Cass Gilbert Walking & House Tour

Join the Cass Gilbert Society for a Fall Tour . The Cass Gilbert Society is hosting a walking and house tour this Saturday, October 13, 2012 that will highlight several Summit Avenue homes. The tour will begin at Lookout Park on Summit Avenue and Ramsey Hill.


Saturday, October 13, 2012 at 1:30 PM
Start: Lookout Park (Summit & Ramsey Hill)
Cost: $15


Members and friends of the Cass Gilbert Society will enjoy a walking tour of the work of Gilbert and his contemporaries in St. Paul’s Ramsey Hill neighborhood. Gilbert began his career in St. Paul by designing for his mother Elizabeth the house that still stands at 471 Ashland Avenue. Buildings by Gilbert in Ramsey Hill range in date from 1883 to 1898. The tour will also look at works of colleagues and contemporaries that extend into the 1920s.

When Gilbert returned to St. Paul, after studying at MIT, traveling in Europe, and working for McKim, Mead & White in New York, he was able to apply his knowledge and experience to his independent career. While he employed popular architectural styles of the late nineteenth century, such as the Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, and Romanesque Revival, he often employed elements of more than one style in a single building, and he developed characteristics details that provide clues to his design authorship. Among them are window designs, column and capital details, and unexpected combinations of materials. One aspect of the tour will be to focus on such details as well as to tell the stories behind the buildings.

Participants will also tour the interior of the first floor of an early (1890) Gilbert house at 839 Osceola Avenue. In addition to rehabilitating the kitchen and downstairs bathroom, the current owners completely restored the exterior including architectural details, which had been covered with steel siding,

The tour will begin at Lookout Park (Overlook Park) on Summit Avenue and Ramsey Street, east of the University Club, by the Eagle, starting between 1:30 P.M. and 2:00 P.M. Groups will be led by Tom Blanck, Marjorie Pearson, Ted Lenz, and John Yust. At the conclusion of the tour, participants are invited to a reception at the Summit Avenue home of Carolyn Nayematsu and Vincent Platt.

Tour admission is $15 (cash or check). For reservations and further information, call Carolyn at 651-699-7407.