Mill District

Will Hopkins and Mary K. Baumann

Many people would say Will Hopkins and Mary K. Baumann look “so New York” (after all, it’s where they lived and worked for more than thirty years), but the art directors’ move to Minneapolis last fall was a bit of a homecoming. Baumann, originally from Roseville, met Hopkins in 1972 at the University of Minnesota, where he was a visiting lecturer. After gaining acclaim in magazine and book design (he served as art director at Look magazine and has redesigned such magazines as Forbes, Sports Afield, and Food & Wine; she served as an art director at Life magazine and has redesigned such magazines as People and Money), the two married in 1987 and went on to develop their own company redesigning magazines and producing exquisite books and Kids Discover magazine. When it came time to streamline their high-overhead New York office and home, they decided to bring everything together at a live/work loft—in Minneapolis. “Even if we didn’t have a connection, we think this is one of the most exciting cities around,” Baumann says.

They particularly fell in love with a space at the Whitney, the mill-turned-hotel-turned condo development. “We both knew immediately that it had the right vibe,” Baumann says. “And to have the river, the Guthrie, the farmers’ market, great restaurants, the library, the U of M—it’s close to all the things we want and need.”

The loft’s materials—stonework, bricks, concrete, and post-and-beam structural elements—created what Baumann calls an “archaeological quality.” The intriguing mix indicates how the industrial needs of the space changed with time. “You can tell how people added brick or concrete block to the stone walls over time,” Hopkins says. “It was a working place, and you can see that.”

The couple decided that that spirit was perfect for their live/work needs, so they hired architect Geoffrey Warner of Alchemy Architects to update the space in a surprising way. Key to his design is a “house-within-a-house” structure that contains a small guest suite and defines the kitchen, dining room, office, and library on the outside. “In the mill, they had a crib where they threw things, and it was made of wood slats,” Hopkins says. This version, designed by Warner and built by Kurt Albrecht of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, is made of rough-sawn lumber and put together “like Jenga blocks,” Baumann says. “It has a criblike effect, but it’s more streamlined and it’s painted white.”

Several talented design professionals joined the project—including Scott McGlasson, who designed and built many of the furnishings, and Jim Marvy, who came up with a lighting scheme to keep the cavernous space bright. So when the couple moved in last year just before Thanksgiving, they didn’t just prepare a meal for family and friends. “We called every single person who worked on the job and thanked them for making such a fabulous home for us,” Baumann says. “They all got kind of choked up because they cared so much about the place. They felt they were doing something different. We never would have expected it, but they really touched us too.”