Any Mary Tyler Moore Show fans out there? I used to watch the reruns on TV after school and always wanted to see more of that fabulous old Victorian that she lived in. Since the 1970s, the house in Minneapolis where the exterior shots were filmed has been renovated and updated, and it’s now on the market for $2.895 million. To refresh your memory, here’s how it looked on TV all those years ago:
It feels like I just wrote my post about Mary’s iconic third-story apartment but it was actually way back in 2009 when I published it (time flies!). It was one of the first TV show sets I researched and wrote about.
Here’s a shot I got of Mary standing outside the house during the first season:
Like the house on the show, the real one had been divided into apartments at one time, but it has since been restored to a single family home.
The woodwork in the entry is gorgeous:
The house was built around 1900 (an earlier listing says 1892) and has 9,500 square feet.
The agent’s description:
“Blending turn of the century vintage charm with a contemporary use of space, this exceptional property offers both generous public rooms and an open main level family room/gourmet kitchen complex which is clearly the heart of the home. Second-level bedrooms retain their Victorian aesthetic (highlighted by ornate millwork, bayed rooms and leaded glass transom accents), while the third level includes a second family room and quaint turreted office/studio.”
The newer kitchen addition is huge.
There are 7 bedrooms and 9 bathrooms.
Mary lived in an apartment on the third floor on the show. They gave her a (bigger) version of the windows that we always saw from the outside:
In real life, it was an unfinished attic, and the windows and ceilings were less grand. It was finished more recently and turned into a guest suite with a bonus room:
For more photos and information, check the listing with the Barry Berg Group/Coldwell Banker Burnet and the article at the Star Tribune.
To see how the sets looked on the show (loved her tiny kitchen!): Mary Richards’ Apartment.
P.S. The house was last sold in 2007. Check out how it looked before:
The Victorian from The Mary Tyler Moore Show
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{ 53 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow, what a step back in time. I used to love that show. Went back to your earlier post and cracked up at the rug and carpet, the phone, typewriter, coffee pot, and of course the clothes! Ah…good times…except now I’ll have that song in my head all day!!
What a grand old Victorian! But the modern furniture in the living room is a bit perplexing.
It’s awful!
I agree! They don’t go with the style of this house.
Really though, most people don’t wish to have 40+ year old furniture.
I think they did a good job of marrying the grandeur of the house with a modern living sensibility.
I can see f they’d destroyed the entire interior and restyled it as an ultra modern home, or kept it as chopped up apartments.
I think what the homeowner has done is by far the best case scenario.
Not just modern furniture in the living room. How about the cheap-and-chintzy looking table and chairs in the new kitchen: the bar stools in the kitchen too?
Actually, while not accurate to the timeline of the house, those items are far from cheap or chintzy.
The Bertoia island stools, if not knock offs, are upwards of $400, each.
The table I’m not sure of, but it looks mid century modern, similar time as the Bertoia stools, and again, if not knock offs, are far from inexpensive.
They do look as if they’re real wood, so probably the real deal.
I mean really, should we also mention the tv’s and (looks to be) gas fireplace?! They’re not authentic to the era either.
I loved the Mary Tyler Moore show, what a fun peek at this house. It’s gorgeous!
It is fabulous! Wouldn’t it be fun to stay in that guest room?!
I thought it was interesting that in the Coldwell Baker official listing there is no mention (that I found) that the house has any connection to the MTM show. Perhaps by real estate standards, that has no relevance? I guess no one would buy it for that reason alone, except MTM herself…or Rhoda, so she could live in a room larger than a pillbox.
Lovely home and glad that it was brought back to single family.
What a beautiful house!
I love how, in the fourth picture up from the bottom, the one with the arched windows, the picture on the TV screen is a Minnesota Vikings game, with a Viking making a great play. A little subliminal advertising there? : )
Gorgeous! I too loved the MTM show. They did a great job restoring it back to a single family home.
I used to live in college town where many old mansions were divided into apartments. Sometimes they were strange shapes, had doors and stairs that didn’t lead anywhere anymore. But there were leaded glasses windows and marble fireplaces. Really fascinating.
I”m new to your blog, and I love it. What a fantastic blog.
I love it! I love the kitchen! Thank you so much for posting Julia! Happy New Year everyone. M
so glad you did this thank you juila
Really enjoyed seeing this, almost made me want to move back to Minneapolis! Love your postings, always fun to read/look/see.
Wow, it is huge – and gorgeous. Wouldn’t it make a great B&B?
What a fun post! I just love that staircase. The kitchen is beautiful too.
It was a “must watch” for me – brings back memories, and what a beautiful place – thanks for sharing it!
Wow! I’m so glad all that beautiful woodwork has survived the century. What a labor of love to restore it all! (I’m secretly wishing the new owner will bring in some salvaged mantles, replace the granite surrounds, and fill-in the 80′s-style niches next to all the fireplaces)! Beautiful!
I still watch reruns of the MTM show and I always dreamed of having a ‘single girl in the city’ apartment just like hers.
This house is fabulous! I’d move in tomorrow!
Pardon me while I clean the drool from my keyboard! Lovely!
I always love this part of Minneapolis which is called Kenwood. It has beautiful homes and not far from Lake Calhoun and Uptown.
Being a native Minneapolis, Minnesotan born and raised, I am loving these homes you are showing lately.
My husband and I love this show! It was from my parents era, so they introduced us to it.
It first came out when they were 12 years old, I believe.
Love Mary’s house apartment!
I love how the interior still has a lot of the old century details, and there’s no wallpaper or much updating to do. I will say though, that I agree with Erin about the mantels and niches. Other than that, this is a Victorian home that I can actually see myself living in.
This is absolutely gorgeous! Makes me want to do two things: 1) Drive by on my way home from work tonight and try to get a peek in the windows, and 2) Refinish the floors in my own 100-year-old house to look more like these GORGEOUS framed floors in the entryway/dining room/etc. I’m in LOVE with them, the contrast is fabulous!
Love love loooove that show! Absolutely love that house too, though I’m not the biggest fan of the wood in the staircase. I actually just bought The Mary Tyler Moore Show dvds a few days ago and am so excited to watch them all again.
I love this house, with two big reservations: (1) enclosing the porch — UGH! that kills me. How fabulous would the original open porch be? and (2) the entryway into the kitchen is too wide, completely out of scale with the house.
Oh, and I hate most of the light fixtures. But otherwise, I’ll take it! A gorgeous house.
I so love the amazing staircase in the home. A fabulous place. I loved the blog posts from both the old and the new. What a memory. Thanks for sharing.
Interesting that Mary would be shown with a Golden Retriever in the front. I believe that she has always been involved with that breed. How cool!!
I also loved the hardwood floor with the different inlays. Who could also resist that piano too?
Thank you for sharing!
Peggy
i have the darnedest time finding images of rhoda’s little apartment.
The real house is beautiful but looking at the set from the show again is just so fun. I was a young teenager when MTM was on and I pretty much wanted to be Mary when I grew up. lol. I’d watch saturday night with my potato chips and Pepsi imagining having a dream job and her adorable apartment some day. I have my initial up on the wall as a nod to Mary! Thanks for showing it again.
I loved her clothes:)
Thank you for sharing! This was awesome
Holy cow I adore that house…and MN! My other home:)
Has anyone informed Oprah? LOL
I’ll let her know next time I talk to her. Ha. She might want it!
Looks beautiful, a bit fairy-tale like with the tower. Not sure if I’d pay that much for it though..
I agree with Jane Susan that this home would be a fabulous B&B. Just think of the animated conversations the guests would share in that gorgeous kitchen remembering back to the hilarious episodes of the show. What fun that would be.
Wow – that house must have been amazing when it was built. Love the staircase and the original woodwork, but it looks like almost everything else was gutted. What a shame. I dislike all the modern stuff – weird fireplaces, recessed lighting, enclosed porch. I loved the MTM show too. One of the best sitcoms ever made.
What a lovely and well done renovation!! I especially love the back patio…may have to copy their layout for our own naked backyard this spring!! The kitchen is a show stopper!!
Really do love this blog. One of the only ones I follow regularly. Julia, are curtains out?>/b> This house has practically none!
All that beautiful wood. I love it.
Julia, I so loved that show growing up! I wanted to be just like Mary.
“Who can turn the world on with her smile?”
I used to twirl around and throw my tam up into the air. Loved Mary Tyler Moore! And her apartment always seemed so grown up to me.
I had no idea that Victorian was so large. The price took me aback until I saw the square footage!
Thanks for the trip down Memory Lane! (By the way, what did you think of Rhoda’s apartment? The one in the Bronx, I mean, not her tiny place in the big Minneapolis house.)
I used to watch “Rhoda,” too, but I can’t remember much about her apartment. I’ll have to watch it again sometime and revisit it!
Thanks for featuring this house! I loved the Mary Tyler Moore show and I’ve gotten the first few seasons from Netflix recently.
As for Rhoda, I always thought her apartment was upstairs from Marey’s. I guess not, if Mary was on the third floor. Rhoda’s apartment is much smaller, a studio, I think. She had this groovy bead-curtain, multicolored seventies look in her apartment. Maybe she had the little turret room?
Yeah, I think she was supposed to be up in the attic above Mary’s apartment, if I remember correctly. That doesn’t really make sense, does it? I guess the sitcom writers didn’t expect us to be sitting around, analyzing the actual layout of the real house all these years later…ha.
Thanks for this interesting feature. The home is absolutely gorgeous! I adored this show as a kid; in particular the episode where Mary gets stuck in the bathtub, while the bubbles around her disintegrate and everyone she knows enters the bathroom!
Neat to see the original house. Always loved watching MTM when it first came out (and we own the DVDs)…and, of course my favorite part was seeing Mary’s quaint & cool apartment and the snow outside the window. I love the beautiful staircase & other original features…not too keen on the contemporary sleek look that just doesn’t fit, but at least somebody saved this beauty of a house.
Found this after noticing the house for sale on a morning walk. So fun to see inside, and I loved the pic of beautiful young Mary out front with a dog. Thanks!
Thanks for sharing here i got a beautiful images of buildings and there interior work designs
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