When you book a furnished studio at Oaklands on 9th, you’re settling into a building with an actual birthday: the original permit for this downtown Minneapolis brownstone was pulled on June 20, 1889. That makes this week its 137th. It’s a nice excuse to tell the part of the story most guests never hear — the years, not so long ago, when there was a very real chance the building wouldn’t be here at all.
A luxury address, and a long, slow decline
The Oakland, as it was first called, was designed by the prolific Minneapolis architect Harry Wild Jones — the same architect behind Lakewood Cemetery’s chapel and the Washburn Water Tower — for builder William Burnett. It opened in 1889 as one of the city’s very first apartment buildings with a central interior hallway, six luxury units offering steam heat, indoor plumbing, hardwood floors, and a rear elevator. A local newspaper of the day gushed that its “attention to detail, neatness, elegance and convenience has not an equal in the city.”
Downtown changed around it. By 1939 the grand units had been carved up and the building was running as the Delta Hotel; in the decades after, the neighbors became parking lots and high-rises. The Oakland hung on, quietly, into the 21st century — until October 9, 2016, when a fire tore through the third floor and roof.
Three winters with no roof
The fire left the building open to the sky, and that’s how it sat — for three Minnesota winters. Rain, snow, and meltwater poured straight down through a gaping hole in the roof, soaking the basement and everything in between. The grand staircase, the heart of the building, stood exposed to the weather the entire time. It’s hard to overstate how close this came to being the end.
The City of Minneapolis condemned the building two months after the fire, and in early 2017 its longtime owner applied for a demolition permit. For a burned-out shell encircled by surface parking, knocking it down looked like the reasonable choice.
How it was saved from the wrecking ball
Here’s the turn in the story. The city’s planning department denied the demolition permit because of the Oakland’s historic significance, and encouraged the owner to find a buyer who would restore it instead. Minneapolis City Council Member Lisa Goodman — who had championed dozens of preservation projects, including our sister property in Loring Park — helped push the search forward. “Minneapolis has lost too many historic buildings,” she later said. “I couldn’t sit by and watch another of these worthy buildings get demolished.”
In 2019, a preservation-minded owner bought the building and got to work — gutting decades of debris, hauling out mold and old wiring, and saving everything that could be saved. The community pitched in: neighbors donated chandeliers and antique fixtures, a GoFundMe funded the restoration of the original stained glass, and the nearby Grand Hotel donated staircase parts that were used to rebuild the Oaklands’ own stairs. People literally brought food to the crew.
A landmark, and a second century
In October 2019, Minnesota’s State Historic Preservation Office recommended the building for local-landmark status, and the following month the city’s Heritage Preservation Commission made it official. The Oaklands reopened to guests in 2021 as twenty-four furnished studios, and in the summer of 2022 a bronze historic marker — funded through the Minnesota Historical Society — was placed at the front of the building. You can still see it in the garden today.
So the studio you book here isn’t a building dressed up to look old. It’s the real thing — full kitchen, free laundry, all utilities included, month to month with no lease — inside a brownstone that genuinely came back from the brink. If you love this kind of history, you’re in good company downtown: the Oaklands was rescued alongside the Eugene J. Carpenter Mansion at 300 Clifton, a bed and breakfast in Loring Park, and the atmospheric Pillsbury Club in the historic Charles S. Pillsbury Mansion. For an easy, fun overview of the city’s grand old architecture, Minneapolis Trolley Tours is a great way to see it, and Meet Minneapolis keeps a current list of what’s happening downtown.
Come stay inside the story. Check dates and book a furnished studio directly on our booking page, or give us a call at (612) 314-5124. We’re at 215 South 9th Street, right in the heart of downtown Minneapolis — a night, a week, or a month, whatever you need.