room of the stucco structure at 900 SE. 4th St.
Yarr, a Minneapolis dentist, thinks he found a solution to his problem. He plans to move the house to a vacant lot he owns at 603 SE. 5th St.
Yarr estimates it is going to cost more than 50 times as much to move the house and put it on a new foundation than it did to buy it.
‘Worth It’
“Every penny of the $15,000 I plan to spend will be worth it,” Yarr said, “if I can save this beautiful home. It’s kind of like having a bit of the English countryside in southeast Minneapolis.”
The highway department told Yarr he has to move the house by Aug. 12 when work is scheduled to begin on the right-of-way for Interstate Hwy. 35W.
Yarr applied for a special council permit to move the 13-room structure and says he will also ask the City Planning Commission for a setback variation at the new site.
The house, Yarr said, will be moved four blocks at a cost of about $3,000.
Only Offer
Yarr was the only person to make an offer for the Tudor-style home when the department opened the bids. “I could have had the home for a $10 bid,” he said, “but I bid high, if anyone can call $266 high, just to be on the safe side. It seems I must have been the only one with an empty lot four blocks away.”
The house, Yarr said, was built in 1935 by Minneapolis attorney John Shaughnessy, who lived in it until his death in 1957.
Shaughnessy’s son, also an attorney, lived there with his sister until the highway department ordered them to vacate in April.
A spokesman for the highway department said $35,200 was awarded to the Shaughnessys by the condemnation commissioner for the house and lot.
The house has a living room, dining room, paneled den, sun room, breakfast nook, kitchen, three bathrooms and four bedrooms.
Yarr plans to live in the house if the council approves his request to move it.
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| The Tudor house at 900 SE. 4th St. was leveled to make way for I-35W. |
Here is 601-603 SE. 5th St. Is this the Van Cleve residence?
11 Responses to "Tuesday, June 21, 1966: Dentist buys house for $266"
Hi: Yes, this my late husband in the article. I believe I ran across this article sometime ago and have it saved somewhere. This beautiful home was not moved to the site at 603 5th Street SE, which apparently had the approval of the City but not the neighbors and so it was demolished for the freeway. I can’t believe that this had to happen. There were things that my husband tried to salvage from this home, one of which are 2 corner china hutches that I have in my home now. There just not enough time to save anything. I don’t know what other things were salvaged, but they probably were door knobs, doors, lights and if they were stored, everything was sold off when I sold the last property we owned in SE. This was not the first time Dr. Yarr was in the paper. He also tried to have the City move the “Pioneer Monument” (also slated to be demolished) which now sits on corner of Main & 5th) facing the old Nelson roofing company which was demolished. He tried to move this also to the Genr’l Van Cleve lot - there were quite a few interesting responses from the public to that proposal published by a Star Trib reporter (also a patient of my husband’s). But the “uproar” had the city back down and moved the monument to its present site instead of demolishing it.
Thanks for posting, Valentina. That solves half the mystery. Can you talk about the lot at 603 SE. 5th St.? From the evidence so far, I’m guessing that the Van Cleve house might have been moved there.
I visited 603 SE. Fifth St. last night and shot the color photo above, which shows a well-maintained old 2.5-story house. Though no marker is visible on the property, by all accounts this must be the Van Cleve residence. Perhaps Yarr intended to put the Tudor in space to the east of the building. It would have been a tight fit. I’ll need to do more research on this.
Baaad memories…
I grew up southeast at 6th and 10th. Many truly extraordinary houses were razed mercilessly then, and southeast never really recovered.
Things don’t really change much. Minneapolis will always be anti-preservation (or rather for it, until money begins talking–think of Nicollet Island and DeLaSalle), but to its detriment. First-class cities keep their history alive, and I don’t think Minneapolis will ever become “first-class”.
Neighborhood historian Penny A. Petersen, author of “Hiding in Plain Sight, Minneapolis’ First Neighborhood,” provides more background:
“The Van Cleve House has stood at 603 Fifth Street SE since it was built in 1858 by William Kimball. Minneapolis did not ‘renumber the streets’ simply because the freeway tore through the neighborhood. …
“Yarr might have been planning to wedge the Tudor in between the Van Cleve house and the one at 617 Fifth St. SE. Originally, the William McNair House was located there (it is now on 610 Sixth Street SE). You might consider researching and following this story in subsequent issues of the 1966 Star Tribune to find more information on this story.”
Yes, the most recent photo above is the General Van Cleve home which was nicely renovated into two separate units. One objection to moving the 900 SE 4th Street Tudor house to this site was because it was believed that the General’s horse, “Charger” is buried there and the ground shouldn’t be disturbed.
what beautiful, picturescue photo s
Its to bad government is always in a hurry to build things and not preserve our history. Couldn’t they have waited a little longer so Mr. Yarr could have found a new place to put the house? Why would the neighbors not want such a beautiful house on their street? What a shame:(
To have razed a home with such beautiful architecture and craftsmanship is an absolute abomination. No doubt a great number of historic and irreplaceable buildings were recklessly demolished in the name of “progress.” When will our society learn to value and preserve the many great things we already have?
Typical of Minnesota values nobody wants to preserve anything unless there is money in it for THEM! This includes the environment and our lakes.
Unfortunately we live in a very disposable society where nothing is preserved for historical purposes.
