William W. Bishop House

The William W. Bishop House, also known as Mrs. Porterfield’s Boarding House, is located at 513 Summit Avenue in St. Paul, Minnesota. Summit Avenue is known for being the longest avenue of Victorian homes in the country. Grand mansions were built along Summit Avenue from 1859 through the 1920s. This 4.5 mile boulevard has the finest collection of Victorian homes in the United States. At a cost of $10,000, this 2½ story, 5,477 sqft Queen Anne Victorian was built in 1891 by George Wirth and Abraham Haas for William W. Bishop, a local real estate agent. It exemplifies the infinite variety of the style as conveyed through the implementation of a profusion of applied decorative elements. It is one of the only wood-frame houses on Summit Avenue. The roof is a multi-gable/hip combination with a projecting octagonal corner tower, each plane of which boasts its own gable. The south dormer has a flemish-stepped gable. The wrap-around porch is decorated with delicate spindlework, railing and carved spandrels; the eaves of both porch and house are bracketed. Around 1920 the house was known as Mrs. Porterfield’s Boarding House, and was frequented during the summer by 22 year old author F. Scott Fitzgerald. He would walk from his parent’s home to meet friends on the porch. He also edited his first novel “The Romantic Egotist” there, published the following year as “This Side of Paradise”. The house was also home to some of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s literary friends.

Photo Credit: Snap Man