Arts and Home

A Personal History of the Butler Manor Addition:
1616-1650 Edgcumbe Road

by Linda L. Hoeschler, 2019

For the past 46 years our family has lived on a street that doesn’t exist—not according to to some mortgage lenders and delivery folks. Of course, the property tax folks have found the seven homes on our private driveway off Edgcumbe, marked 1616-1650, even charging us for street assessments. Since none of our houses is on Edgcumbe proper, visitors often look for us on Edgcumbe Place, the public street just north of us. And if they find our driveway, the confusion continues since none of our house numbers follow in order. What kind of Alice in Wonderland place is this?!

Our dwellings are located on the grounds of the old Pierce Butler Jr. estate. Our house at 1630 Edgcumbe Road is located on the site of the former Butler stable on the bluff over 7th Street. The 1920’s Butler abode, our manor house, so to speak, no longer reigns alone and above us. The grande dame, modest in size by today’s McMansion standards, is nestled at 5 Edgcumbe Place. The vast lawns and vistas this English country-style home once enjoyed, now host five houses built in the late-1980’s, plus the Troy’s new and dramatic “cottage”.

Pierce and Hilda Butler, he the son of the Supreme Court Justice who was the last of FDR’s “nine old men,” moved to Edgcumbe Road when it was a gravel byway. Hilda Vallandigham Butler was a New York-born transplant whose prominent family owned a private island in the Adirondacks. She told us many times that her Crocus Hill and Summit Avenue friends thought her and Pierce crazy to move so far out into the country, to Davern’s farm, which lacked meaningful trees and platted streets.

In this charming home that Hilda helped design, the Butlers raised four children, Maeve, Pierce III (Tertius, to his friends), Deidre and Michael. Hilda home schooled the children after Tertius was bullied his first day of public school, located on Seventh Street just off Montreal. When the children entered Summit School or Saint Paul Academy in 7th grade, they said they knew little math (which Hilda hated), but excelled in history, Latin and literature. Michael Butler, by the way, later headed the famous Cranbrook Academy in Detroit.

All the three Pierce Butlers were partners at Doherty, Rumble and Butler, the oldest law firm in the state, which my husband, Jack, joined in 1968. Charles Flandrau (who lead the defense of New Ulm in the Sioux Uprising) and Homer Clark (founder of West Publishing) were two of the many historic figures who worked in this august establishment that was dissolved 10 years ago in 1999.

In the early 1960’s Andrew Scott, a Saint Paul native and Doherty partner, told Hilda Butler that he and his wife, Kathleen, were looking for a new home site. Hilda suggested they consider the land south of her home, along the dirt road to their stable. Andy, delighted with the prospect, worked with his partner, Pierce III, on the land development scheme. Each home, located on lots about ¾ acre, was to be designed by an architect and approved by the Butlers. The 8 original lots were primarily sold to friends and family. Although the homes were not subject to setback rules, since it was a private driveway, nothing could be built—from houses to a fence to a tool shed—without Butler approval. This rule lasted until 1986 when Pierce, then living in California, sold the remainder of his mother’s land.

Andy and Kathleen Scott’s Bauhaus-style house at 1626 Edgcumbe Road, now owned by Heather Nagle, was the trail-blazing anchor on the circle at end of the drive. The Scotts picked their lot for its dramatic view of the river valley and the lights of downtown St. Paul, as well their desire to have minimal traffic and dust. The 1962 cedar-sided house was designed by Ron Hancock, a young English architect at Hammel, Green and Abrahamson. The original structure was half its current size, with a wrap-around expansion planned by Hancock (and executed in 1969), when the Scotts needed and could better afford it.

Lyle Fisher (VP of Personnel at 3M) and his wife, Shirley, engaged society-architect Humphrey Hardenberg to design and build the next house to follow, 1624 (northwest of Scotts), a painted traditional-style home now owned by Cristina and Jesse Miller. Because Shirley was a concert pianist, the acoustically excellent living room was planned around a grand piano with space for a sizeable audience. The lower ground floor was a complete apartment, with kitchen, living room, bedrooms and bathroom, so that the three Fisher daughters could visit comfortably with their families.

Ralph Rapson, Dean of the University of Minnesota School of Architecture and original Guthrie Theater architect, designed our 1964 redwood-clad home at 1630 Edgcumbe Road, just to the southwest of Scotts. Donald and Linda Butler (he was a Macalester professor and no relation to the St. Paul Butlers, adding to our road’s merry confusion) commissioned this open-plan home. The Fishers were supposedly so distressed at the appearance of our shed-roof modern “shack” (their daughter told us that her family was waiting for the Golden Arches to go up in front), that they bought the lot to our west. The Fishers also bought two protective lots to their west that extended their land to Edgcumbe Road. By the way, Shirley Fisher was always a lovely woman, and never made any disparaging remarks to us about our house or any of the other more modern homes on our road. In the late 1970’s we purchased the lot to our west from Shirley Fisher and eventually extended our Japanese garden there.

Roger and Frances Kennedy, he a banker and architectural historian, hired the well-known Minnesota architect, Mike McGuire, to design their 1965 home at 1620 Edgcumbe Road. This redwood-sided, hip-roofed home is the second in from Edgcumbe Road proper, on the south side of our road. Roger’s cousin was his neighbor at 1626, Kathleen Kennedy Scott; the pioneer Kennedys founded the well-known Kennedy Arms store in St. Paul, a Gokey’s type emporium that catered to the carriage trade. Angus and Marge Mairs bought the Kennedy house in 1972, when Roger went to Washington, D.C. to head of the Smithsonian American History Museum (and later, the National Park Service). The Kennedys took their Frank Lloyd Wright windows from the house and donated them to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (House now owned by Lisa Lyons.)

Roger Kennedy persuaded Hilda and Pierce to allow him to subdivide his property so that his aged parents, Elizabeth and Walter, could have a smaller McGuire-designed home just to his west, number 1634, not too logically! This cozy wood-sided house, nestled at the entrance to our road, was built in 1967 and is now owned by Steve and Val Mooney. Elizabeth and Walter were gentle, patrician and well-educated neighbors. I remember stopping in to visit Elizabeth one July 15th. She wished me a happy Saint Swithin’s Day, and proceeded to quote Henry V’s famous speech at the Battle of Agincourt from Shakespeare (the battle having been fought on that saint’s feast day)! I was always impressed by the depth and breadth of Elizabeth Kennedy’s knowledge that she primarily attributed to her Summit Academy training.

About 1970, Frank Butler, Tertius’ uncle and Hilda’s brother in law, hired the local architect, Francis Gorman, to design a modern, redwood-clad home for him, his second wife, Eunice Sanborn Butler (her father, Walter Sanborn, was a federal court of appeals judge, whose second wife was Maude Moon Weyerhaeuser), and their young son, Francis Jr. Frank was also a partner at Doherty, Rumble and Butler and a great intellect, whose friends and houseguests included poet T.S. Eliot and scientist Athelstan Spilhaus. Eunice was the consummate hostess, whose stylish example inspired my children to demand that we, too, have finger bowls at our dining table (which we added). The well-appointed Butler home with its bronze reflective windows, included an elevator, and a lower-level interior swimming pool and sauna, unusual luxuries at that time. The sauna never got a real workout, and became a photo gallery about famous Minnesota judges, many of whom were Butlers, Sanborns and their relatives. The Butler home, halfway down the driveway, is 1650 Edgcumbe Road—between the houses numbered 1620 and 1630. (When we were seeking an appraisal in 1972 in order to make a fair offer to the Donald Butlers, the appraiser, confused by the number order of the houses on our drive, kept sending us photos and estimates for the Frank Butler house—not the Donald Butler house we were trying to purchase!) (Michael and Martha Swendsen purchased this house about 2004.)

The Fishers sold the two lots to the west of them after Lyle’s death and Shirley’s remarriage to banker Phil Harris in the late 1970’s. The lot next door to Fishers was sold to Stan and Marnie Donnelly, he of the Oppenheimer, Wolff and Donnelly law firm. In 1978 one of the Donnelly daughters, Pam, a Columbia University architectural student, designed their house, 1616 Edgcumbe, now occupied by Kate and Zach Barlow. (The last Fisher lot on Edgcumbe proper was sold once by Fishers, then sold again by those buyers to Karla and Peter Myers, 1600 Edgcumbe; its entrance is on Edgcumbe and the back yard abuts our road.)

When we moved into our home in May, 1973, we were the “kids” on the block—I was 28 and Jack, 31. Because we were young and our road was gravel and dirt, my husband was expected to go out in rainstorms or just after to fill in the new ruts. We also became the arbitrators and go-betweens on minor neighbor disputes; for some reason our youth was proclaimed an advantage in negotiations. I think we were just too young to say no!

Moving into our house was a bit like moving onto the manor. We had to get Hilda Butler’s approval for any remodeling we wished to do. While this seemed a nuisance at times, in fact, we all counted on Hilda and Pierce’s good taste to ensure that our road maintained certain design standards and architectural harmony.

Hilda also entertained the residents of our road, her Annex (as I called it), in fine style. Almost every Sunday she hosted a sherry party at 4pm, a gathering for 20 to 40 people. Because the Butlers had been involved in the founding and continuing support of Hazelden, they had a number of recovering alcoholic friends who were also invited for sherry, but who imbibed only cider at Hilda’s. She was very catholic in her guest list. I remember talking to the front desk attendant of a Nicollet Avenue down-market hotel, as well as many prominent civic leaders, all Hazelden grads.

When Hilda needed help at home, she would simply call on the road’s residents, particularly us, the youngsters. One day I reluctantly took a neurotic Russian Blue cat off her hands, not that I wanted another cat. But Hilda had taken the cat as a favor to Kate Berryman, the widow of poet, John Berryman, after his 1972 suicide. Evidently the cat had been kept in a closet, so the feline’s neuroticism was well explained, although too much for Hilda (and almost for me).

When Hilda’s burglar alarm would trip in the middle of the night, my husband was expected to walk over in his pajamas, turn it off and calm her down. I believe Jack also consoled her when her plumber mistakenly screwed her bathtub grab bar into some electric wires, shocking her, to say the least. On cold days we’d often find Hilda lying on a deck chair outside her house, covered with blankets, smiling up at a heat lamp that was screwed into an eave. Toward the end of her life I’d drop by to check on her and her caregivers, as her diminished mind would search to remember earlier, lovelier times. Sometimes we’d “pack” for a cruise or a mountain trip; other times I’d have just missed tea with Queen Elizabeth; and, on occasion, Hilda would dictate a letter to me, her secretary pro tem. Such was life on the manor!

In 1985, Andy and Kathleen Scott decided to sell their house. After years of arguing the merits of keeping our road gravel, Andy decided we all needed to pave it in order to make our homes more attractive for sale. I have always missed the country-like feel of our unusual road, with its preponderance of cedar and redwood-sided homes. Once paved, the car traffic increased measurably, as did the run-off and erosion for those of us living at the bottom of the drive.

About the same time, Pierce Butler sold his mother’s house and land to a developer who proposed that 13 homes be built. Neighbors lobbied against this density, bought it from the developer, and, in turn, sold it to Terry Troy (who brought in Jim Stolpelstad as his partner). Troy et al persuaded the City to make the drive a public road called Edgcumbe Place, with its 7 homes, three of which touch backyards with houses on our drive.

We residents of 1616-1650 Edgcumbe may feel more urbanized today, with our road paved, our rustic homes now boasting additions and painted siding, and the Butler estate well developed. Yet new or old to our road, we all treasure the adjacent park, woods and wildlife (deer, turkeys, fox and occasional coyote) which help keep us untamed, bound to the land and its animal dwellers. And we generally delight in our random house numbering “system” which confounds and confuses, only allowing the hardiest to find us.