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diggComing Home In Style
A college professor goes back to find her future in a mid-century modern
By Michelle Baltus
Photo by alex steinberg
(page 1 of 2)
Linda Schulte-Sasse is living proof that you can go home again. Five years ago, the college professor returned to her roots in Minneapolis’s Prospect Park neighborhood, moving into the duplex where she was raised.“I never thought, no matter what, that I would want to move back into the house I grew up in,” she says. “Not that I didn’t love it and have a great childhood, but it felt like regressing to me.”
Objectively, however, Schulte-Sasse’s childhood home seemed almost ideal: The 1940 duplex is located minutes from Macalester College, where she chairs the German Studies Department. It also had the right amount of living space for the single empty nester. Better yet, she loved the home’s mid-century modernist design, created by prominent local architect Robert Cerny.
“When I needed somewhere to live, I looked at this side of the duplex—which is quite different than the other—thinking I had the family connections, so it would be easy,” Schulte-Sasse says. “But more importantly, I thought it was a beautiful property.”
Cerny, a contemporary of Ralph Rapson (another Prospect Park resident), was the designer of area landmarks including Metropolitan Stadium and the Lindbergh Terminal at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. He also taught at the University of Minnesota, where he befriended Burtrum Schiele, a professor of psychiatry and Schulte-Sasse’s father.
Photo by Alex Steinberg
Schulte-Sasse admits nostalgia played a role in her return home. “When I was growing up, it always seemed that whatever the Cernys did or had was a little cooler than everyone else,” she says. “I think the house still had some of that Cerny mystique for me.”
Indeed, the three-story redwood home, which occupies a wooded hillside, is virtually unchanged. The hardwood floors, redwood paneling, and minimalist stone fireplace are just as Schulte-Sasse remembers. Clean, horizontal lines define the spare interiors, which rise from a basement-level front entrance and den to a window-lined second-floor living room, dining room, and kitchen. Three bedrooms and a bathroom occupy the third floor, offering bird’s-eye views of the leafy neighborhood.
A fan of sleek European design, Schulte-Sasse appreciated the home’s modern aesthetic. Also a passionate cook, she was less enamored with its outdated kitchen. The narrow, enclosed room had little natural light and hid the terraced backyard from the rest of the home. Schulte-Sasse wanted the living, dining, and kitchen areas to compose one open, bright space. She also wanted a main-floor powder room. Any remodeling project, she felt, had to maintain the character of Cerny’s original design.
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