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Homes for the holidays

For holiday tours, historic mansions up the ante on opulence.

Two centuries ago, Minnesota and Wisconsin were ripe for the picking.

Iron ore lay under forests of tall white pine, fertile farmland lay under prairie grasses, and rivers teeming with beaver led to the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean.

It all turned into money when ambitious men arrived, gathering up the goodies like kids on Halloween. They logged, they mined, they traded and they shipped. The men who made the biggest fortunes did it all, plowing their first round of profits into railroads, land and banking.

Then, they built houses.

In Minnesota, the two richest men built the two biggest houses. James J. Hill, who started as a clerk on the St. Paul levee, was a railroad baron but also dabbled in mining, shipping, banking and milling.

Chester Congdon, a pastor's son who was a teacher before he began practicing law, had an uncanny eye for opportunity and speculated in timber, ore, apples and copper.

Wisconsin's first millionaire, Hercules Dousman, started out as a clerk for John Jacob Astor in Prairie du Chien and, as the fur-trade era waned, began buying land that soon was in demand for farms, mills and warehouses.

"He was in the right place at the right time when the railway came through," says Coleen Reuter, a guide at the Italianate mansion built in 1870 by Dousman's widow and son.

The lifestyles of yesteryear's rich and famous are just as interesting as those of today, and usually more so. The people are gone, but the houses tell the stories.

These magnificent houses were places where their owners could impress clients and make even more money, and they also served as investments in the days before the stock market.

On a hill overlooking downtown St. Paul, James J. Hill built a 36,000-square-foot Romanesque mansion of red sandstone, bristling with chimneys for 22 fireplaces. On the shore of Lake Superior in Duluth, Chester Congdon built a 39-room Jacobean brick castle, filled with intricately carved woodwork of fumed oak, Circassian walnut and acid-distressed cypress, with furniture to match.

Lumber barons built houses from Superior to Dubuque. Pioneering physicians built a manse in Rochester, and a beer magnate built a Germanic palace in Milwaukee.

Now open to the public, these homes contain luxuries to an almost dizzying degree: ceilings covered in 22-carat gold, walls covered with silk, fireplaces of onyx and marble, silver chandeliers that took a servant an entire day to polish.

During the holidays, all of this opulence will be gilded with an eye-popping array of velvet ribbons, frosted roses, silver balls, golden garlands and, of course, decorated trees.

Below are a few of the grand mansions that offer holiday tours in 2009.

Mayowood, Rochester, Minn.: Old-fashioned Christmas tours at the 38-room, four-story 1911 home built by Dr. Charles H. Mayo are given Nov. 6-22. Cost is $15, $5 for children 12 and younger, including light refreshments. To reserve, call 507-282-9447.

Alexander Ramsey House, St. Paul: The 1872 Second Empire house of Minnesota's first territorial governor, later U.S. senator and secretary of war, is decorated for The Homecoming: Christmas at the Ramsey House. Decorations feature many Ramsey family heirlooms, including ornaments on the parlor tree.

Tours start Nov. 18 and continue through Dec. 31. Admission is $9, $6 for children 6-17. Reservations are recommended; 651-296-8760.

Glensheen, Duluth: The 1908 mansion on Lake Superior is decorated for the holidays from late November through mid-January. In winter, tours are held Saturdays and Sundays, $15, $9 for children 6-12, and $26-$15 for a tour that includes the third floor and attic.

Holiday brunches will be Dec. 12-13 and 19-20, $27-$16, and they  include a short tour. Reserve at 218-726-8910, 888-454-4536. For more, see Duluth's Glensheen.

James J. Hill House, St. Paul: In this 1891 Summit Avenue mansion, costumed actors portraying servants enact humorous vignettes about the family and staff. Hill House Holidays are given 1-3:30 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays in December, $10, $6 for children 6-17. Reservations are recommended; 651-297-2555.

LeDuc Historic Estate in Hastings, Minn. In 1866, enterpreneur William LeDuc completed this Gothic Revival house in this Mississippi River town south of St. Paul. It's decorated and open for Victorian Holiday Tours Dec. 5-6 and 12-13. Cost is $6, $3 for youths 6-17.

Fairlawn, Superior, Wis: This 42-room Queen Anne house facing Barker's Island on the harbor was the first grand residence in the Twin Ports when Martin Pattison built it in 1891.

Pattison, a lumber baron who made a larger fortune mining iron ore he discovered himself in the Vermilion Range near Ely, later was found to have abandoned a wife and children in Michigan and changed his name; after his death, his second wife donated the house for use as an orphanage, and an upstairs exhibit contains an exhibit about the children who lived there.

A Fairlawn Christmas tours are given daily Nov. 23 to Dec. 31, $8, $6.50 for children 6-17. Evening tours are given the first four Tuesdays in December, with admission free for children under 12.

A Children's Christmas from 1-4 p.m. Dec. 6 includes stories, music, treats and visit from St. Nick; admission is free, and no reservations are necessary. 715-394-5712.

Governor's Mansion in Madison: Every December, the governor and first lady of Wisconsin open their 1921 Classic Revival home for free tours that feature six trees decorated with Wisconsin themes and performances by Wisconsin musicians. In 2009, the tours are noon to 2 p.m. on Dec. 9-10, 12, 16-17 and 19 and 10 a.m. to noon Dec. 14. The 16,000-foot, 34-room mansion is on four acres on Lake Mendota, at 99 Cambridge Road. 608-246-5501.

Pabst Mansion, Milwaukee: This gabled Flemish Renaissance Revival was built in 1892, during a time known in Milwaukee as "the Pabst Decade." A Grand Avenue Christmas tours will be held daily from Nov. 20 to Jan. 11, $9, $5 for children 6-17.

Twilight tours will be given Nov. 27-28, $15, $12 in advance, and $8-$6 for children; reserve at 414-931-0808.

With an $11 pass, people can visit the Pabst Mansion as well as the Charles Allis Art Museum and Villa Terrace Decorative Arts museum, also decorated for the holidays. For  more, see Milwaukee at Christmas.

Governor's residence in St. Paul: On Summit Avenue, the 1912 English Tudor residence of the Minnesota governor will be open 1-3 p.m. Dec. 1, 8 and 15. Tours of the 20-room house include live music. Food will be collected for Second Harvest Heartland.

Victorian House Tour & Progressive Dinner in Dubuque, Iowa: On the A five-course dinner will be held Nov. 14 and 28 and Dec. 5, 12 and 19 in four Dubuque mansions  decorated for the holidays: the 1856 Ham House, the 1873 Ryan House, the 1894 Redstone Inn and the 1908 Mandolin Inn.

Cost is $48; reserve at 800-226-3369, Ext. 214. The tour and dinner also is given in summer and fall. For more, see Feasting eyes in Dubuque.

Bed and breakfast holiday tours: Four tours in December allow visitors to see many more historic old houses decorated for the holidays in Sturgeon Bay in Wisconsin and Stillwater, Red Wing and the St. Croix Valley in Minnesota. For more, see A view of a room.

Last updated on November 24, 2009