A Minneapolis house with an elevator, sport court and view of Minikahda Golf Course is listed at $5.25 million. (Spacecrafting)
The home’s architect was the late Charlie Ainsworth, who worked with his wife, Penny Ainsworth, as project coordinator. She added details to her husband’s larger vision, such as making sure the stone exterior looked natural and not “matchy-matchy,” she said.
The Ainsworths incorporated design ideas they’d picked up when traveling, such as arched doorways and windows the shape of the kitchen cabinets also echo. The leaded- and stained-glass doors of the formal dining room’s cabinets are “inspired by a hotel in Florence,” she said.
“We’d traveled a lot, seen a lot, done a lot,” said Penny Ainsworth, who has worked on houses only occasionally since her husband died in 2022.
The house has an elevator, a fairly common feature in high-end homes these days, according to Laura Hartmann. She and sister Nancy Hedlund own Access Lifts in Burnsville, which installed the elevators in Johannson’s home 17 years ago.
A Minneapolis house with an elevator, sport court and view of Minikahda Golf Course is listed at $5.25 million. (Spacecrafting)
“I feel like if you’re building a home that is over a million dollars, you’re automatically going to have an elevator planned in it,” Hartmann said, adding that includes homes around Minnesota. “... Seems like everyone that’s building a new house on a lake is putting in an elevator.”
Zoning laws at the time of construction restricted second structures on residential lots, but the property had a grandfathered-in old carriage house. Johannson also demolished that and built a new structure. The upper level is for lodging, and in the basement, there’s a golf simulator. A finished, heated garage — in addition to the main house’s four-car attached garage — completed what Johannson called the family’s “party headquarters.”