By Andy Rathbun
St. Paul home where F. Scott
Fitzgerald lived for a time during his younger and more vulnerable years is now
up for sale.
The three-story row house at
593 Summit Ave., where Fitzgerald lived with his family for a couple of
stretches beginning in 1914, was listed for sale Tuesday. With 3,441 square
feet, four bedrooms and three baths, the brownstone will get the buyer a piece
of literary history.
While not as closely associated
with Fitzgerald as 599 Summit Ave., another of the eight row houses that make
up what's known as Summit Terrace, the home is where Fitzgerald wrote "The
Spire and the Gargoyle," a short story he called "the beginning of
mature writing," according to "F. Scott Fitzgerald in Minnesota: His
Homes and Haunts" by John J. Koblas.
Fitzgerald first lived in the
home when he returned from his schooling at Princeton University for Christmas
vacation in 1914, according to Koblas. He lived on the third floor and later
returned to the house for a period while battling an illness.
Fitzgerald would go on to
finish his first novel, "This Side of Paradise," while living at 599
Summit.
The current owner of 593 Summit
has lived there for 34 years and is moving to northern Minnesota, said real
estate agent Sarah Kinney.
"He has restored it to its
original beauty," Kinney said. "It really is an unusual row house,
even for St. Paul, and we're lucky that it's still in overall excellent
condition."
Kinney noted that the house,
which was built in 1889 and is listed for $665,000, is a single-family attached
home and not a condominium.
The listing can be found at
bit.ly/1dm3E1v.
Andy Rathbun can be reached at
651-228-2121. Follow him at twitter.com/andyrathbun.