John and Diane Herman’s home sits high on a bluff overlooking the St. Croix River in Scandia. It was built in 1978, designed by the late architect Michael McGuire, and features wood, stone, and glass that frames the vast views and brings the outdoors inside.
McGuire passed away last month at the age of 95. Over the course of his long career, he left a mark on the St. Croix Valley, and the many buildings he designed along the St. Croix and elsewhere will serve as a long-lasting legacy.
The Herman home was built by owners Arnold and Rusk Anderson, who helped found the Minnesota Children’s Hospital among other medical institutions. John and Diane Herman purchased it in 2001, continuing to enjoy it and care for the well-crafted structure. I visited the home recently thanks to John and Diane’s hospitality and because it will be open for tours as part of the Scandia Heritage Alliance’s historic homes tour on Oct. 12.
While McGuire was known as a Prairie School Architect, a disciple of famed designer Frank Lloyd Wright, he had his own ideas and own favorite practices.
“He was like a modest, modern Frank Lloyd Wright,” says John Herman. McGuire created buildings that did not so much blend into the landscape as seem to emerge from it. He was known for designs that were customized to the specific site, and sought to bring indoor and outdoor together.
Art and architecture
I interviewed McGuire at his own home one afternoon last year, hoping to continue the conversation later and ultimately write something that could document his life and contributions to St. Croix Valley architecture. At age 94, he was outgoing and opinionated, insightful and inquisitive. Lake St. Croix stretched out below, the beautiful view bordered by dark wood window frames. Paintings and pottery adorned the walls and shelves. I don’t think there was a light bulb burning in the place, but sunlight filled it softly, and it was quiet and serene.
Regrettably, McGuire and I never met again and he died this summer after a brief battle with brain cancer. I have a few notes about our discussion that helped inform this article. I also relied on an interview McGuire did with his son-in-law, writer and editor Brad Zellar, in 2015.
Throughout McGuire’s long career of designing buildings that countless people would experience from both inside and out, he continued to practice his own private art, painting prolifically. According to his family, he never sold them, and showed them to only a few people. He had one exhibition at ArtReach St. Croix in Stillwater in 2015, with an accompanying catalog including the interview with Zellar.
McGuire was born November 20, 1928 and raised in Mankato and St. Cloud, Minnesota. In 1947, he began attending the University of Chicago, studying art at first and then beginning to think about architecture as a career.
“I could draw and I was good at math, and people were starting to tell me that maybe I should consider architecture, which was at the time something that had never entered my mind,” McGuire told Zellar. “But one day I was sitting outside studying for my finals and and it occurred to me that maybe as an architect I wouldn’t have to wear a tie.”
Land and light
All photos by Greg Seitz/St. Croix 360
McGuire finished his studies at the University of Minnesota, moved to New York City for a few years, and then returned to the Midwest. In 1962, he built a home for his family on the St. Croix River bluff in the Town of St. Joseph, Wisconsin, across from Oak Park Heights.
He spent the rest of his long career designing and developing buildings across the country, from California to Hawaii to Burnsville, Minnesota — but focused on the St. Croix Valley. McGuire’s most well-known work is probably the Dock Cafe in Stillwater, which he designed in the late 1970s and owned for decades. Other notable works in the valley include the visitor center at Wild River State Park near North Branch, Wilder Forest and the St. Croix Watershed Research Station in May Township, and the Desch office building, Brick Alley shops, and the Associated Eye Care clinic (demolished and replaced by Hotel Crosby) in Stillwater.
While those commercial and public projects are prominent, he designed many more private residences over his career, including an Afton home featured on St. Croix 360 in 2023 and the Eastbank townhomes in North Hudson — and two houses including the Hermans, a renovation, and even a garage in the Cedarcliff development in Scandia.
With a focus on the building site, McGuire created structures that fit into the landscape, whether natural or urban. His main projects in downtown Stillwater feature lots of red brick, matching the historic commercial district while widening the views and creating long horizontal lines that keep things simple. But the homes he designed, scattered along the steep bluffs up and down the St. Croix, almost always have lots of local sandstone, the bedrock re-sculpted as a residence.
Style and substance
Herman home interior. (Greg Seitz/St. Croix 360)
McGuire’s style was broadly Prairie School, but his ideas came from far and wide, and his own creative mind. He mentioned to me his affinity for the fraternal architecture firm Greene and Greene in Los Angeles and Mark Mills and Bernard Maybeck of San Francisco. While Mills apprenticed for Wright before setting off on his own career, the Greene brothers and Maybeck were not Prairie School but instead associated with the Arts and Crafts Movement, with a complementary style and a focus on traditional techniques in wood, stone, and other construction practices.
Perhaps overshadowed by the distinctive Prairie School style was another important aspect of McGuire’s work: craft and detail. A bold roof line might catch the eye at first, but is equaled by the smallest details. It might be an expert carpenter carving wood walls to mesh with stonework, a German fireplace mason building a massive chimney, or other highly skilled trades. McGuire’s career paralleled the emergence of the design-build method in construction, and he often served as not only architect but construction coordinator.
The Herman home has oak trim, a cedar ceiling, and a redwood exterior. There are a lot of bookshelves, like many McGuire homes. Based on a request from Rusk Anderson, who grew up in Kentucky, he incorporated Crab Orchard Stone, quarried in the Cumberland Mountains, as flooring around the fireplace and in the kitchen.
John Herman says the dining room is his favorite room, and a “quintessential” example of McGuire’s style. It has windows on opposite sides, low lighting, wood ceiling, and expansive views of the valley.
While Herman says their first mandate when they bought the house was “not f— it up,” there have been necessary repairs and a few tweaks for comfort and convenience. He laughs about how dark some of McGuire’s work could be, with lights tucked in the ceiling or behind valances, some rooms designed to let natural light flow through while others were nearly windowless. Herman built new light fixtures to match McGuire’s while brightening certain areas.
But ultimately, the interior is “affected by what is going on outside,” as McGuire described his ideas to me.
Inside and out
Wild River State Park visitor center. (Greg Seitz/St. Croix 360)
High on another bluff about 20 miles upriver, another McGuire building soaks in the sunshine. The Wild River State Park visitor center sits on top of a steep south-facing slope, surrounded by oaks and other hardwoods, the river visible nearly a mile away and a hundred feet below. McGuire mentioned the building more than once in our conversation, perhaps particularly proud of it it or simply pleased that it is open to the public.
Inside, there are familiar features: wood, valanced lights, wide windows. McGuire mentioned being inspired by passive solar projects he had seen around Santa Fe, New Mexico, designed by “hippie architects.” The visitor center was designed as a solar collector as well, its materials meant to absorb winter sunshine and heat the space even on cold days.
Approaching the building from the parking lot, a visitor can see straight through two walls of windows to glimpse the St. Croix nestled between the bluffs. The feel of the space is what evokes McGuire. It is is peaceful and inspiring, drawing the natural world in while pulling people outside.
In his 2015 interview, McGuire spoke of his lifelong love of music, including jazz. He compared his approach to art and architecture to the pianist and composer Thelonius Monk.
“He’s a real good example; in certain ways he’s extremely abstract, but in other ways he’s extremely traditional and sort of simple,” McGuire said. “And I’m probably resigned to trying to work somewhere in that territory.”
McGuire’s physical territory was often the St. Croix River and its bluffs. He brought beauty and simplicity to his work, seeking to celebrate the scenery while not subtracting from it.
John and Diane Herman’s home designed by Michael McGuire will be open for tours as part of the Scandia Historic Homes Tour on October 12, 2024. Information and tickets are available here.
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