Heritage Home Tour - 2006

Gundersen Summer Cottage

Adolph and Helga Gundersen Summer Cottage
Location: Barron Island
Built: 1918
Style: Arts and Crafts Style
Architects: Percy Dwight Bentley and Otto Merman

The Adolf and Helga Gundersen Summer Cottage was the only home on the 2006 Heritage Home Tour.  Perched on the northern tip of Barron Island, the house is architecturally and historically unique in the city of La Crosse.  The Nordic influenced Arts and Crafts style cottage was designed in 1918 by noted Prairie Style architects Percy Dwight Bentley and Otto Merman for Dr. Adolf Gundersen, a Norwegian immigrant and founder of the Gundersen Clinic in La Crosse.  The three-season cottage features all original windows and doors as well as a native stone fireplace and locally hand-crafted interior woodwork and decorative trim.  Built for Adolph Gundersen's Norwegian-born wife Helga, Dr. Gundersen wished to create a rustic but beautiful riverside retreat for her and the family that would have a feel of their homeland.  For four generations the cottage has provided a close-by summer getaway for Gundersen family members in one of the most scenic and private riverside locations in the Upper Mississippi Valley.

 

Preservation Alliance of La Crosse, Inc.
119 King Street - La Crosse, WI 54601 - (608)784-1976