Home of the Week: The Pillsbury Castle in Minneapolis Just Emerged From a Swanky Transformation
When design aficionados Matthew Trettel and Ryan Hanson first stepped foot into Pillsbury Castle in Minneapolis, the duo immediately fell in love with its history and stately period architecture.
The imposing stone mansion was built in 1903 for Alfred F. Pillsbury, a entrepreneur and businessman born into the Pillsbury family, whose eponymous company is a flour-milling business known across the world today for its flour products and other packaged goods. Pillsbury paid $135,000 to construct the home, which is equivalent to around $4.825 million today. A landmark edifice in the local community, and specifically the Whittier neighborhood, the massive residence became known as the Pillsbury Castle due to its English Tudor Gothic-style architecture and baronial grandeur. At around 12,000 square feet, it was one of the largest mansions in all of Minneapolis at the turn of the 20th century.
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Though many of the lavish homes in the neighborhood that once belonged to other wealthy and prominent Minneapolitans have been turned into commercial spaces or demolished, Pillsbury Castle has remained intact, though the interiors have been updated and changed over the years. Trettel and Hanson, who have a passion for historic homes, decided to purchase the property in an effort to preserve it and prove that restoring a historic home, albeit challenging, can be more than worth the effort.
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“The details of period and historic homes can’t be replicated,” Ryan Hanson tells Robb Report. “The materials and the craftspeople are generally inaccessible, and the layered stories of these important places make them fascinating. It is also interesting to understand how differently people lived and to discover new, adaptive uses for spaces.”
Eschewing the traditional route of enlisting an architect and an interior designer or, maybe, two, the couple, who are both from Minnesota, embarked on collaboration with the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) and the National Association of the Remodeling Industry (NARI) to create a showcase house where different artisans and designers take on the design of each room. They tapped Minnesota-based PKA Architecture to handle the architecture, and after designers across the Twin Cities submitted bids to be part of the project, they chose a whopping 27 designers to do up the mansion’s 20 rooms. Unlike a traditional showcase house where designers might have complete creative freedom, each room of Pillsbury Castle is designed to look and feel cohesive.
Few changes were made to the home’s exterior, crafted from rough-cut Platteville limestone with projected bays and gables, arches, and windows framed by carved limestone mullions. They initially thought they might tackle each room one at a time over a decade or two, but after partnering with ASID, the entire, monumental overhaul took just 18 months.
Though each room is distinct, there’s harmony and a subtle but perceptible cohesiveness throughout the home. The home freely flows from room to room, unified with repeated materials, including restored mahogany woodwork, polished wood paneling, and stacked moldings. Bold colors, rich textures, and high-quality materials are present in each space, as are period-appropriate materials, including marble, handmade tiles, and a range of wall coverings.
Every room has soaring ceilings that fill the home with natural light. Despite the dark wood, the voluminous spaces and large windows open up the home, which was clearly designed for large-scale entertaining. No space is an afterthought, whether it’s the bright-orange craft/gift wrapping room or a small, marble-floored seating area with a built-in banquette for casual tête-à-têtes. Even the marble-swathed powder rooms evoke awe.
Across the home are numerous spaces for entertaining guests or having a relaxing night at home. Along with a music room and a moody billiards room, there’s a circus-themed kid’s playroom, a plush movie theater, a wine cellar, and, tucked behind heavy curtains with period-appropriate stained-glass windows, a speakeasy bar.
“At the time it was built, this home was the epitome of artisanal excellence,” Matthew Trettel says. “Hand-carved woodwork and a 17th-century library imported from Europe are just some of the signature details that can’t be replicated today. We plan to live in the whole home and worked with our design partners to bring more of the ornate architecture of the first and second level all the way up to the third floor through the addition of moldings, wood paneling, and a re-creation of the grand stair banister.”
They also reimagined some of the more utilitarian spaces, like the basement, which had previously been used as a storage space and utility room. It is now a large entertainment space that showcased the home’s exposed brick walls and brick barrel-vaulted ceilings, elements the couple considered to be too beautiful to be hidden in a basement storage room. Even the laundry room, often an afterthought, was given the bespoke treatment.
For the kitchen—one of the most crucial spaces of any home to update—the couple transformed it into a modern, entertaining kitchen complete with Gaggenau appliances and a five-foot-long galley sink with the new addition of a scullery/butler’s pantry, a feature that would have been present when the house was built.
Since the showcase tours concluded in July 2024, the couple is living full-time in the home with future plans to open their home for fundraising events to support local charities.
Click here for more photos of Pillsbury Castle.
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