Experiencing Glensheen's Third Floor: The Public in Private Spaces

By Reagan Cheshire

A Quick Overview: The First Two Floors

As you make your way through Glensheen, it doesn't take long before you notice how much of the Congdon’s can be seen within the design of their home. The ground floor shows exactly how they wanted to be presented to the world: well-travelled, cultured, and refined while still being understated. Depending on what path you take and the room you end up in, the Congdon’s have to decide the level of formality for your meeting. Have a business proposition? Maybe you’d end up in the smoking room. Need to discuss something a bit more personal? You could be headed into the library instead. This variety gave the Congdon’s the chance to tailor the experience of their home to whatever fit their fancy. It also displayed how each room was designed to balance its purpose and formality while still being understated enough for the Congdon’s image.

Moving upstairs, your surroundings shift with who would have been spending time there. The second floor is home to the first set of bedrooms and the servants’ quarters. Gone are heavy hues and formal spaces of the first floor, instead you are met with airy, light-filled bedrooms, natural imagery, and more privacy. The women’s rooms are painted in pastels, and various rooms are inspired by the Art Nouveau and Edwardian styles. Even the master bedroom, with its darker wood tones and understated nature, still has the airy quality that comes with the large, windowed rooms on this floor. The second floor feels distinctly more personal, which is a trend that continues as we make our way up to the third floor.

A lamp takes up the left half of the image, in the background is a room with three windows on the back wall with chairs and a table in front of it.

A room with a bed in the foreground. A door is open on the back wall on the right side of the image. A dresser is against the back wall the the left of the door. A closed door is on the other side of the dresser, with a rocking chair and side table in front of that closed door.

A long hallway stretching toward the center of the image. a partially seen doorway is on the right side of the image, with another slightly further down on the left. More entryways can be seen down the hall. Artwork hangs between doorways and a table is pushed against the right wall. Light fixtures line the center of the ceiling down the hall. There is a rope barrier in front of the near-most entryway coming towards the viewer.

An Introduction to the Boys' Floor

The third floor is home to the bedrooms of Alfred, Walter, Edward, and Robert. Often called the boys’ floor for this reason, it also features the lounging room, married guest bedroom, and infirmary. Upon making your way up the flight of stairs to this floor, you are met with a distinct design shift into the style of Arts and Crafts. No more pastels; instead, they are replaced with wood tones and geometric patterns, though the natural imagery seen on the first two floors continues through this one.

This floor is laid out along a hallway, with the boys’ bedrooms and lounge sandwiched between the infirmary and guest room on each end of the hall. The layout is made more unique through the lounge being directly connected to both Edward and Walter’s bedrooms, and right across the hall from Alfred's. This cluster of rooms leaves Robert’s room further down the hall, closer to the guest bedroom. Being on the third floor gives these rooms an additional level of privacy that those on the lower floors don’t have. They are furthest away from the primary gathering spaces on the ground floor and aren’t at risk of being accessed by mistake. This level of privacy allows for a space that is designed with functionality and personal taste in mind.

The Lounging Room

The lounging room, also called the boys’ lounge, is the most public space on the third floor. Situated halfway down the hall, the space is so open thanks to an arched entryway replacing what would normally be a wall and doorway. A rolling partition wall was also available to block part of the entryway in the event that a more private gathering space was needed. When you enter the room, the Arts and Crafts details jump out at you. The geometric border under the crown molding is a continuation of the border in the hall. That use of geometric shape can also be spotted in the wood detailing on some of the furniture and walls throughout this room and others (they can even be seen decorating the previously mentioned partition wall). This Arts and Crafts style, combined with the use of personally significant decorations like school merchandise, awards and trophies, and photographs, come together to make an intimate gathering space reflective of the boys that spent time there.

A round wooden table with a single chair behind it. The back wall has windows partially covered by wood boards. Mounted goat heads are on both sides of the window. The right wall has built in bookshelves full of books with a chair and telescope in front of them. An arm chair is in the back left corner with a partially seen couch against the left wall next to it. Part of a Christmas tree is seen in the foreground on the right.

The Boys' Rooms and Private Spaces

The boys’ bedrooms, as expected, give the opportunity for more privacy. The doors to Edward and Walter’s rooms are on opposite sides of the lounge, and when opened, create connecting rooms that flow together and feature matching Arts and Crafts detailing. When closed, the rooms once again become focused on whoever they belong to. Edward’s room is a good example of this with his included dark room, reflecting his love of photography and adding an additional level of functionality to his space.

Walter’s room is across the hall from the lounge. It continues the Arts and Crafts style with its nature motifs and wood grain. This bedroom joins the lounge and the other two boys’ rooms in creating a cluster in the middle of the floorplan. These three may have been roomed next to each other because they were closer in age, or because they wouldn’t have been spending all that much time in the house (the youngest of the three having been almost eighteen by the time they moved into Glensheen).

Robert’s room is further down the hall. The room is away from his brother's and closer to the guest room. This may have been because he would have been home more often and needed more of a private area for himself. The room features hand-painted songbirds on the walls and wallpaper instead of the wooden wall accents we see in the previous rooms. An Arts and Crafts geometric border used to run under the crown molding, but has since been painted over, along with the changing of the wallpaper.

When comparing the current third floor rooms with earlier archival images, you can see that some Arts and Crafts design elements are missing in other rooms as well. The original wallpaper in the married guest room was a floral design that fit more in line with the rest of the floor. Edward’s room also had stenciled geometric details removed from its walls. Looking at the original designs for these rooms makes it easier to see how they were intended to reflect the original people who were living there.

A room with a desk, chair and table on the left side, a dresser with a mirror in the center, and a bed and side table on the right side of the image.

Conclusion

Moving through Glensheen, the balance between function and style shifts depending on what room you’re in. The boys’ floor is a prime example of the focus turning away from the necessary formal receiving rooms and public spaces of the first floor to the small gathering spaces and bedrooms that are required of the private areas in a home. Changing from the ground floor's gilded style into Arts and Crafts on the third lets us know who was intended to spend time in the space. It was not for everyday guests, but for family and those invited in. The third floor is a representation of the Congdon family and boys in particular, with their interests, values, and personal taste coming together to make an informal getaway for each of them.

Bibliography

Glensheen. 2025. “Virtual Glensheen.” Accessed December 10, 2025. https://glensheen.org/tour/virtual-tour/.

Glensheen. “Historical.” Glensheen. Accessed December 10, 2025. https://glensheen.org/gallery/historical/.

Livermont, Beca. “Explore the Third Floor.” Glensheen. July 15, 2019. https://glensheen.org/go-beyond-the-ropes-but-please-dont-step-on-the-rugs/.

N.d. Photo of the “Lounging Room” in Glensheen Mansion. U6192-B8-F15_02F. Kathryn A. Martin Library Archives and Special Collections, University of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth, MN

Webb, Jennifer D. 2009. ”Golden Age collecting in America's Middle West.” Journal of the History of Collections 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1093/jhc/fhp034

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