Fireplaces of Minnesota: A roundup of the state’s remaining public hearths
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In a winter wonderland like Minnesota, there are few comforts so cozy or primal as sitting in the glow of a fire as logs crackle and pop.
“There is no substitute for fire,” reads an excerpt from the 1977 architectural tome “A Pattern Language.”
“The television often gives a focus to a room, but it is nothing but a feeble substitute for something which is actually alive and flickering within the room.”
Indoor wood-burning fireplaces, particularly in public places, have become increasingly rare (read this reporter’s lament on the subject below the roundup), which makes them all the more special.
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This winter, ditch the screens and gather hearthside at one of Minnesota’s remaining collective firesides.
Note: Fireplaces included had to be wood-burning, indoors, lit on a regular basis and reasonably accessible to the public.
Twin Flames
In the Twin Cities, there are two locations that frequently have roaring fires.
If the temps dip below 40 degrees, chances are the staff at W.A. Frost & Company in St. Paul is going to build a fire in at least one of the three wood-burning fireplaces onsite. Manager Anneliese Morrow says the owner John Rupp added the fireplaces in the 1970s to the 19th-century building.
“Winter is just too long in Minnesota, and so we need something that invites our guests to come in the coldest of months and brings them warmth, brings them joy,” Morrow says. “I grew up on a farm, so we didn’t have heating and air conditioning. Wood-burning stoves, coal-burning stoves, are something I grew up with so it’s sentimental to me.”
Nicholas Grenier, a server and fire-tender at W.A. Frost says there’s nothing like the ambience of the live fire.
“If there’s ever an open seat near when people walk in the door, they want to sit next to the fire,” Grenier says. “It’s just very relaxing, almost meditative.”
At Brit’s Pub in downtown Minneapolis, two wood-burning fireplaces remain.
“It’s part of the atmosphere of a British pub particularly in winter time,” says general manager Shane Higgins. “Particularly village pubs — there’s a lot of old pubs so probably some were going before there was proper heating.”
Gunflint Rock and Beyond
The Gunflint Trail is a hub for fire and stone, particularly fireplaces made from Gunflint rock.
“It’s kind of a unique rock to our area,” says John Fredrikson, who co-owns the Gunflint Lodge with wife Mindy. The rusty and gravelly red rock, he says, comes from a meteorite that hit Sudbury, Canada, 1.8 million years ago.
“The meteor strike sent a bunch of projectiles this way, and it reformed on the Gunflint Trail,” Fredrikson says. “A lot of the fireplaces that we have up at the lodge, and a lot of the stonework we have, is using that rock.”
The main fireplaces are in the lodge’s restaurant, and staff feed them with birch wood.
“We split about 50 cords of wood a year,” Fredrikson says. “They’re a lot of work, but there’s nothing like a wood-burning fireplace.”
The nearby White Pine Lodge also has a wood-burning fireplace made from Gunflint Rock, Fredrikson says. Both lodges are on the annual Winter Fireplace Tour of Cook County, as is Voyageurs Brewing Company in Grand Marais. The tour is part of the Hygge Fest, which runs the entire month of February.
“One of the core concepts with hygge is that it’s all about embracing that warm, comfortable, cozy feeling that you have in the wintertime,” says Kjersti Vick, the marketing director for Visit Cook County who came up with the fireplace tour idea in 2019. Vick says about 10 of the fireplaces on the tour are wood-burning.
“We thought about how many great fireplaces we have,” Vick says. “We’re like, let’s lean into that concept and encourage people to come up and experience these cozy fireplaces in these cozy lodges set in the heart of the wilderness and just make a fun event out of it.”
Grand hearths in Grand Portage
Fridays and Saturdays during the winter season, staff light the fires in the grand 27-foot-tall fireplace at the Grand Portage National Monument Heritage Center.
“It is constructed from sedimentary rocks of the Rove Formation, which dates back nearly two billion years,” says superintendent Heather Boyd. The stone was hand-selected by staff in 2005–2006, adding a unique historical and geological significance to the structure.
Nearby, Vick says there is another impressive hearth: The Grand Portage Lodge and Casino has a three-story wood-burning fireplace.
Fire Sale!
The Northern Pines Lodge in Park Rapids features a fieldstone fireplace in a common area with rocking chairs and couches. Owner Jonathan Schupp says he loves the smells, the snap-crackle-pop sounds and the smoke puffing out of the chimney.
“Boy, it’s a very popular spot on chilly mornings,” Schupp says. Guests and visitors “love to sit in the rocking chairs, which sit right in front of the fireplace, and warm their toes up great.”
The lodge, which was established in 1914, also has four rental units with wood-burning fireplaces. After running Northern Pines for 46 years, Schupp says his family has decided to put it up for sale; the lodge is currently on the market for $4.9 million.
State of Fire
There are a handful of indoor wood-burning fireplaces in the Minnesota state park system, but perhaps the most fetching is the fireside at the River Inn Visitor Center at Jay Cooke State Park in Carleton. In the winter, a fire burns nearly every day, says the park’s interpretive naturalist Kristine Hiller.
In the early 1940s, the Civilian Conservation Corps built the building and fireplace using a volcanic stone called Duluth gabbro. In the 1980s, a copper decorative panel was added.
“There’s probably about 30 plates of copper on it, and it’s very art deco looking,” Hiller says. “There’s always hand prints on the metal, because people go up and touch it and see, you know, is there any warmth coming off of it?” (The copper does not get hot.)
The fireplace is available to visitors year-round. Hiller says they have locals who visit it daily to read the newspaper or play cards. If a staff member isn’t there to make it, supplies are available for guests, and they take advantage of that.
“Seriously, it’ll be 95 degrees out and they’ll build a little fire in there,” she says.
Lauren Peck, a communications specialist for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, says there are a few more noteworthy wood-burning fireplaces in the state park system including at the Bear Head Lake State Park Trail Center and the Gooseberry Falls Visitor Center.
A reporter’s fireside notebook
For a few months now, I’ve been searching for fire. Specifically, I’ve been looking for indoor wood-burning fireplaces the public can enjoy, not just those in private residences or clubs.
Growing up, we had a fireplace and from a young age, we were taught how to make fires — the perfect mixture of crumpled paper, kindling, logs, oxygen and tending with a poker. The hearth, with its crackle and glow, seemed essential to the cozy fabric of the winter season.
In my home today, we have a gas fireplace. It’s lovely, and easy, but during the holiday season, I yearn for the hiss and the roar, the flicker and the orange heat and the smell of timber. And, of course, a fireside to gather around with friends and strangers. I thought others might, too.
In the land of snow, ice, and cold, it seemed Minnesota would be flush with grand hearths and cozy nooks. What hubris!
In my reporting, I was surprised to find only a smattering. I wanted to include the riverstone fireplace in the grand dining room of Naniboujou Lodge, but alas the North Shore icon’s restaurant is closed until mid-February. Many still mourn the stone fireplace at the Lutsen Resort Lodge, which burned down less than a year ago.
I discovered the fireplaces of many historic Minnesota locales are no longer in use, including: James J. Hill House in St. Paul; the Glensheen Mansion and the Pickwick Restaurant & Pub in Duluth; and, in Minneapolis, the Turnblad Mansion at the American Swedish Institute and the Eddie Manderville Chalet in Theodore Wirth Park (the latter can still be used on special occasions).
The original wood-burning fireplaces at the St. James Hotel in Red Wing, the Grand View Lodge in Nisswa, the unusual Fireplace of the States in Bemidji and the St. Paul Hotel have been replaced with gas inserts.
The Hewing Hotel in northeast Minneapolis, the Mancini’s Char House in St. Paul and the St. Paul Curling Club all have gas inserts, as do many of the ski lodges and chalets around the state.
So I found an architect and an architectural historian (both of whom have wood-burning fireplaces at their homes and cabins) who could explain why these types of hearths are going away.
“There are a lot of reasons why wood-burning is kind of going away, and gas fireplaces are replacing them,” Dale Mulfinger told me while sitting fireside at W.A. Frost. Mulfinger is a Minneapolis architect and self-described pyromaniac who specializes in cabins and fireplaces.
These reasons include more costly insurance, safety and proper ventilation, as well as the ease of flipping a switch. And, “There aren’t as many great masons out there doing full-fledged big fireplaces,” Mulfinger says.
There has been a shift, says Rolf Anderson, the president of the Minnesota Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians. Throughout the eras, from the Victorian age to the New Deal, fireplaces have been a ubiquitous architectural feature.
“The sheer volume of these fireplaces speaks to the fact that they did resonate with people,” Anderson says.
Many restaurants, hotels and venues have opted for something more modern: We’ve all seen the soulless blue strip of flame that seems more akin to a video screen than any raw elements.
Andersen commiserates: “It doesn’t even seem like a fireplace anymore.”
“We’re transitioning to something that somehow appears to diminish that experience; it almost becomes like an artistic element on the wall,” Andersen says. “There seems to be something primal when you’re sitting in front of an actual fire, a wood fire, it somehow resonates deep within us because I and so many others find that experience just mesmerizing.”
Mulfinger says the trend isn’t so much that fires are going away, they’re just moving outside. Firepits have taken the torch, as seen in countless backyards and brewery patios.
“That is becoming much more common,” Mulfinger says. “So we’re not necessarily losing fire, but we're maybe losing it in our living rooms.”
But on these long cold winter nights, I prefer my fires inside. So join me at W.A. Frost, on the Gunflint Trail or the North Shore, or wherever a glowing hearth can be found.
If I missed a noteworthy publicly accessible indoor wood-burning fireplace that is regularly in use, please reach out at acipolle@mpr.org
Correction (Dec. 24, 2025): An earlier version of this story misspelled Rolf Anderson’s name. The story has been updated.
