Karen Fults Kaler knows the stories behind a house, and the families who have inhabited it, are what make an otherwise inanimate structure come alive. And when she and her husband, former University of Minnesota president Eric Kaler, lived in the U of M presidential house, Eastcliff—one of the more storied homes of Mississippi River Boulevard, and perhaps all of the Twin Cities—she found the sentiment more true than ever. Now, in her new book, Eastcliff: History of a Home, she’s sharing the long-buried stories of famous visitors, secret architectural details, and families who shaped our state.
Nine U of M presidential families have lived in Eastcliff, a white Colonial Revival on the edge of the Mississippi in St. Paul, in its 101-year history. The U also approved it as a temporary residence for Governor Walz and his family this summer, while the governor’s mansion on Summit Avenue undergoes renovations and the U searches for a new president. But the house wasn’t built for or by the U of M: It started as lumber baron Edward Brooks’s home, and stayed in the Brooks family until they donated it to the U in 1961.
Eric and Karen Fults Kaler, who moved to Eastcliff in 2011, started hearing stories about the home’s history almost as soon as they dropped their bags. And the more Fults Kaler heard, the more intrigued the author and graphic designer became.
“As I learned more and more about the house I kept thinking, Someone needs to write this down!” she says. “And I’m a big believer that if you think somebody should do something, it’s probably you.”
She wrote a children’s book about Eastcliff in 2017 (Weenie Meets Helen Keller: A True Story Featuring Eastcliff in Miniature)—but knew she had a longer version in her. She spent years researching, interviewing past U of M presidential families (and even members of the Brooks family) and poring over historical letters and newspaper articles about the estate and events that happened there.
“One of the best sources was Binky [Anna Markell] Brooks, who grew up in the house and is now in her 90s,” Fults Kaler says. “She remembered, in detail, Helen Keller visiting there. Same with Katharine Hepburn.”
Yes, that Helen Keller, and that Katharine Hepburn. Since all of the families who have lived in Eastcliff have entertained multiple times a week for various parties, functions, and events, the house has seen its fair share of esteemed guests. The Dalai Lama, Clark Gable, John Dillinger, Eddie Vedder, composers Cole Porter and George Gershwin, vice presidents Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale, and scores more have walked its halls.
“It is so far from anything I could imagine or have experienced,” Fults Kaler says. “Back then, people in society were all connected, even across cities. But that said, when we were living in Eastcliff, people would say that to me: What’s it like being a presidential family and living in this house? The schedule, the entertaining?”
Kaler says she and her family often hosted three, four, maybe five times a week, depending on the season. But Eastcliff was built for it: The fully furnished first floor of the estate is built for entertaining specifically, while the families actually live upstairs. “So you can entertain at the drop of a hat,” she says. “The downstairs was always tidy. We’d say we live above the store: At the end of the night, we’d just walk upstairs.”
Parts of the house—particularly in that downstairs entertaining space—seem almost museum-like. Nobody is allowed to touch the Tiffany lamps, for example (they’re controlled by a switch). A curved-walled room that once housed Eastcliff’s only telephone was Eric Kaler’s favorite space. The dark-paneled den reflects the original Brooks family’s history in the lumber industry. Once upon a time, a hallway was used as a shooting range. And the saltwater pool, tennis court, perfect-replica Eastcliff dollhouse, stately dining room, and lawn with the view of the Mississippi all have countless stories buried deep inside them.
But the most special room to Karen Fults Kaler was the “peacock room,” a 1930 4 feet-by-6-feet powder-room addition surrounded by mirrored glass, with a gigantic metallic peacock painted on one glass wall and peacock feathers painted on the ceiling and door. “It’s a work of art,” she says. “People tell me it was a Prohibition-era bar, and I was ready to believe that, but I don’t think it’s actually true.”
Even with all the historical details, the families of Eastcliff are allowed to make it their own: Kaler remembers rearranging some of the downstairs rooms, adding her own rugs, and selecting her favorite pieces of art to borrow from the U’s Weisman Art Museum to make it feel more like home. She decorated the fence in winter and planted tulip bulbs outside (“I wanted to be a good neighbor,” she says). The living quarters upstairs were fully their jurisdiction to design, too.
The Kalers haven’t lived at Eastcliff in four years. Fults Kaler’s last days of research and writing happened from afar (well, around Cleveland) now that her husband is president of Case Western Reserve University. But Eastcliff—and Minnesota—still hold a special place in their hearts. Entertaining half of the days they lived there brought them a community, and learning about the house brought Fults Kaler a sense of grounding, a connection to a new city that quickly felt like home.
“We met so many wonderful people there,” she says. “The role—and Eastcliff—just opened that up for us.”
And now, through the book and the database of memories that Fults Kaler has collected, the house’s past carries on. As for its future? That’ll be defined by its next guests.
Eastcliff: History of a Home is out now from University of Minnesota Press, upress.umn.edu