John and Selma Jager house

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6 Red Cedar Lane — John and Selma Jager house
Architect: John Jager; remodeled by William and Susan Sandberg
Date: 1919; remodeled 1973

Style: Originally, a simple gabled structure with clapboard siding and basement clad in boulders.

As remodeled: English Cottage Fantasy Revival with large-pane windows under the high gable.
The lower garage level, faced with boulders that John Jager probably dug out of Minnehaha Creek, is the only part of the house that remains from the original structure. And this level was expanded to a double garage as part of the 1973 renovation carried out by the Sandbergs. Everything above the garage level that we see today is also the result of the Sandbergs’ renovation. While working on the house, they discovered a trove of John Jager’s drawings hidden inside a wall in the lower level, which was Jager’s office and which he referred to as his “cave.” Tom Eisenstadt, who lived at 1 Red Cedar Lane as a child, says, “The interior of the Jager house was very dark and rooms were rather small. Selma gave us kids homemade cookies, and we stole rhubarb from her garden. The garage was one car wide. The new owners dismantled the wall, widened it to a double, and used the original stones to rebuild the wall.”