Joyce Estate gets facelift

Release Date: Aug 17, 2017

GRAND RAPIDS, Minn. – A 100-year-old symbol of the great logging era Minnesota is getting a facelift.

Joyce Estate, located in Bovey, Minn., north of Grand Rapids in the Chippewa National Forest, underwent the first of three phases of work to repair the historic site that has fallen into disrepair over time.

The isolated estate was the summer retreat of the Joyce Family.  In its heyday the property had 40 buildings, including its own golf course, private telephone line, and airplane hangar, all situated on 4,500 acres of forestland.

The estate has begun to show signs of its age, suffering from the ravages of Minnesota winters and vandals in recent years.

The work by the Northern Bedrock Historic Preservation Corps crew from Duluth, Minn., began on Aug. 2, and wrapped up Aug. 9. The Americorps funded volunteers, who help to preserve historic sites across the state, spent the week making the site more stable.

“We go around the state of Minnesota repairing and rehabilitating old structures that have fallen into disrepair over the decades,” said Cal Umlauf, the Northern Bedrock Historic Preservation Corps crew leader. “Here we are doing some basic site stabilization. We are taking off the old lead paint. We are taking off the old stain, and giving it a coat of paint and replacing some of the logs and boards just getting it stable.”

In its day, the Joyce Estate was one of the most expansive, extravagant resort estates in northern Minnesota.

Given the Ojibwe name Nopeming, meaning place of rest, it was once the vacation property of logging empire heir David Gage Joyce.

With more than 40 buildings and thousands of acres of land on beautiful Trout Lake, Nopeming was built in 1917 and was modeled after the Great Camps of the Adirondacks to resemble the resort estates of families such as the Vanderbilts and the Rockefellers.

It featured all of the most modern amenities from its own nine-hole golf course, tennis court and airplane hangar to private telephone line and electricity to maids and butlers. Guests to Nopeming included some of the most famous and wealthy Americans of the time.

When Beatrice Joyce Kean, the last remaining Joyce heir  and once rumored to be the third wealthiest woman in the world, passed away in 1972, Nopeming attracted the attention of both the public and private sector.

The Nature Conservatory acquired the property in 1973 for $2 million and ownership was transferred to the U.S. Forest Service in 1974 with the goal to maintain and protect it as a refuge and historical site for the public to enjoy, just as Beatrice would have preferred.

Sean Dunham, Chippewa National Forest Heritage Program Manager, who headed the revitalization project, said the Chippewa National Forest is finding innovative ways to find the funding and labor to restore sites such as Joyce Estate.

“We knew we had a need for maintenance on our historic buildings, such as Joyce Estate,” said Dunham. “The question was getting in people who had the expertise to work on historic restoration projects and partner with them.”

Dunham said he had learned about Northern Bedrock from Lee Johnson, the Heritage Program Manager at the Superior National Forest and connected with them to start the project. Northern Bedrock had successfully worked with the Superior National Forest on Civilian Conservation Corps era historic restoration projects.

“I contacted Northern Bedrock and they came out to look at the Joyce Estate with us in February,” said Dunham.

Dunham said Chippewa National Forest applied for funding from the 21st Century Conservation Service Corps (21CSC) to fund this project. The 21CSC is a private-public partnership that engages more than 25,000 returning veterans and young Americans annually to strengthen America’s infrastructure, boost local economies, and multiply returns on the country’s most valuable assets.

“We knew we weren’t going to be able to do all the things we wanted to get done at Joyce Estate this year, but we set up a program where we start with some of the things like staining and painting and continue on the project over the next year or two” said Dunham. “The goal is to try to get into a cycle where we are working on historic structures on the Forest every year.”