With its fast-paced construction work, it’s now easy to imagine guests arriving by carriage through the main entrance of the Congdon Estate. Two years after the Duluth flood, construction workers are still making restorations to the historical Glensheen Mansion.
Glensheen Marketing Director Jane Pederson says the construction started around a year ago — after the University of Minnesota Duluth’s insurance approved the project. Unlike the usual construction site, workers are following original Congdon Estate plans — plans as old as 1905.
“All of it is based on the historic plans,” Pederson said. “Instead of completely rebuilding something, we want to restore it. In this case we had to rebuild it to the original plan.“
Restoring the entrance’s “serpentine wall”, chipping away and re-using bricks from the servant’s courtyard, and waterproofing window wells are just a few of the $3 million worth of projects currently in progress. Pederson says there is around $26 million worth of restorations to come due to a mix of flood damage and the estate’s natural aging.
“It’s over 100 years old, stuff kind of starts to fall apart.” Pederson said.
Glensheen Marketing Intern Alex Culp, who was working on the grounds the day of the flood, says it’s incredible how much has been accomplished in the past couple years.
“The lawns and stuff were all wrecked. I can’t tell you how many buckets of sand and salt we carried out of there,” Culp said. “When crews came the first thing they did was shovel out by hand the whole creek bed because there were piles of rocks. It’s been over a year of people working on this stuff by hand.”
Pederson says that this year, construction crews started working as soon as the weather was comfortable. Since then she sees major progress every time she walks around the Glensheen grounds. The flood-damage restoration is planned to be done by mid-November of this year.
BY LEAH RODGERS MULTIMEDIA EDITOR