Search “mansion tours Minneapolis” and you’ll notice something surprising: for a city built by lumber and flour fortunes, very few of its grand houses ever open their doors. The James J. Hill House is across the river in St. Paul, and the American Swedish Institute’s Turnblad Mansion runs guided tours only on select dates. If you want to walk through a true Gilded Age mansion in Minneapolis itself — year-round — the door to knock on is ours.
The house an art patron built
300 Clifton is the Eugene J. Carpenter Mansion, listed on the National Register of Historic Places and considered the finest example of Georgian architecture in Minnesota. Carpenter made his money in lumber, but he spent it on something that outlasted every board foot: the arts. From this house he helped will the Minneapolis Institute of Art and the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra into existence — which is why we call it the birthplace of the arts in Minneapolis. The paneled rooms where those plans were hatched are the same rooms you’ll stand in on a tour. We’ve told more of that story in An Art Lover’s Weekend in Minneapolis.
How to tour the mansion right now
Today, the classic way in is the Gilded Age Mansion Tour with Minneapolis Trolley Tours — a guided ride through the city’s old-money neighborhoods that steps inside 300 Clifton and the Charles S. Pillsbury Mansion, home of the family whose flour built the city. Two houses, two fortunes, one very good afternoon. And soon we’ll be offering standalone historic house tours of 300 Clifton itself, year-round — keep an eye here or ask us to let you know when dates open.
The only mansion in Minneapolis you can tour and sleep in
Here’s what no other historic house in the state offers: when the tour ends, you don’t have to leave. 300 Clifton is a working bed & breakfast, so you can spend the night in the mansion — soak in the four-season garden hot tub, find your way into Gertrude’s Cistern (our speakeasy), and wake up to breakfast at the Nicollet Diner on us when you book direct. History museums close at five. We just light the fireplaces.
Planning a historic house tour day in the Twin Cities
If old houses are your thing, make a proper circuit of it. Pair a 300 Clifton visit with the James J. Hill House on St. Paul’s Summit Avenue, check the American Swedish Institute’s tour dates for the castle-like Turnblad Mansion, and browse Meet Minneapolis’s historical tours page for what else is open. Then come back to Loring Park for the only house on the list that will tuck you in. For the full story of the house itself, read Inside the Eugene J. Carpenter Mansion.
Come see it for yourself. Book the Gilded Age Mansion Tour, or stay the night at 300 Clifton and get the grandest tour of all — the one that ends with breakfast.