BUILDINGS THROUGH THE DECADES, Part 1

The original Solheim, the Chambers house, demolished in 1979 to make way for the Manor Building, is not the only structure that has come and gone. The Annex, built in 1940, was the first major expansion, adding eight resident rooms just to the east of the Chambers house. To the east of the Annex, also on Merton Avenue, was the main entrance to Solheim with the administration area, built in 1954. And to the east of this building was the Superintendent’s cottage, built in 1950 on land purchased in 1942. These three buildings would all exist until 1989.

The primary residential expansion was on the interior of the property, in 1954 and 1957. It consisted of four wings around a central courtyard and was attached to the administration section by a corridor with the residential dining room and kitchen on one side and a lounge on the other. The four wings are now in the Halvorson Memory Care Unit. The dining room and kitchen remain, and the lounge is now the Chapel.

Sources:

“Solheim Lutheran Home, Its Life and Times, 1923-1996” by Elizabeth Batchelder and Joyce Dohlin, 1996