Minneapolis community bands together to restore crumbling Minneapolis historic home
On the corner of Tyler Street Northeast and 18th Avenue Northeast in Minneapolis, sits a historic house in major disrepair.
The John Cook House is named after the man who built it in 1889 and received a historic designation in Minneapolis five years ago.
The Queen Anne style home has sat vacant for over a decade, as neighbors saw it crumble.
"This place has been heartbreaking to so many neighbors who have watched it deteriorate over the last 20 years and have really longed to see it be restored as part of our cultural heritage," said Elizabeth Richardson.
Richardson and her husband Seth Stattmiller are leading a group of neighbors who have banded together in hopes of restoring the building. The couple say the property owner accepted their offer on the house earlier this week and the community gathered on the corner Sunday morning to celebrate.
"Very informal at the moment, and that's sort of the best part about it, it's just our friends in a lot of ways, it's just our neighbors," said Stattmiller of the grassroots effort.
Stattmiller and Richardson say the community has offered up materials, labor, expertise and funds to back the restoration. The group also hopes this pending purchase protects the house from demolition, something the property owner is pushing for even though a previous request to demolish was denied last year.
The couple currently own Recovery Bike Shop, less than a mile down the road from the historic home. They describe this effort to revitalize the Cook House as both an honor and a responsibility.
"Comes with a with a buoyancy, with an energy, with an excitement, to be on the side of putting a band aid on a wound that's been open for a while," Stattmiller said.
"[The Cook House] was home to the people who built the industry of northeast, mostly immigrants, craftspeople, laborers," said Richardson. "So to me, it really epitomizes the spirit of what Northeast is all about.'
The city describes the cream and red brick work as unique and the building as an example of immigrant housing in Northeast Minneapolis.
"The area had a significant Scandinavian immigrant population. Many people of Sweden and Norwegian descent lived here after John Cook," says the city's historic profile of the building.
The couple hopes to close on the property in June, though later this month, the city council is set to consider the property owners appeal to demolish the home.
