• Mendota Mantels in St. Paul, Minnesota

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    Each Mendota mantel – made from antique reclaimed old-growth timbers and "rescued wood" – is unique, and uniquely beautiful. The wood has been salvaged from old barns, mills and warehouses, most built from the mid 19th to early 20th century, and each piece is sculpted with hand tools. Custom carving – like this piece by Jock Holman, on a rescued beam from a Norwegian ship – is available, although much of their work simply celebrates the natural grain and shape of the wood without any additional decoration. They describe the provenance of their materials thus:

    Antique Reclaimed timber mantels are recycled beams that have
    been salvaged from old buildings. They have an estimated age of 300 to
    800+ years. They are antiques. They grew from old growth forests that
    flourished in America through the 1930’s – forests that are now mostly
    gone.

    Our reclaimed timbers were milled into beams in the
    late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to become mills,
    factories, warehouses, and barns – buildings now being demolished.

    Unlike water-salvaged timbers, our Reclaimed timbers have been air-aging for over 100 years. This slow air-drying enhances color, beauty and character.

    Most importantly, air-dried timbers are more stable and much less
    likely to twist or check (crack). Reclaimed antique timbers are a
    limited resource.

    Our ‘Rescued’
    timber mantels are milled from present day trees that have been
    discarded. They are most often logs from urban tree services, storm
    blown trees, or ‘ends’ from logging operations.

    The artisans at Mendota are comfortable working in the Craftsman / Mission Revival style, as in this piece by Dan Guion, just as much as doing much more contemporary-styled work like this backlit mantel made from heart pine reclaimed from Wabasha’s Big Jo Flour Mill. Check out a gallery of their work.

  • Minneapolis neighborhoods profiled in new book

    A recent article by Ellen Tomson in Minneapolis’ Pioneer Press describes local historian and author Larry Millett’s research and subsequent book on Minneapolis’ historic neighborhoods. excerpt:

    Larry
    Millett biked the streets of St. Paul and Minneapolis for three summers
    to produce his latest book, (the) AIA Guide to the Twin Cities, the first
    major neighborhood-by-neighborhood handbook of its kind.

    But the foundation of his 665-page book was decades of
    research and writing about the Twin Cities, first as a Pioneer Press
    reporter, columnist and critic, and then as author of Lost Twin Cities, Twin Cities Then and Now, and Strange Days, Dangerous Nights, all which focused on local structures and events.

    "The book is the result of three years of work and, in a sense,
    it’s the work of a lifetime since I’ve worked here all my life," says
    Millett, 59, who grew up in North Minneapolis and has spent much of his
    adult life in St. Paul.