Hermitage

Frank Halstead, who achieved the rank of captain in the Navy, moved back to the western bay of Lake Minnetonka near Minnetrista, built a small house and named it his “Hermitage.” Due to his naval experience, the “Hermit of Lake Minnetonka” helped dredge out the Narrows and made the lake more usable to large boats. The sole steamer on the lake, the May Queen, provided poor service on the lake, so Frank mortgaged his house to build his own steamer, the Mary, to give some competition.

Building the boat led him to financial ruin, so he rowed to the middle of the lake, tied a bag of rocks around his neck and threw himself overboard. His brother George, a major in the Navy, moved out to the Hermitage and took over the estate. The Hermitage had become a popular tourist stop, where visitors could spend 25 cents to see Civil War relics and hear battle tales.[1]

The Hermitage is a small, unpretentious frame building with picturesque surroundings, situated near the water’s surroundings, situated near the water’s edge, about a mile above Zumbra Heights. Visitors have been largely responsible for making the place what it is, for inside and outside it is literally a gathering of curiosities. No one thinks of making a call without leaving a card, and the fashionable thing at the Hermitage is to imprint one’s name with a knife in the walls of the dwelling. Within are to be seen relics and antiquities of all descriptions.[2]

In 1901, a fire quickly burned the Hermitage to the ground with George inside.[1]