E. W. Backus Home

2201 Lake of the Isles Blvd.
Minneapolis, MN 55405

Builder: Kimball Organ Co, 1922
Ranks: 13 ?
Action: Electropneumatic

Notes: The mansion was built in 1911 for Milton B. Kerr, sales manager for the Northwestern Knitting Company (Munsingwear).  In 1922 Edward Wellington Backus (1860-1934)  purchased the home and added a huge music room and the Kimball in basement chambers. Backus was a lumberman and paper milling magnate who made and lost a fortune in the north woods and has a small town in northern Minnesota named after him.

The home sold in 1984 for $511,500 to Virgil T. Fallon, MD, then willed it to the caretaker on his death in 2010.

Eventually the Kimball went to Andrew/Riverside Presbyterian Church and from there to the home of Michael LuBrant in Hastings.

The house still exists and now houses a 3-rank Wicks above the entry foyer on the 2nd floor (chamber photo below). The house recently sold (2022).

--Information from Jay and Dale Engquist