Lost St. Paul Mansions
with Larry Millett

Scores of mansions that once stood on the bluffs around downtown St. Paul and in other parts of the city have been demolished over the years. Larry Millett will offer a slide presentation showcasing some of the grandest and most fascinating of these long lost homes.

Larry Millett, a native of Minneapolis, is a graduate of St. John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota (BA, English, 1969) and the University of Chicago (MA, English, 1970). He spent much of his career as a writer, reporter and editor for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, joining the newspaper in 1972. In 1984, he won a Knight Fellowship to the University of Michigan to study architectural history and theory. When he returned to St. Paul in 1985, Millett became the newspaper’s first architecture critic. He held that post until his retirement from the Pioneer Press in June of 2002. While at the Pioneer Press, Millett and fellow reporter Don Boxmeyer also served for several years as clue writers for the annual Winter Carnival medallion hunt.

Millett has written articles for many publications, including Architecture, Inland Architect, Architecture Minnesota and Minnesota History magazines.

He has also written fourteen works of non-fiction and nine mystery novels. His non-fiction books are:

• Metropolitan Dreams: The Scandalous Rise and Stunning Fall of a Minneapolis Masterpiece, University of Minnesota Press, 2018. The story of the legendary Metropolitan Building, razed in 1962 as part of the Gateway Center urban renewal project.
• Heart of St. Paul: A History of the Pioneer and Endicott Buildings, Minnesota Museum of American Art, 2016. An illustrated history of two historic office buildings in downtown St. Paul.
• Minnesota Modern: Architecture and Life at Midcentury, University of Minnesota Press, 2015. An illustrated study of the Midcentury Modern style of architecture that shaped Minnesota after World War II. Minnesota Book Award winner.
• Minnesota’s Own: Preserving Our Grand Homes, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2014. A profusely illustrated book featuring the stories of 22 great Minnesota houses built between 1865 and 1950.
• Once There Were Castles: Lost Mansions and Estates of the Twin Cities, University of Minnesota Press, 2011. The book includes descriptions and photographs of  more than 90 lost mansions in the Twin Cities area. It is in its fourth printing.
• AIA Guide to Downtown St. Paul, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2010. An illustrated guide to important buildings and places in Minnesota’s capital city.
• AIA Guide to Downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2010. An up-to-date guide to the architecture of downtown Minneapolis and nearby areas.
• AIA Guide to St. Paul’s Summit Avenue and Hill District, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2009. A first-ever guide to St. Paul’s largest historic district.
• AIA Guide to the Minneapolis Lake District, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2009. A guide to Minneapolis’s signature residential precinct.
• AIA Guide to the Twin Cities: The Essential Source on the Architecture of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2007. This is the first complete guidebook to Minneapolis and St. Paul architecture. It contains over 1,500 entries.
• Murder Has a Public Face: Crime and Punishment in the Speed Graphic Era, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2008. A look at four prominent murder cases in the Upper Midwest in the decade after World War II, when tabloid-style press coverage in the Twin Cities reached its zenith. Includes numerous photographs. 
• Strange Days, Dangerous Nights: Photographs from the Speed Graphic Era, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2004. A collection of over 200 black-and-white pictures taken in the 1940s and 1950s by photographers for St. Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch. Includes detailed captions that tell the story behind each image. It is in its third printing.
• Twin Cities Then and Now, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1996. A book of comparative photographs showing how the Twin Cities have changed over time.
• Lost Twin Cities, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1992. This book, now in its eighth printing, won an International Book Award from the American Institute of Architects. It also served as the basis for three popular videos made by Twin Cities Public Television.
•  The Curve of the Arch: The Story of Louis  Sullivan’s Owatonna Bank, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1985. A critically acclaimed study of one of Sullivan’s most famous buildings and the three men behind it.

 Millett has also written an essay on the history of architecture in Minnesota for MNopedia, an on-line encyclopedia published by the Minnesota Historical Society. The essay can be found at mnopedia.org/three-thousand-years-building-minnesota.

Millett’s mystery novels, which feature Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson as well as St. Paul saloonkeeper and part-time detective Shadwell Rafferty, are:

• Rafferty’s Last Case, University of Minnesota Press, Spring 2022.
• Sherlock Holmes and the Eisendorf Enigma, University of Minnesota Press, 2017.
• Strongwood: A Crime Dossier, University of Minnesota Press, 2014.
• The Magic Bullet, University of Minnesota Press, 2011.
• The Mystery of the Jeweled Cross (chapbook), Minnesota Center for the Book Arts, 2002.
• The Disappearance of Sherlock Holmes, Viking Penguin, 2002.
• Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Alliance, Viking Penguin, 2001.
• Sherlock Holmes and the Rune Stone Mystery, Viking Penguin, 1999.
• Sherlock Holmes and the Ice Palace Murders, Viking Penguin, 1998.
• Sherlock Holmes and the Red Demon, Viking Penguin, 1996.

Other published works of fiction include “The Adventure of the American Drifter,” a short story in Strand Magazine, Oct-Jan. 2016; “The Opera Thief,” a short story in the MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories, MX Publishers (London, 2015; and “The Brewer’s Son,” a short story in Twin Cities Noir, an anthology published by Akashic Books (New York, 2006).