Star Tribune
Award-winning Wisconsin house from a Minnesota architect lists for $4M
The aptly named Type/Variant house is ever changing.
Built in 1994, the copper siding-clad home was shiny and brown. As it aged, the copper oxidized, giving the panels their own patina, some a blue-green, others a deep brown.
Client Richard Polsky and Minneapolis architect Vincent James drew inspiration from rural industrial structures in Wisconsin and Minnesota, envisioning each cubic part of the home as simple, elegant timber-like features.
“We selected copper siding after seeing one of [Polsky’s] artworks — a beautiful copper etching composing a set of plates of simple variations,” James said in an email. “They loved the evolving copper color as it weathered and that the changes were outside of their control.”
The home, which won the American Institute of Architects Honor Award for Architecture in 1998 as well as the American Institute of Architects Minnesota Honor Award in 1996, even garnered a New York Times feature for its ingenuity and modernist look. After decades of enjoying all the seven-bedroom, nine-bathroom home has to offer — from its artistic forms to fishing on the nearby lake and tapping maple trees on the property — the Polsky family recently listed the Hayward, Wis., home for $4 million and hope to find buyers who will relish it the same.
“[Us kids have] spread out quite a bit over the years. It was a place for my parents to go every summer. It was getting harder for them to get there,” said Polsky’s son Charlie Polsky. “It’s sad that the house is for sale. But it’s a house that needs to be used.”
Richard Polsky always had grander ideas for his land in Hayward, about a 2 ½-hour drive northeast from the Twin Cities. A professor at Columbia University, he interviewed artists and was interested in how they expressed their views creatively.
“My father, who is turning 93 this year, is a lifelong artist and has been interested in aesthetic and space for a long time,” Charlie Polsky said. “We started interviewing architects in the mid-90s, and he had a vision for what the house should be in terms of materials and how it is built.”
As well-wishers flocked Officer Ikran Mohamed, 4-year-old Amira Shafii raised her little arm in a proud salute — her auntie’s new police cap perched lopsided on her head. The ‘junior officer’ cracked a smile.
Mohamed, dressed in a black hijab, adjusted her newly pinned badge with henna-laced hands. She’d just become the first Somali woman to ever join the Minneapolis Police Department.
“I want to be a role model for girls who look like me, so they can say ‘I can do it, too,” Mohamed, 23, told reporters Thursday night following a graduation ceremony honoring 11 new recruits and 12 lateral hires from other Minnesota law enforcement agencies.
“I’m just very excited to be here and represent my people and my community.”
Amira Shafii, 4, goes around saluting friends and relatives for photos wearing the police uniform cap of her aunt, officer Ikran Mohamed, who became the first Somali woman to become an officer with Minneapolis Police Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024 at the American Indian Center in Minneapolis, Minn.. ] AARON LAVINSKY • Aaron.lavinsky@startribune.com (Aaron Lavinsky/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Mohamed immigrated to the United States from Kenya when she was 10 years old. She previously worked as a corrections officer in Steele County.
Beside her, 27-year-old Officer Lesly Vera also had the power of representation on the mind. Vera became the first non-citizen to serve on the police force Thursday, marking a significant victory for immigration advocates.
Although thousands of lawful permanent residents and DACA recipients already serve in the United States military, many states maintain citizenship requirements for those seeking to become a licensed police officer. But in recent years, as law enforcement agencies across the nation have struggled to replenish their ranks with qualified candidates, a growing number have eliminated that requirement.
In 2023, at the recommendation of the Peace Officers’ Training Board, the Minnesota Legislature changed state law allowing for applicants who are either citizens or “eligible to work in the United States under federal requirements.”
“The Republican Party would be far better off with him losing this round and having a Democrat in for two years,” Scheffler said.
The 6B district include the cities of Baxter, Breezy Point, Jenkins, Nisswa, Pequot Lakes and all but one precinct in Brainerd. That one precinct is included in District 6A, which is represented by Davis’ brother, Rep. Ben Davis, R-Merrifield, who is seeking a second term this election.
Davis said he doesn’t like being caught in the middle of a political dispute. His intention in signing the petition in June wasn’t about endorsing any candidate, he said.
“People are tired of the two-party system,” Davis said. “Why not give a third option?”
An elderly Minnesotan died earlier this year after a bat exposure at home in the western part of the state resulted in a case of rabies.
The Minnesota Department of Health announced the death Friday, following confirmatory testing on Sept. 20 of the rare infectious disease by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The case is the ninth on record in Minnesota since 1917, and the fourth since 2000. Seven of the infections were fatal.
State health officials said the death does not indicate a heightened risk to the public, but urged people as always to avoid contact with bats, which are responsible for 70% of U.S. rabies cases. State Public Health Veterinarian Dr. Stacy Holzbauer also reminded people to seek rabies vaccinations for household pets and livestock.
Rabies is treatable with an immune globulin injection plus four doses of rabies vaccine to boost the immune system, but only if treatment is started before symptoms emerge. Otherwise, the disease is almost always fatal.
The state said the victim is older than 65 and was exposed to a bat in July. The investigation into the infection is ongoing, but family members reported that a bat had been in the house and that the victim had killed a bat. The individual did not receive rabies treatment before symptoms emerged.
Public health workers were following up to determine whether close relatives or health care workers who treated the victim had been exposed to the virus.
The state encouraged people to contact health care providers or the health department after any physical contact with bats, because their bites can sometimes leave only small or unnoticeable marks. Bats can be tested for rabies if captured to determine whether people need to initiate treatment.
