Historic Pill Hill home for sale at $2.1 million
Mar. 31—ROCHESTER — While not visible from the road, there's a $2.1 million home for sale hidden behind a treeline in Southwest Rochester.
The 93-year-old home at 831 Ninth Ave. SW on Pill Hill, three blocks away from its realtor, Marion Kleinberg of Edina Realty. She's lived next to the home for "many years" and still remembers walking up the long driveway and seeing the home for the first time.
"There's just a gracious Tudor home unexpectedly at the end of the driveway behind the wrought iron gate," Kleinberg said.
The house sits on a one-acre lot and is 5,041 square-feet.
Despite the age of the five-bedroom, five-bath, two-story home, Kleinberg said its character has stayed intact throughout the years.
"The thing that makes it stand out the most is that everyone who has lived there has cared for it very well, especially the current owner," she said. "Nobody has made any effort to change its character. Its character has been beautifully, beautifully preserved... So really, it's the same house that it has always been and that is very often not the case with these old homes."
The home was built by a Mayo Clinic doctor in 1929 and later owned by Dr. Bruce Douglas, another Mayo doctor, before being owned by its most recent owners.
The house, while two stories, features four levels with a lower level that has a "huge" room called the lodge. Kleinberg said the lodge is a log lot with real timber log lines. She said it's a tradition for visitors to carve their initials into the log. One of those initials belongs to famous 1920s American boxer Jack Dempsey, who was the World Heavyweight Champion from 1919 to 1926.
The home also has a livable attic that has enough space to hold two bedrooms, Kleinberg said.
No major renovations have been made to it, but the previous owners added a few features that have added to the home's value, such as an outdoor brick oven pizza and a secret wine cellar with apparently a secret entrance that's stumped its potential buyers.
"Every person who's come to look at the house, I've told them they have to find the wine cellar," she said. "They're pretty good about finding it, but they can't figure out how to open the door."
The combination of the house's historic character and updated features makes this Pill Hill home a "perfect" fit for a modern family in Kleinberg's eyes.
"It's unlike any house I think in Rochester," she said.
