Built 1891–92 Architectural style Richardsonian Romanesque | NRHP Reference # 76002176 Added to NRHP 12 December 1976 | |
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Location 405 Mesaba Ave., Duluth, Minnesota Architects Oliver G. Traphagen, Francis W. Fitzpatrick Similar Spirit Mountain, Aerial Lift Bridge, Duluth Entertainment Conventi, Lake Superior Railroad, Northland Country Club | ||
Munger Terrace is a landmarked apartment block in Duluth, Minnesota, United States. It was originally eight luxury townhouses.
The building, in brick with brownstone trim, was constructed in 1891-92 for Roger S. Munger, an important early Duluth entrepreneur, on a site next to his Victorian Gothic mansion; the houses were rentals, Munger's only such project. The architects were Oliver G. Traphagen and Francis W. Fitzpatrick; the style of the building is sometimes described as Richardsonian Romanesque revival sometimes as "Châteauesque." The National Register of Historic Places lists it as Renaissance. The townhouses were all different and had sixteen rooms, separate front and back stairs, central steam heat, running water on all floors, gas for cooking, and electric lighting. The site on the Central Hillside below North 5th Street between North 4th and North 5th Avenues West was three blocks above the tower of the Post Office downtown, and gardens with fountains and a gazebo were laid out on the slope in front of the building.
The project's original name was Piedmont Terrace, but Piedmont Avenue below was renamed Mesabi Avenue and is now Mesaba Avenue; a different Duluth street is now called Piedmont Avenue. The current address of the building is 405 Mesaba Avenue.
One of the original tenants was the Benedictine Sisters, who rented the three westernmost units (6 through 8) and used two rooms on the second floor of unit 8 as a chapel. They started a school there that was a forerunner of the College of St. Scholastica. The nuns left after outgrowing the space.
Munger's house was demolished in 1955. Its carriage house, on 5th Street, has been retained as a caretaker's house but its trim has been removed. In 1915 the townhouses were divided into apartments. In the 1970s Mesaba Avenue was widened and much of the land in front of the building lost; what is left is a lawn, and that part of 4th Avenue is now a step street. Munger Terrace was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 12, 1976. In 1978-79 the building was extensively rehabilitated by the non-profit Town View Improvement Corporation, with new windows, skylights, roof, heating, utilities, and kitchen equipment and the addition of sprinklers. It remains rental accommodation.