Photography by keep and The Fireside Kind
In 1955, a Minnesota naturalist and author, Arnold J. Bolz (Portage into the Past) commissioned the architects Jyring & Whitman to design this secluded lake home in Grand Rapids, MN. Our renovation is an ongoing restoration and refresh to this secluded hidden gem.
The first pass at renovations saw a total reconstruction of the bathrooms, updated with a contemporary layout incorporating historic prints and patterns. The main family room in the basement opens out to the lake saw a replacement of windows, drywall ceilings, recessed lighting, wall panel radiant heating, and terrazzo tile floors throughout the lower level walk-out.
The original design of the Jyring & Whiteman home features a solid wood floating staircase that was missing guard rail panels which we simulated and seamlessly matched for safety. The other significant component of the original design is the dual floor fireplace volume constructed of Mesabi Red stone masonry. The entire design is a tribute to the lake country from the iron range to the arrowhead and all of the portages in between.
HISTORY OF THE RESIDENCE
ARCHITECTS Jyring + Whiteman
Eino Arthur “Jerry” Jyring and Richard “Dick” Whiteman designed the Bolz Residence in 1955– still early in their respective careers and before embarking on independent careers and other collaborations with notable Minnesota designers and planners.
Eino Jyring, a Finnish-American architect, was born in 1905 in Eveleth, MN (St. Louis County) and graduated from the University of Minnesota with a Bachelor’s in Architecture in 1932. Jyring is best known for his design of the St. Louis County Courthouse in Hibbing, MN. The courthouse was already under construction when the Bolz Residence broke ground in Grand Rapids, MN. Both projects– the St. Louis County Courthouse and the Bolz Residence– feature massive masonry walls used as volumetric divides to guide and differentiate the use of space. At the Bolz residence, the masonry fireplace divides the kitchen from living space and guides views outward, toward the lake. Comparatively, the boulder wall at the Hibbing Courthouse shelters the parking area and accentuates the entry sequence through the front doors of the Courthouse in a very similar orchestration of movement and massing. The St. Louis Courthouse has been called “one of the most significant mid-century government buildings in Minnesota” by architectural historian and critic Larry Millett. Jyring died in 1992 and is buried in Hibbing, MN.
Dick Whiteman, was born in Mankato Minnesota in 1925. He deployed with the Navy during WWII and then through the GI Bill, went on to study architecture at Harvard under Walter Gropius– the founder of the Bauhaus School. Whiteman’s legacy included the Tweed Museum of Art on the UMD campus, St. Ann’s Residence in Duluth, and contributions to Bemidji State University, and many schools and churches across northern Minnesota. Evidence of Whiteman’s design influence are located most notably in the staircase at the Bolz Residence and similar influences of International Modernism in the design of the Tweed Museum. He finished his career as Senior Architect at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. Whiteman died in 2018.
Jyring & Whiteman had formed their professional partnership after finding independent successes. Not long after the construction of this home, the two added a third and fourth partner to accommodate in-house Structural Engineering and City Planning, rebranding as Aguar, Jyring, Whiteman, and Moser.
OWNERS J. Arnold + Belva Bolz
John Arnold Bolz (1918) was a family physician in Grand Rapids, Minnesota for more than 30 years but he was better known as a wilderness writer, skilled nature photographer, and advocate for the preservation of wilderness. Throughout his life, he campaigned for the protection of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, Voyageurs National Park, and Ontario’s Quetico Provincial Park. Through his writings, like in “Portage into the Past: By Canoe Along the Minnesota-Ontario Boundary Waters,” published by the University of Minnesota Press in 1960, Bolz retraced the historic canoe routes of the French-Canadian voyageurs.
Belva Claire Nelson Bolz (1916) was a graduate of the University of Minnesota with a degree in Nursing and Education. She was also an avid gardener and wilderness advocate. Belva’s family had a rich history in Minnesota. Her grandfather was a stonemason and built the first light house on Lake Superior on Park Point in 1857 and Belva’s extended family ran the Nelson’s Resort on Crane Lake, at the edge of Voyageurs Park.
Belva and J. Arnold Bolz commissioned Jyring & Whiteman to design their residence on Jaques Lake (named for their friend and illustrator Francois Jaques) in 1955. While living in the home, John maintained his private practice and continued writing and advocating for the preservation of wilderness areas. They had four children, John, Gretchen , Kristine, and Jeffrey . Belva and J. Arnold both died in an auto accident in 1991.The remaining 400 acres surrounding Jacques Lake are still owned by a member of the Bolz family today.
The Bolz Residence stands as a testament of the wilderness that the Bolz Family sought to protect, the community they cared for, and the confluence of Finnish-American design and Mid-Century Modernism as they engaged uniquely in northern Minnesota.
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