Plummer House

Plummer House is a Tudor Revival mansion in Rochester built with five stories and 49 rooms spread across an expansive estate. The home features period gardens and architectural details typical of early 20th-century high-style residential design.

Dr. Henry Plummer, a physician at Mayo Clinic, had this home built between 1917 and 1924 with architects Ellerby and Round. The construction period reflects a time when Rochester was growing rapidly and prominent doctors invested their wealth in grand residences.

The residence shows how successful doctors lived in the early 1900s, with a ballroom on the third floor and a pipe organ that displayed the owner's social standing and love of music. Walking through the rooms, you can sense how the family entertained guests and the central role music played in their daily life.

Access to the home is limited to certain times of year, so planning ahead is important for a visit. Walking around the grounds helps you appreciate the full scale of the property and its landscape features.

An underground tunnel stretches from the main house to the caretaker's cottage, showing the technical sophistication of the estate design. The house also had one of the early central vacuum systems, offering modern convenience when such amenities were still quite rare.