Why Lowry Hill Tops the City's Most-Upscale Lists

By 1906, lots on Mount Curve Avenue and Groveland Terrace held some of the most expensive houses in Minneapolis, according to the Lowry Hill Neighborhood Association's history. The concentration was not accidental. Thomas Lowry, who built the Twin Cities streetcar system, and his father-in-law Calvin Goodrich platted the 75-block Groveland Addition in 1872 and intended the upland portion as an exclusive enclave for the city's lumber, milling and merchant families.

The boom followed the rails. In the 1890s, the extension of the electric streetcar along Hennepin Avenue and west along Douglas Avenue set off a real estate rush, and the characteristic streetscape of broad lawns, boulevard trees and well-spaced houses had largely taken shape by 1900. Most of the district was built out between 1893 and 1916 in period-revival styles of brick and stone.

What distinguishes Lowry Hill from other affluent areas is how little of that stock has been lost. The Charles J. Martin House at 1300 Mount Curve Avenue, completed in 1904, is on the National Register of Historic Places and stands as a surviving example of the "city estates" the neighborhood specialized in. Block after block of early-1900s houses remain intact, a continuity that explains the neighborhood's persistent place on lists of the city's wealthiest addresses.

The setting reinforces the prices. The neighborhood sits between Lake of the Isles, the Walker Art Center's Minneapolis Sculpture Garden and downtown, ringed by freeways that route traffic around rather than through it. The result is a quiet, intact district where the cost of a house reflects both its original grandeur and more than a century of upkeep.