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Other stories in "Historic houses & museums"

• Prairie du Chien's past
  A riverside estate provides a window into Victorian high society.
• Indulging at the holidays
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• Baraboo's gilt complex
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• In search of Christmas past
  At Old World Wisconsin, pioneers party like it’s 1899.
• Feasting in Dubuque
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• Illustrious in Iowa
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• Beer and megabytes
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• Ghosts of Galena
  Around the region, spirits of past turn out to haunt tourists of today.
• Galena getaway
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• Barn storming
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• West Branch's 'wonder boy'
  An Iowa village tells the story of Herbert Hoover, the international hero who became a scapegoat.
• The Gags of New Ulm
  A family of artists puzzled neighbors but went on to great things.
• Hinckley's Fire Museum
  Stories of 1894 inferno still shock those who hear them.
• H.H. Bennett's Dells
  In studio museum, photographs display scenes that made Wisconsin landmark famous.
• Duluth's Glensheen
  Through doors of mansion, tourists walk into life of extraordinary family.

Tours de force

For holiday visits, 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 2008.

Mayowood, Rochester, Minn.: Old-fashioned Christmas tours at the 38-room, four-story 1911 home built by Dr. Charles H. Mayo are $15, $5 for children 12 and younger, including light refreshments. Daytime tours will be given Nov. 7-9, 11, 14-16, 18 and 21-23, with evening tours Nov. 8, 10, 15, 17 and 22. To reserve, call 507-282-9447.

Villa Louis, Prairie du Chien, Wis.: Visitors will find the house decorated for an 1890s Christmas holiday, with three seasonal scenes: a visit from St. Nicholas, Christmas morning and a New Year's open house. Tours will be Dec. 6-7 and 13-14, with lamplight tours Dec. 6 and 13. Admission is $9, $4.50 for children 5-17. 608-326-2721.

Glensheen, Duluth: The 1908 mansion on Lake Superior is decorated for the holidays from Nov. 29 through mid-January. In winter, tours are held Saturdays and Sundays, $13, $7 for children 6-12, and $24-$13 for a tour that includes the third floor and attic. Holiday brunches will be Dec. 13-14 and 20-21, $25-$14, and they  include a short tour. Reserve at 218-726-8910, 888-454-4536.

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, $8, $4 for children 6-17. Costumed actors will perform Victorian Christmas stories Dec. 21 and 26 at 7 p.m., $10-$6, including a tour. Reservations are recommended; 651-297-2555.

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. 21 to Jan. 11, $9, $5 for children 6-17.

Twilight tours will be given Nov. 28-29 and Dec. 26-27, $15, $12 in advance, and $8-$6 for children; reserve at 414-931-0808. There will be children's story times at 11 a.m. Saturdays in December and live music at 1 p.m. Sundays in December.

On Dec. 7 from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m., Gilded Age Glitz will be crafts for kids. From Dec. 15-23, Bartolotta's caters Dickens Dinners, an English feast with readings from "A Christmas Carol'' by Charles Dickens. Reserve at 414-525-5635.

There's a different holiday theme each year, and Christmas Memories of the Past tours are given from mid-November to early January.

With a $10 pass, people can visit the Pabst Mansion as well as the Charles Allis Art Museum and Terrace Decorative Arts museum, also decorated for the holidays.

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 from Nov. 16, $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. 7 includes stories, music, treats and visit from St. Nick; admission is free, and no reservations are necessary. A Dickens Family Christmas Concert is Dec. 14, $6, free for children under 12, and A Cup of Christmas Tea readings are Dec. 21, $4, free for children under 12. To reserve, call 715-394-5712.

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 will be given Nov. 19-23 and 28-30 and Dec. 3-7, 10-14, 17-21, 26-28 and 31. Admission is $9, $6 for children 6-17. Reservations are recommended; 651-296-8760.

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 2008, the tours are noon to 2 p.m. on Dec. 4, 9, 13, 16, 18 and 20 and 10 a.m. to noon Dec. 11. The 16,000-foot, 34-room mansion is on four acres on Lake Mendota, at 99 Cambridge Road. 608-246-5501.

Victorian House Tour & Progressive Dinner in Dubuque, Iowa: A five-course dinner is held on six Saturdays starting Nov. 22 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 the second and fourth Saturdays from June through October. For more, see Feasting eyes in Dubuque.

Bed and breakfast holiday tours: Four tours on Dec. 7 allow visitors to see many more historic old houses decorated for the holidays in Sturgeon Bay in Door County and Duluth, Stillwater and Red Wing in Minnesota.

Last updated on November 11, 2008