Joyce Estate, Butler's Cabin, Chippewa National Forest Road 2144, 3 miles north of County Road 335, Grand Rapids, Itasca County, MN

Significance: It presumably took a significant number of servants to maintain the "casual" lifestyle at the Joyce Estate. Given its name, the Butler's Cabin apparently housed one or more of the male staff. ... it was built shortly after the Main Cabin and the first three sleeping cabins were completed in 1917. If Waleski is correct, the Butler's Cabin was the only one of the estate's original seven sleeping cabins constructed with a wood frame instead of a saddle-notched log frame. Although it is tempting to explain the Butler Cabin's less picturesque appearance on the ground that it was a staff residence, the Maid's Cabin immediately to the north is a saddle-notched log structure with the same dimensions and plan as the Butler's Cabin. It is possible that the present Butler's Cabin is a replacement for an original log-frame building. The Butler's Cabin is mentioned by name in a probate inventory for the estate's founder David Gage Joyce, compiled in 1938. ... A hipped-roof porch extends across the front (east) of this single-story, gable-front building. A shed-roofed section to the rear, probably a later addition, covers the back wall and projects to the south, beyond the south wall of the front (east) section. Unlike most of the other residential buildings erected at the Main Cabin Compound during this period, the Butler's Cabin was framed of wood, rather than logs, and shingled.
Survey number: HABS MN-146-O