Doors of Tangletown: Destined for Harry Wilde Jones’ 1909 Elmwood Triangle

Listing in Rare Form: securing a legacy example of Harry Wilde Jones 

Carly & Corbin leveraged our model to roll their lyndale starter home into a surviving example of Minneapolis’s famed HWJ (Harry Wilde Jones) 1909 arts & crafts on a sprawling lot in Tangletown.  

Purveyors welcome the latest captains of the legacy deed: Carly & Corbin, historic Minneapolis souls that were both raised by families local to this day in south-mpls. Blessed with a gift for storytelling and an appreciation for the nuances of architectural history from the settling & boom years in Minneapolis’ roaring 1920’s.  

Rare Form was very much a perfect fit for these two: executing a move-up-checklist 🎬 to prepare their ‘Flying Dutchman’ starter home for market.

Our fine tunings garnered them full price, affording the leverage necessary to defeat other hopefuls for 111 Elmwood.

Etching C&C’s housing legacy in the limestone facade of the tangletown water tower: Harry Wilde Jones designed arts & crafts of 1909.  

Corbin progressed through childhood with vivid memories of Minneapolis, carrying this pride for the community through to his career as South high’s art & photography chair.    

When you meet Corbin, a magnetic 🧲 energy swirls around his deep-cuts of local history legend: one conversation in, about his love of cycling 365 and his 80s boombox 📻 collection, and it was evident these purveyors were up to the task of caring for a truly historic vessel of stickley era craft.  

This characteristic laid the framework for the collision of a two modern literaries with an intact example of tangletown history, a cottage in Elmwood Triangle designed by the architect responsible for Minneapolis’ greatest treasures: from Lakewood, to Tangletown Water Tower, to the driving force behind the Minnehaha bike trails.   

Carly entered the artistic 🧠 of corbin with a much needed grounding of her true driven-operator mentality, cohabitation ensued in their blaisdell duplex, after living in both units, they purchased the building from the landlord and de-commissioned her layout restoring it to a single family, the intended origin of their 1906 Dutch Colonial.  

Following a decade of ownership and two lovely girls, the time arrived for Carly to press the family onward and pass along the care of Corbin’s emotionally tied first property.  

Corbin wasn’t ready to move, as many impassioned historically minded owners.  

The Lising in Rare Form model is partially designed to detach the emotions of your current home, as the scope of cosmetics were executed in order to sort the punch list, bringing the dutchmen to her ballroom state for transfer to another family. 

The success of the Dutchman sale and the involvement of readying her for market gave C&C a deeper understanding of why buying in rare form is so critical, amassing decades of era specific knowledge to ensure the next example is the best fit for the scarcity and future value of real estate.  

We’re so thankful to welcome C&C to the community in Tangletown, below is some post legacy-move-up 🚀 briefing, wanting to collect their direct experiential takes on the climb from starter home to forever deed.  

🪞 RFP:  111 Elmwood was the first real classic example you toured, following a shenandoah tudor & a rustic lodge victorian, you braced yourselves for a competitive offer without the standard progression of buying in rare form schooling that results from touring knowledge, how did you know that 111 was the one? 

C&C: Harry’s porch had me convinced once I set one foot on it. You can tell a lot about a house from the porch. It was the same feeling I got when we bought our first home. There is a magnetic quality that clicks into place when you feel the patina of original Douglas for that stretches the entire width of the house.

Original builder Hans Larsen signed the plaster above the firebox where it remains today.

🪞RFP:  You both were raised in local south MPLS families, this gave you a specific criteria for neighborhoods and you leaped the proverbial middle kingfield for the green acre of elmwood, what stories can you share with purveyors about your knowledge of minneapolis history? 

C&C:  We have both seen neighborhoods change a lot over our lives, but the fascinating thing about this city is that even if the people change in a particular neighborhood, the feel remains untouched. If you talk to any old timers in a neighborhood they will have stories.  Sometimes the stories are traumatic, like the destruction caused by an interstate to the fabric of a neighborhood. The shuttering of a neighborhood school. Other places it is a story of rebirth and new blood, or of children returning to raise their own children.

🪞RFP:   The history of Harry Wilde Jones as a champion of early arts & crafts in the area, did the origins of 111 strike a cord with you having so much of it intact, and were you previously aware of Wilde-Jones’ work ?

C&C:  I was already familiar with HWJ’s work from an early age: admiring the Washburn water tower, and glimpsing the sanctuary in Lakewood through the fence when the bus turns where Hennepin ends at 36th street. I actually studied his work in a architectural history class in college. Reading up on his life and how he lived was fascinating. I did not know he was the first person to build a house in what is now Tangletown, way back in 1887 and to be able to see the house that he built, raised his kids in, and died in, surrounded by loved ones, still standing at the end of our block is really special. He designed our 111 Elmwood in 1909 as a commission, but he was also building something that was part of his personal landscape. For his own neighbors. He was the Minneapolis Park Commissioner when the Minnehaha bike path was first constructed: he liked to ride and had a vision!

🪞RFP:  Share a bit about the intensity of preparing your equity starter for market & navigating the legacy purchase simultaneously, the mounting variables of uncertainty followed by a victorious finish to move-in prior to summer beginning.

C&C:  Never want to do it again: Rare Form forces you to face the music with preparing your old house, while it’s difficult to let go and let them sort through the wrinkles, the end result is truly rewarding, but we are glad it’s over. 

We put a lot of love into our old house over 14 years, and hoping the new owners pick up where we left off. It would have been heartbreaking to leave into the unknown, so although it made the timeline & all the financial variable stressful, knowing we were heading to 111 Elmwood created a bright 🌕 light at the end of the tunnel & we couldn’t have done it any other way in retrospect.

🪞RFP:  Tangletown as a community; how have the neighbors been since you arrived, have the girls made friends with the many families in elmwood triangle?  

C&C:  The neighbors have been so welcoming. There are a lot of kids in the immediate area, and the general style is “let them roam”. (HWJ is quoted in the biography the sellers left saying just as much about his own philosophy on raising children and the importance of play). One of the first things we did is build a gate in our back fence so our 6 year old could move back and forth with her new best friends. It feels like this is a place where people come to stay for good. I have met people who have lived here 26 years, 52 years…and everyone talks about how much fun the kids have. The block party is something everyone brings up, now in its 49th year!

🪞RFP:  What advice do you have for the growing family that faces the plunge of exiting the cozy first home for the unknown of the legacy home move up? 

C&C: Life has chapters, and good books have to end sometime. All my favorite books have a sequel that is even better than the first… we’re super thankful to rare form for their selective 👁 eye which ultimately ensured our future was with HWJ in his Elmwood Triangle.