Heirloom Home

George & Ida Lammers House

 

In the dining room of this attractive house, under the dining room table, is a small piece of metal embedded in the floor. It is the remnant of a foot pedal the lady of the house used to summon the servant in the course of a meal. The lady of the house, in this case, was Ida Lammers, the wife of George Lammers, a prosperous and successful lumberman in nineteenth century Stillwater.

George Lammers was born in Taylor’s Fall, Minnesota in 1857; his wife, Ida, was born in Sweden in 1862. George moved to Stillwater in 1872, and married Ida Johnson at Marine on St. Croix in 1879.

George began in the lumbering business at the age of sixteen and spent most of his life following the lumber trade. When the white pine was exhausted in Minnesota, Lammers extended his lumbering business to the Bahamas Islands, North and South Carolina, Florida, Idaho, Washington and British Columbia, becoming wealthy in the process.

The prosperity of George’s business is evident in his home at 620 West Pine Street. The original house was built in 1882, and at least two large additions were made over the next twenty years. The front porch was originally a wrap around porch, and a turret has been removed from the southwest corner of the house, but otherwise the house is much the same as it is pictured on historic photos. After raising eight children in the house, George lived here until his death in 1935, and Ida resided here until her death in 1942.

Inside the house is a swirl of woodwork decoration at every angle, with built-ins and parquet floors, stained and cut glass windows, original light fixtures, fireplaces and pocket doors—including what must be the widest pocket door in Stillwater. While the house is not exactly as it was 120 years ago (the second floor was once cut up into apartments), it nevertheless leaves you with a definite sense of a prosperous household of the nineteenth century. Fortunately for the history of the house, Darrell and Monica Rhodes purchased the home in 2003, and they have spent an enormous amount of time, energy, and money to restore the residence to its former glory, and maintain this tribute to a prominent Stillwater lumberman and his wife.

Oh, and that servant summoned by the foot pedal in the floor? In 1900, she was Carrie Ericksen, a young 21 year old girl, born of Swedish parents.

Source(s): Information complied by Donald Empson, Empson Archives on 12/27/2008. George Lammers purchased the property in 1881 (Book 8 of Deeds, page 159.) The original annual tax assessors’ rolls (on microfilm in the St. Croix Collection, Stillwater Public Library) help illustrate the development of the house. There are four City of Stillwater building permit applications on file: #279B (1888); #916 (1897); #1099 (1902); #1368 (1909). For his biography, the 1900 Census was used as well as the obituary of George in the Stillwater Daily Gazette, December 28, 1935. The current owners, Darrell and Monica, have been visited by many of the Lammer’s family members, and have a wealth of additional information on the house.

Washington County Parcel Identification Number (PIN): 2803020340078

Common Property Name: George & Ida Lammers House

Neighborhood: South Hill

State Historic Preservation Office Inventory Number: WA-SWC-1718

Construction Date: 1882

Builder:

Architect:

Architectural Style: Queen Anne