Charles Leavitt and the North Shore

The Glensheen Estate, located in Duluth, Minnesota along the Lake Superior shoreline is a mansion that was constructed to be the family home of Chester and Clara Congdon. In order to facilitate Chester Congdon’s visions for the home, he directly requested the work of one Charles Wellford Leavitt Jr. , a landscape engineer whom he believed could make his vision a reality. Originally based in New York City, Glensheen would be Leavitt’s first time working in Duluth, Minnesota, a task that would have been quite the uphill battle if not for Leavitt’s heaps of experience working in incredibly diverse environments such as “roadways, race courses, and municipal parks,” (Lane and McClelland 1980, 4).

Based on a paper from 1980 written by Michael Lane and Dan McClelland, Chester Congdon wanted four main features for the estate’s landscape. These aspects were a reliable water supply, private access to Lake Superior, to be non-obtrusive to the natural environment, and to experiment with the plants added to the environment for the estate (Lane and McClelland 1980, 1). In hiring Leavitt for the job, Chester Congdon was placing a heavy amount of pressure on the engineer to carry out his wishes. Despite this, Leavitt would perform extremely well, with the Glensheen Estate still acting as an impressive landscape to this day.

Of Chester Congdon’s wishes for the Glensheen Estate, reliable water and private access to Lake Superior were two of the easiest to fulfill. Due to its location, being surrounded by major water sources from three cardinal directions, Glensheen has not had to particularly worry about a reliable water supply. However, another major reason water was not a concern was due to a massive water reservoir Leavitt put in place along the western Tischer Creek. While no longer in use today, the reservoir was gravity operated and most notably was used to power the large fountain located in the estate’s formal gardens (Glensheen 2025). Due to Glensheen’s position on the Lake Superior shoreline, having private lake access was not an incredibly difficult task. Eventually, a pier would be built for the Congdon’s becoming the largest private pier on the lake, alongside being the only private pier shown on navigational maps of the lake (Glensheen 2025). 

In order to keep the landscape as natural as possible, Leavitt very carefully planned the placement of various roads, terraces, buildings themselves, and other various modifications accordingly. These additions would be done in a way that did not overwhelm the natural landscape that was already there, making the estate appear as though it had always been a part of the surrounding land, rather than being an obvious protrusion to the otherwise original landscape (Lane and McClelland 1980, 2). This idea of a unobtrusive landscape design likely originated from classical English garden designs, which prioritized creating picturesque, sprawling landscapes that one would experience by moving through them, rather than them existing statically. Another major way the natural landscape was preserved was through the protection of certain aspects of the natural environment. By building the entire estate all at once, Leavitt was able to have minimal effects on the preexisting environment, meaning certain trees along the edges of the estate, where major new roadways needed to be built, were able to survive the shorter construction phases (Lane and McClelland 1980, 5). Similarly, drainage and runoff was directed towards the nearby creek Bent Brook, but the lining of Bent Brook with cemented in stones acts as evidence that “the Congdons and Leavitt were concerned that their encroachment into the natural environment be camouflaged and minimalized,” (Lane and McClelland 1980, 5).