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Jack Rendulich
Net House to Playhouse
Mary and Paul von Goertz saved an aging net house on their property near Lake Superior by retaining much of the outside character while remaking the interior as a place to please their six grandchildren and their friends.
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Jack Rendulich
Net House to Playhouse
Mary von Goertz plays with her grandchildren and their cousins in the newly remodeled playhouse. On her lap is Soren von Goertz whose sister, Brynn, is moving behind the chair. Soren and Brynn’s cousins Erik and Aili Gischia are working on projects at the table.
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Jack Rendulich
Net House to Playhouse
Erik Gischia, a cousin, enjoys the attached slide.
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Jack Rendulich
Net House to Playhouse
Julia Wilden holds granddaughter Brynn, while chatting with her grandchildren Aili and Erik.
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Jack Rendulich
Net House to Playhouse
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Jack Rendulich
Net House to Playhouse
Flower boxes echo the look of the structure’s old exterior walls.
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Jack Rendulich
Net House to Playhouse
Mary von Goertz plants festive flowers in the flower boxes outside the playhouse.
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Kevin Moran
Net House to Playhouse
The net house has been considerably updated from the way Paul and Mary found the structure when they first bought the property, in 1971.
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Jack Rendulich
Net House to Playhouse
Aili and Erik Gischia take advantage of the kid-sized chairs on the new deck.
Inside, the brilliantly colored children’s playhouse would clearly delight any youngster. Outfitted with bunk beds, a fire pole and child-size table, it has already become a prized place for Paul and Mary von Goertz’s six grandchildren.
But step outside the front door, and the exterior exudes history and a tale to tell of northern Minnesota.
The structure started its life as a net house, probably in the 1920s. Its past can be traced to Christian Roske, a fisherman who lived on the shore of Lake Superior in Knife River. Christian used the structure to hang and dry his fish nets. He lived the hard life of a commercial fisherman and raised his family on the land where the von Goertzes now live. Christian’s small white house is long gone, but his net house remains.
When Paul visited the property before purchasing it in 1971, the first thing he noticed was that net house. Nets still hung inside, and it was filled with handmade tools, a fish scale and other fishing artifacts. It seemed untouched, probably since the 1950s, Paul recalls. “It was as if Roske had just closed the door and walked out.”
Being a history lover and collector of maritime artifacts, Paul considered how best to use the net house while respecting its original purpose.
He reincarnated it as a sauna, but that was almost its demise less than a year later. After one evening sauna, Paul and Mary awoke at sunrise to the sound of crackling. The cedar walls inside the net house were on fire. Smoke exuded from under the eaves, and tongues of flames flicked to the outside. “We barely saved the building with garden hoses,” Paul says.
It was a close call that Paul and Mary took as a sign to preserve the net house. “I felt it was an omen that we were meant to do something with it,” says Paul. So he rebuilt his sauna, this time carefully researching and adhering to the traditional, cedar-lined Finnish sauna design.
For 20 years, the sauna served them well. Then in 2000, Paul was diagnosed with a heart condition. His doctor’s orders to avoid extreme heat or cold marked the end of saunas for Paul.
Eleven years later in 2011, the unused net-house-turned-sauna pleaded for attention.
As Paul recalls, Mary asked, in a tone not to be ignored, “What are you going to do with your sauna?”
Mary had an idea. With six grandchildren visiting periodically, creating a playhouse seemed an ideal use for the old building. Paul ran with the idea.
“His dreams were bigger than mine,” Mary laughs. “I thought we’d just spruce it up and let the kids play. He’d lay awake nights, dreaming.”
Paul admits to a penchant for getting into projects and making them up as he goes along. This makeover presented its share of early challenges.
The first roadblock was nostalgia. It was hard to gut the sauna that he’d crafted so carefully.
The second barrier was more palpable. Squirrels had been living in the attic for 12 years, leaving vast quantities of pinecone remnants and squirrel droppings to clean out. He also didn’t like the idea of bees, hornet nests and spiders in the building with his grandchildren. All of them needed to be evicted, with some finesse.
“I’d think, ‘Is this worth it?” says Paul. But he persevered.
Once the interior was cleaned out, he began working outside and built the deck first. With the grandchildren’s safety in mind, he wanted to cover a big rock in front, and so extended the deck. While he was at it, he incorporated a slide. The original net house and the sauna did not have or need windows, but Paul used the deck as a platform and installed two windows in the side overlooking the lake and one in front.
The front door provided its own dilemma. Short, wide and much too heavy for the grandchildren to open, it also left gaps, allowing in little critters. Paul was loath to toss the old door out completely. He took it off and pondered it for weeks. Then it dawned on him: Put it on the side wall for ornamentation. Everything is there, down to the original hinges and bolt for a lock, but it’s just for looks, even though he built stairs leading to it. “It’s very inviting,” Paul says.
The real entryway sports a cheerful bright red door. That was an important detail to Mary, who felt that the old, weathered net house might look haunted to a child. Red trim on the windows, an oar that flies a windsock and colorful children’s chairs transformed haunted into happy. For the final touch, Mary planted brilliant blooms in the flower boxes that adorn the front deck.
Inside, Paul was pleased to reuse much of the cedar from the sauna for wainscoting. He covered the cement slab where the wood-fired sauna heater stood with a small table that doubles as storage. Four full-sized bunk beds serve child or adult overnight guests. At the end of one set of bunks, a bright red fire pole offers quick exit from the upper bunk – an idea Mary is sure Paul came up with at 3 a.m. one night.
The grandchildren got to influence the functions, too. A small TV in the corner along with a VCR and a supply of old Shirley Temple movies was a nod to a current phase, Paul explains. “Our granddaughters are into princesses.” The five granddaughters chose the wall colors – bright pink, yellow and green. But hearing the news of a grandson on the way, Paul insisted the fourth wall be painted blue.
Paul estimates all renovations cost about $1,500. “The real goal,” he emphasizes, “was to do something worthwhile with the net house.”
The playhouse was finished in May 2012, just a few months after conception and well ahead of the June visit of the grandchildren.
“I never dreamed it would be this quick,” says Mary, “but once he gets going. …”
Paul, who loves woodworking, felt it was the perfect project for that year’s snowless winter.
The playhouse was a hit with the grandchildren. “The older ones, who are 4 or 5, like to sleep out there, but still with their parents,” Mary says.
Paul believes the original builder would approve the revised use of the nearly century-old structure.
“Christian Roske had children, and we think that he would feel good about his net house in its new role as a source of fun for children.”
Molly Hoeg has had her own fun with the recent construction of a new home in Duluth.
