George & Georgia Sabin House
1022 N. Third St.
"He was a Son of Hermann"
After this lot on the edge of a ravine had passed through several owners, George F. and Georgia Sabin, purchased Lot 1 of Block 11. In 1885, they had their $1,200 Gothic style home built at 1022 N. Third Street. Born in New Hampshire in 1844, he was an attorney in St. Paul dealing in insurance and real estate. The couple, with their two children, John, age 11, and Frederick, age 10, along with their 16-year-old servant, Emma Eckdahl, had recently moved from Marine Mills to Stillwater.
The following year, Sabin had William May, a veteran Stillwater contractor, build him a large $600 barn, one-and-a-half stories high, 32 feet by 24 feet by 12 feet deep. The barn was 50 feet high at its peak.
Three years after constructing his house, Sabin hired Stillwater builder, Thomas Sutherland, to add a $500 front wrap around porch to the residence.
In the early 1890s, George and his family moved to St. Paul. The 1900 Census lists him renting a house at 977 Selby Avenue with a new servant, 24-year-old Frances Hanson, and three boarders. Their younger son, Frederick Sabin, is listed as an insurance agent.
The new owners of 1022 North Third Street were the Frederick Neumeier family. Frederick was born in Germany in February of 1857, and came to Minnesota in 1882. His wife, Ann Catherine Glade, was born in Minnesota in 1864 to German parents, and married Frederick in 1884. They raised three children in this house: Mabel, born in 1887; Karl G., born in 1889; and Frederick, Jr. born in 1895.
Neumeier was a newspaper publisher. The 1905 Stillwater City Directory lists him as publishing the St. Croix Post, the Washington County Journal, and the German language newspaper, Der Hermann’s Sohn, the official organ of the Sons of Hermann of the state of Minnesota. Frederick was at one time the grand Minnesota president of the Sons of Hermann, a German fraternal organization that continues today in some parts of the country.
The 1910 Census, collected by Karl, Frederick’s son, lists Mabel, the daughter, age 23, as a stenographer in the newspaper office.
According to the obituary written at the time of Frederick’s death in May of 1927, he was characterized as jovial, always with a smile, and having a personality that easily won him friends.
His widow, Ann, and his son, Frederick G, manager of the Neumeier Printing Company continued to live in the house until Ann’s death on September 24, 1946.
In 1940, before her death, Mrs. Neumier had local carpenter, Jens Jensen, make some changes to the house. According to the building permit: "This improvement consists of removal of old barn on lot, removal of old porches on house, building new garage 12x20 attached to norwest cor. of house; new front porch and residing whole house and garage with cedar shingles and painted white; reshingling whole house with composite shingles. No interior changes. $1700." This garage, added well before historic preservation became a concern, is a distraction from the graceful lines of the house.
Their son, Karl G. Neumier (1889-1992), who grew up in the house, became an attorney and a Republican state senator in the Minnesota Legislature from 1935-1950.
The house is best viewed from the east side where the house faces Third Street. It was the original intention of the city to fill in the ravine and run Third Street continuously all the way from downtown north to Willow Street. However, in 1886--a year after this house was built--the homeowners along the route submitted a petition protesting the cost of the assessment and the lack of benefit, and the project was abandoned. So today, while Third Street in front of the house remains a city street, it has never been improved.
The house itself is generally of the Gothic style with its steeply pitched gables, including that of the dormer on the north side. This Gothic impression, where the eaves soar heavenward, is somewhat offset by the rounded window hoods and the two round windows on the east side. Perhaps the most stylistic feature is the two chimneys framed by the two peaks on the east side.
— Research by Donald Empson, Empson Archives for the City of Stillwater's Heirlooms Home and Landmark Sites Program