Obituary: Stillwater’s Larry Nelson, co-founder of Saint Anthony Main, believed in ‘retailing as theater’

Mary Divine, Pioneer Press
Updated ·4 min read
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Larry Nelson had an eye for beautiful design.

Nelson, the co-founder of Saint Anthony Main in Minneapolis, loved architecture, art, interior design and photography and spent his professional career developing upscale, retail design projects.

Nelson, of Stillwater, died Sept. 24 of complications related to colon cancer at Heart to Home, a hospice in Mendota Heights, where he had moved four days prior. He was 79.

Early in his career, Nelson opened a home furnishing store called 118 East on 26th Street in Minneapolis. The store, which had a minimalist design, sold Marimekko fabrics, unusual kitchen gadgets and other items, said his daughter, Maaja Kern, who lives in St. Paul.

When Saint Anthony Main was under development in Northeast Minneapolis in the 1970s, Nelson moved his shop – then called Mainplace – to the site.

“It was a visionary store that featured modern, European home decor,” Kern said. “It was kind of a Minneapolis version of Crate & Barrel before there was Crate & Barrel here. It had a gourmet deli inside the store – the first store like that in the Twin Cities area. It was very ahead of its time.”

Nelson was “the creative force behind the transformation of a warehouse that once housed rats and vagabonds into the home of some of the hoity-toityest shops in Minneapolis,” future Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak wrote in an article about Nelson published in the Minneapolis Star and Tribune in July 1984. The article’s headline: “He’s the main man behind St. Anthony Main.”

FROM HASTINGS HIGH TO FLORIDA

Nelson grew up in Cannon Falls, Northfield and Hastings, among other places. His father, Leonard, was a cabinetmaker, and the family moved frequently as he bounced between jobs – an estimated 60 times during Nelson’s childhood, Kern said.

As a child, Nelson loved painting and drawing comic strips. After graduating from Hastings High School in 1961, he moved to Minneapolis and began taking night classes at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. He put himself through school by working as a stock boy at the Powers department store in downtown Minneapolis.

A chance meeting with an architect and interior designer at the store one day led Nelson into a career in interior design, Kern said. When the couple moved to Florida, Nelson went along as an apprentice designer.

He later returned to Minneapolis and took a job working as a buyer/designer at Thomas Design, from 1963-1969, before opening 118 East. “Back then, no one was really pushing the retailing of home gear in a fashionable way,” Nelson told the Star and Tribune in 1984. “So I worked with the problem of how you take a garlic press – which is really just a piece of hardware – and make it something exciting. It’s retailing as theater.”

Louis Zelle, one of the founders of Saint Anthony Main and a longtime customer of 118 East, invited Nelson to open a shop at the site and then hired him as a retail consultant. When Saint Anthony Main opened, Nelson became its manager.

“We wanted a merchant to decide what the retail mix would be,” Zelle told the Star and Tribune. “Nelson was the perfect choice because he has this ability to stay a little bit ahead of everyone else. I don’t know what it is, but he sure has it.”

Nelson left Saint Anthony Main in 1986 and became a consultant in retail development for client projects on a nationwide level, including North Pier and Field Museum in Chicago, Skywalker Development in San Francisco, The Luminaire in Houston, and Riverplace and Gabbert’s in Minneapolis, Kern said.

LOVED STILLWATER

Nelson lived on the St. Croix River in Afton for several years and then moved to downtown Stillwater, converting 125 S. Main St. into a retail space and condominium.

“It was pretty ramshackle when he got it,” Kern said. “He converted the top floor into a living area with a really lovely big loft space and a mezzanine level and a rooftop deck.”

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Nelson, who served on the city’s Heritage Preservation Commission, loved Stillwater, Kern said, and could often be found eating at the Dock Café or visiting with friends at the former Starbucks on Main Street.

Nelson was preceded in death by his son, Matthew, in January.

In addition to Kern, he is survived by his partner, Kay Amoth; his daughter Elizabeth King, and seven grandchildren.

A Celebration of Life will be held at 11 a.m. Oct. 22 at Bradshaw Funeral Home in Stillwater, with visitation one hour prior.