Area Less than one acre NRHP Reference # 89000368 Opened 1882 | Built 1882 Designated May 15, 1989 Architectural style Italianate architecture | |
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Location 130 3rd Street West, Wabasha, Minnesota MPS Red Brick Houses in Wabasha, Minnesota, Associated with Merchant-Tradesmen MPS | ||
The Lorenz and Lugerde Ginthner House is a historic house in Wabasha, Minnesota, United States. It was built in 1882 in high Italianate style on a prominent corner lot. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989 for having local significance in the theme of architecture. It was nominated for its elaborate Italianate architecture and status as the most intact and detailed example of the brick houses belonging to Wabasha's early merchant class.
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Description
The Ginthner House is a brick building on a limestone foundation. The main section rises two stories, with two sections at the rear dropping to one-and-a-half and one story respectively. All three sections have shallow hip roofs. The front façade is spanned by an elaborate porch.
The tall, rectangular windows are topped with limestone hoods decorated with an incised boss. False gables rise above the roofline on both street façades. Each is pierced with an oculus windows that permits light into the attic. The cornice is highly detailed with dentils and brackets. In the corners and under the gables the brackets extend farther down onto the walls.
A one-story frame structure once protruded from the side of the rear section but has been removed. A kitchen porch and much of the ironwork were reconstructed in the 20th century based on an 1884 engraving of the house. Iron crests on the roof and porch were salvaged from an old hospital building in Menomonie, Wisconsin, and the fence was saved from a local cemetery. A detached garage at the rear of the lot is a modern addition and is not considered a historic asset.
History
Lorenz Ginthner (who also anglicized his name as "Lawrence") emigrated from Baden, Germany, in 1852 and settled in Wabasha three years later. He went into business as a tailor and merchant, manufacturing clothing on site as well as selling apparel shipped in by rail. He prospering quickly enough to have his own commercial building constructed in downtown Wabasha in 1867. His business continued to grow, requiring two additional tailors by the time he had this elaborate house built in 1882.
The Ginthner House is an example of some 20 brick residences surviving from the 19th century in Wabasha. All were built by the first two generations of the city's merchant class, forming a distinctive architectural stock that contrasts with the elaborate wood-frame Victorian architecture that characterized most other communities in Minnesota. As time went on the choice of building material appears to have been a matter of local taste rather than accessibility, as Wabasha was not a major brick manufacturer compared to Lake City and Red Wing upriver.