A nine-bedroom mansion once owned by a son of the family behind Glensheen Mansion has hit the Duluth real estate market for $1.95 million. The nearly 9,400-square-foot home at 415 N. Hawthorne Road sits about a mile from Glensheen in Congdon Park, and its listing traces a lineage of just five owner families stretching back more than a century.
According to Edina Realty, the home has nine bedrooms along with two full baths, two half baths and five three-quarter baths. The home has been lived in by only five families, and the Edina Realty listing notes the home's working elevator and its six-stall, subway-tiled garage arrangement, which includes three attached heated brick stalls. As reported by the Minnesota Star Tribune, the house also includes two three-car garages, four fireplaces and a brick privacy wall, and it sits on almost two acres.
A House Built Before the Congdons Arrived
The home's story does not actually start with the Congdon family. Per the Star Tribune's reporting, Wilford Henry Kiichli Sr. and Byrde Kiichli commissioned the house, with architect Arthur Starin designing the original structure, which was built in 1914-1915. The Kiichlis moved in during 1916 but stayed only four years before relocating to Montana with their three sons.
Edward “Ned” Congdon, the second son of Chester and Clara Congdon, bought the home with his wife Dorothy in 1920, making them the property's second owners, the Star Tribune reports. The couple doubled the house's size that same year, commissioning a remodel and addition by Frederick German and Leif Jenssen, and they raised their three children, Mary, Stephen and Thomas, in the home. Edward Congdon later commissioned a tool house in 1937–38 and a terrace redesign in the 1940s, according to the same account.
Ties to Glensheen and the Family's Legacy
Chester and Clara Congdon, Edward's parents, built the famed Glensheen estate between 1905 and 1908 as their family home, according to University of Minnesota Duluth Research Guides. The family later donated Glensheen to the University of Minnesota, and it opened as a historic house museum in 1979; the mansion is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, per the same guide.
Edward Congdon died of a heart attack in 1940, and Dorothy continued living in the Hawthorne Road house until 1957, the Star Tribune reports. Royal Alworth Jr. and Martha Alworth then bought the home, living there until 2012. The Alworth family, the report notes, made its fortune through mining and real estate and financed the 16-story Alworth Building on West Superior Street.
Modern Owners Restored the Home During the Pandemic
Mark and Susan Brown purchased the home with several of their adult children during the pandemic, updating it for modern family living while retaining its original character, according to the Star Tribune's account. The couple restored two bathrooms that had been out of service, added a shower to the basement bathroom, and replaced 20 windows. They estimate spending at least $175,000 on improvements.
The Browns are now selling the home after the pandemic ended and some family members moved out, the report states. Mark Brown called the home big and beautiful, per the same account. The house's architectural features include a steep slate roof, brick chimneys, half-timbering, brown wood, stucco, Flemish-bond brickwork, heavy wooden doors and stained-glass windows, and it also retains copper gutters and plumbing supply lines along with brass window and door seals. It even includes a sleeping room off the primary bedroom designed for sleeping in hotter months, a detail noted in the same reporting.
What the Price Says About Duluth's Historic Mansion Market
Dusek, the listing agent at Edina Realty, estimated that building a comparable home today would cost $20 million, according to the Star Tribune. Historic preservationist Tony Dierckins described the house's historic significance as stemming from its historic residents, while architectural historian Blake Romenesko noted that the Tudor Revival style was popular among families of English ancestry and echoed old aristocracy, per the same report.
The listing follows a pattern of historic Duluth mansions trading hands in recent years. The Hawthorne Road property itself reportedly sold for $1,125,000 in May 2021, according to the Duluth News Tribune. Elsewhere in the city, the historic Cotton Mansion, home of Joseph Bell Cotton, sold for $1.425 million and was later converted into a boutique hotel and venue, the Duluth News Tribune separately reported. Other Congdon-era homes have moved more modestly: a 1917 house at 2627 E. 7th Street listed for $999,500 in early 2022 before closing that June, according to Kool 101.7, while a Congdon-family-built home on London Road listed for $1.1 million in August 2022 and closed that October, per B105.
