Anthony Waldman House

Anthony Waldman House

Until recently, the limestone building at 445 Smith Avenue North, St. Paul, Minnesota, United States, was known in surveys and local architectural history books as the Anthony Waldman House. However, recent research and analysis of the building has revealed that the Waldman House was not in fact built by Waldman, and was not originally a "house" either. Instead, the structure was a small commercial building with residential quarters on the second floor. Evidence of this commercial design include a side porch/loading dock facing the alley to the north (since removed); obvious stone in-filling of the first-floor shop-front windows; a large structural beam above the one-time shop front that supported the second-story stonework; photographic evidence from the 1940s of remnants of the original first-floor commercial cornice (see enlarged image below); physical evidence of a central entrance step into the shop; and wooden sleepers that served as nailers for decorative wooden pilasters or perhaps signs at either side of the shop windows below the cornice. Documentary evidence suggests that the stone portion of the building dates to the late fall of 1857, coinciding with the onset of the Panic of 1857. Another unexpected discovery is that parts of the wood frame addition to the rear of the stone building actually predate the stone portion, making the latter the true "addition." The research is ongoing, and no doubt the Waldman House has more stories to tell.