The winter 2025 issue of North Home and Life Magazine is out, and I’ve got a story in it about Lutsen Lodge, the iconic resort designed by architect Edwin Lundie, which burned down in 2024. You can read the story here (on p. 35), and you can listen to it here. Here’s the intro:

In the summer of 1886, Charles A. A. Nelson was making his way up the North Shore in his fishing boat when a storm forced him to take shelter in a small bay. Nelson was 23-years-old, and had only been in the United States for five years. He’d crossed the Atlantic in steerage from Sweden, where his family worked as serf-farmers, in search of the “glorious new Scandinavia” that immigrants were promised in Minnesota. 

The inlet at the mouth of the Poplar River was a choice spot: In fact, two other people had already staked claims to the land. One was a Frenchman, who disappeared after filling his papers. The other was a tugboat captain who missed the deadline for proving his claim. So Charles dug in his pockets for $14 required, and the land was his.

Read the rest here. Listen here.