Boards and beams salvaged from old family homes find a place in a

family reunion
Boards and beams salvaged from old
family homes find a place in a new house.
B y M o l ly G u t h r e y
*
Photographer Tim Nehotte
A r t D i r e c t o r a nd S t y l i s t B a r b a r a S c h m i d t , bs t y l e i n c .
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When Karl
Pinkse was
designing his
new home, he
wasn't
interested in
reclaiming just
any vintage
lumber – he
reclaimed the
lumber his own
ancestors used
to build barns
and other
buildings in
central
Minnesota.
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The wood palette
in the Pinske home
is both new and
reclaimed,
representing the
talents of five
generations of
carpenter artisans.
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“I saw behind me
those who had gone,
and before me those
who are to come.
I looked back and
saw my father, and
his father, and all
our fathers, and in
front to see my son,
and his son, and the
sons upon sons
beyond. And their
eyes were my eyes.”
— Richard Llewellyn
T
he Pinske family home
in central Minnesota is a
reunion of past, present
and future.
Its creation involved genealogy
as well as construction.
“As our family outgrew our
smaller home in town, I wanted our
new home to have more space and
history to it,” says Karl Pinske.
To Pinske, family history is not a
concept covered in mystery and
dust; it is the family business.
“I run a fifth-generation company,” says Pinske, CEO of Plato
Woodwork, a business specializing
in custom kitchen and bath
cabinetry.
It was 1893 when Theodore Pinske, son of German immigrants,
started a construction business in
Plato, Minn. He later added a lumberyard and a millwork shop — a
shop that continues today as Plato
Woodwork.
Not all of the 119 years that have
passed are well-documented,
though.
“Some artifacts and stories had
been lost in time,” Pinske says. “The
goal was to track down some of those
artifacts and to re-energize the material by using it in our new home.”
That’s where the genealogy
came in.
Lost Treasures
Pinske wasn’t exactly chasing a
cold trail when he began searching
for the schools, churches, barns and
other structures that his ancestors
built in the area.
“I have a great-uncle who is with
the original company, the construction side of the business,” Pinske
says. “He’s in his 80s and had a lot
Who does a
custom kitchen
and bath
cabinetry
manufacturer
turn to when
designing his
own home? In
this case, Karl
Pinkse of Plato
Woodwork got an
assist from Susan
Palmquist of
Sawhill Custom
Kitchens &
Design Inc. of
Minneapolis.
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of information and memories. It
was helpful to have relatives who
could point me in a direction —
they know about people and dates.
I had to piece it all together, like a
puzzle.”
Aged documents provided clues,
too.
“I got my hands on blueprints
from the early 1900s and obviously
the names didn’t match up — some
of the properties had changed
hands three or four times by then,”
Pinske says. “But the barns my
family built were of a specific style.
Once we narrowed it down, I knew
which ones they had built.”
That’s when Pinske began the
legwork portion of his quest.
“I started knocking on doors,” he
said.
The structures he inquired about
were in various states.
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“Some were weathered, some
were being used for storage, some
were not used for anything anymore,” he says. “A couple of people
said, ‘If you get rid of it and bury the
foundation, I’m OK with you having
the materials.’ For others, we did
extra work for them on their
property.”
So the family reclaimed its history in the same manner it began
— with sweat and hammers (provided by the crews of E.J. Pinske
Builders of Gaylord, Minn.).
This treasure hunt, which
spanned about a year and a half,
was only the beginning.
“Now we had to take this pile of
lumber and posts and beams and
make it work,” Pinske said.
Reclaimed
In the new house, the reclaimed
lumber provides decorative elements rather than structural ones:
Barn beams have found new life
lining the ceiling of the great room;
an old church slated for demolition
is now the white oak floor beneath
the family’s feet; a milk house’s lime
walls have morphed into cabinetry.
The setting itself is also significant.
“The house is built on land we’ve
always owned,” Pinske says.
The 79 acres include a bucolic
mix of woods, farm fields, a river
and horses, which are kept across
the street at his parent’s farm.
The family of Pinske’s wife,
Melissa (Noennig) Pinske, is represented here, too, especially in the
music room.
“My dad, Jack Noennig, is a professional violinist — and eight of
his 11 grandchildren play the vio-
“P” stands for
Pinske – for five
generations and
counting, the
Pinske family has
made a living by
working with
wood. “P” also
stands for Plato
Woodwork, the
family’s custom
kitchen and bath
cabinetry
business in Plato,
Minn.
1/10/2012 12:31:12 PM
lin,” Melissa Pinske says. “I play
the piano, which my grandmother
taught me. I kept the piano books
that had her notes from each lesson in them, notes like, ‘You did
not practice this week.’ ”
“We didn’t want to use the
originals, so we made photocopies of the pages, used dyes to age
them and hung them as wallpaper in the music room,” Karl Pinske says.
The room’s design also reflects
the realities of a new generation
of musicians, who were 7, 10 and
13 when the house was built.
“All three kids play the violin,”
Pinske says. “I don’t know if
you’ve ever heard kids play the
violin when they’re first learning,
but … that’s why we insulated the
music room like you would out-
door walls. Three or four years
have passed now, so the screeching is gone.”
The Pinskes and the Noennigs
come together in the rooms of the
couple’s three children, who are
now 10, 13 and 16.
“We let the kids design their
own rooms,” Pinske said. They
had the help of Elynn Lepel, the
project’s interior designer.
“Each room has a different
theme,” he says. “One boy’s room
is rough-hewn, a hunter/trapper
theme, the other’s is related to
motors and cars and planes; our
daughter’s is a farm girl’s room,
done up in bright colors of sunshine and flowers and grass.”
The farm girl’s patchwork bedspread is fashioned from a photograph of the farm.
The agricultural theme is
around in other venues, too.
“One of the barns we took
down had a milk house in it, and
we turned a milk pail we found
there into a sink in the bathroom
of the rough-hewn bedroom,”
Pinske says.
The boys’ doors also are made
of old barn doors on their original
tracks. This is useful if the rooms
get messy.
“You can close their doors and
not see any of it,” their father
says.
Modern Family
The family of five can easily
escape a mess or a screeching
violin; their new home has 6,600
square feet to roam, with four full
bedrooms and bathrooms and a
Above: The music
room, designed for
pianist Melissa Pinske
and her three young
violinists, is papered
with aged copies of
the sheet music her
grandmother used to
teach her piano.
Right: There are
stories in every room:
The three horses,
carved into the wood
by a relative who is a
chainsaw artist,
represent Karl and
Melissa Pinske’s three
children; the stones for
the fireplace came
from the gravel pit of
Melissa Pinske's
family.
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Credits
Left: The three
children had input
into the design of
their bedroom
suites; a tire sink
was designed for
one of the sons
who likes race
cars.
Above: Their new
family home
combines two of
the Pinske
passions: wood
and horses.
loft above the garage.
“It’s almost three times as big as
the old house,” Pinske says.
The house combines 19th century history with 21st century conveniences — thanks to an assist
from Susan Palmquist of Sawhill
Custom Kitchens & Design of Minneapolis.
“The kitchen island is designed
for five people to sit and there’s a
dishwasher drawer next to the
island — big enough for five place
settings,” Pinske says. “Those
dishes never hit the kitchen cabinet. If there are games at 5 and 7,
we pull the clean dishes out of the
dishwasher to serve the Crock-Pot
meal, then they go right back in the
dishwasher to be cleaned.”
The current generation’s reach
goes beyond appliances, though.
“I have a cousin who is a chainsaw artist,” Pinske says. “We told
him we wanted a horse-themed
mantle in the great room fireplace
— our family has horses — and
then we just let him go to work. He
carved three horses — they represent our three kids.”
The house is not meant to be a
showcase but a legacy.
“I could have purchased these
materials anywhere,” Pinske says.
“But to say, ‘Hey, my great-grandfather’s crew cut down these humongous white oak trees and built a
church with them’ — well, you
can’t buy that.” n
Molly Guthrey is a reporter and colum-
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