LeDuc Historic Estate

Finished in the mid-1860s after years of logistical and financial challenges, the LeDuc Historic Estate in Hastings is an excellent example of the Gothic Revival style. It is also one of the few surviving homes designed by influential architect and horticulturist Andrew Jackson Downing.

Immediately after their marriage in 1851, Mary and William LeDuc travelled west by river from Mount Vernon, Ohio, to the small town of St. Paul, where William started a legal practice and the city’s first bookstore. After some success as a lawyer, political booster, and land speculator, LeDuc staked his livelihood on a quarter share of what was to become the town of Hastings, also receiving a prime spot across from the town’s mill in exchange for legal services. This was to be the site of his family’s new home.

The LeDucs ultimately turned to the home plans of Andrew Jackson Downing, a renowned horticulturist and amateur architect who started the movement for great urban gardens like New York’s Central Park and DC’s National Mall. August Knight and Abraham Radcliff modified Downing’s plans to suit available resources; walls made of local limestone would render the home’s tower even more imposing while providing contrast to the steep gables and elaborate Rhineland Gothic bargeboards.

The home’s parlor would look out through a covered porch onto the front yard, while the library where William and Mary would write correspondence was to be dominated by a massive bay window. There would be a fireplace in every room on the first and second floors except the kitchen, where servants would prepare meals, and a red-stained veranda where the LeDucs could sit on summer afternoons.

Just when they were ready to start building, the Civil War began. In 1862, William packed up his bags for Washington, where he joined the Quartermaster Corps. After months of struggling to manage his home’s construction along with his duties in camp, William returned to Hastings on furlough, hiring Eri Cogshall to turn the so-far convoluted project around in January of 1863. The young carpenter proved an invaluable liaison and site manager, getting the home’s two-foot-thick walls done by September in spite of labor problems. Cogshall proudly wrote to William that he believed the home to be “as good a one as there is in the state.”

Financial setbacks plagued the LeDucs, largely because they insisted on having all the trappings of refinement on a limited budget. The plan called for seven fireplaces with fine marble mantles; Cogshall had to use pinewood—a cheaper material—for all of them. While they shipped in specialty limestone for the windows and doors, Mary had to choose between sending their daughter Millie to school in new shoes and paying next month’s bills.

The LeDucs finally moved into their home late in 1865, and construction continued through the year’s end. When finished, the home had fifteen rooms and fifty-two windows, and was fifty feet tall. William had estimated at the start of construction that the home would cost five thousand dollars in all; it ended up being closer to thirty thousand.

The LeDuc mansion contained many signifiers of wealth in the Gilded Age. The master bedroom had a cord William or Mary could use to ring the servants’ quarters on the third floor. Their larder was almost as well-stocked as their library and was cooled in the summer months with ice from their private icehouse. Along with servants’ quarters, the home’s roughly finished third floor had an art studio and a small room in the tower where William escaped for contemplation and panoramic views. In the summertime, Mary hosted parties in the backyard orchard, and card parties in the parlor were popular in all seasons.

Following William’s death in 1917, his daughters moved to a smaller house in Minneapolis. Their childhood home doubled as a summer home until 1940, when they sold it to Carroll Simmons, who established an antique shop on the ground floor. In 1958, Simmons donated the home to the Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS), on the condition that he could run the store until his retirement. When he retired in 1986, the house sat empty for almost two decades. After extensive repairs and renovations, the home reopened for tours in 2005, and was transferred to the City of Hastings by MNHS.