As you are driving North from Owatonna along Steele County Road 45 you will come across the town of Medford. Before you enter the town officially, you'd have driven past a remarkable structure that was as much quirky as it was historical. It was the Daniel S. Piper home, built in a style familiar to those who live in the Northeast of the US. The multi-functional, multi-building arrangement has seen better days, and now I understand the barn has collapsed.

Daniel S. Piper

Piper himself was a lumberman from New Hampshire and had his Medford home built in 1877. I wrote about this home back in 2020, after I saw a post during the pandemic on social media talking about its history. Here's an excerpt from that original post, on the history of the home and the uniqueness behind it.

"Historic Design Consulting LLC posted about the home and said in the post that "Piper reasoned that the New England style farm, where all the outbuildings are connected to the house, would be practical in Minnesota. He even hired a team of Yankee carpenters to build the complex, which includes the house, a summer kitchen, woodshed, granary, and barn."

I'm now seeing that back in late November it was reported that the barn, which was located at the far rear of the connected complex had collapsed, leading many to speculate that the rest of the home will also come done, rather by a demolition company this time versus time itself.

I was fortunate that someone on social media shared a few images from the collapse.

This is what it looked like before it collapsed.

Thanks to Mark Calverley for allowing me to share these.

It's heartbreaking to look at, but for years concerned community members had noted the condition of the home had progressively gotten worse. You can see just how rough the barn was looking in the above photo.

RIP to the Daniel S. Piper home in Medford. Built in 1877, the barn collapsed in 2024.