Ivory McKusick House

The Ivory McKusick House is a historic house in Stillwater, Minnesota, United States, completed in 1872 for Ivory McKusick . It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 for having local significance in the themes of architecture and commerce. It was nominated as a striking example of Second Empire architecture in the region and for its associations with a notable family in early Stillwater. McKusick had built his wealth via the lumber industry and government contracts during the Civil War. His older brother John had helped establish the first sawmill in the vicinity in 1843, named and platted the community that grew around it after his hometown in Maine, and served as its first mayor.
The official National Register documentation for the Ivory McKusick House gives a construction date of 1868. However more recent research from the Washington County Historical Society states that the house began as a one-story structure in 1866 and was enlarged in 1872 with the two-story wing that now serves as the main façade. Second Empire architectural elements include the mansard roof with round-arched dormers, and numerous ornate brackets. These brackets adorn the window hoods on the dormers and the first floor, while even larger brackets with pendants support the wide eaves and the hood over the front door. The heavy mansard roof was highly fashionable at the time. A patterned frieze wraps under the roofline and is echoed in decoration around a bay window on the side elevation. Decorative elements are simpler on the original rear wing and lacking altogether on a two-story servants' wing added to the northwest corner of the house sometime before 1888.

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