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“Sunshine Cliff”

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There are several nuances in the design of this unidentified cottage located somewhere in the Midwest that suggest a date circa 1910: a broad hipped roof, simple rectangular plan, clustered windows on the second floor and the horizontal banding of materials. I especially like the main entry carved into the solid mass of brick masonry and that tiny bay on the right hand wall that just might correspond to a stair landing. The house itself is very pleasant but the message on the back of the postcard makes the whole thing mysterious. I hope we find some way to use it.

sunshine

sunshine 2

Sounds like some sort of resort, doesn’t it? “Sunshine Cliff” yields very little on google, though, so I’m not sure what to make of it.

PS: Roberta Herschleb has commented below and linked This wondrous property with her great aunt, Mary Gardner Mackintosh, who sounds very much like the sort of person I imagine in Agincourt. Would it be presumptuous to “borrow” her?


4 Comments

  1. Mark Roelofs says:

    Could that actually be “Sunsine, Calif(ornia)”? But I’m also having difficulty deciphering anything after “…two upper sleeping porches…” so perhaps I’m just out of the habit of reading traditional cursive writing…

  2. Roberta Herschleb says:

    This was the home my great aunt Mary Garner Macintosh built in Minneapolis Minnesota. Her obituary says she nursed sick people there, and that “many and many a girl was given a fresh grip on herself and a new zest in life by the patient care and love that she found awaiting her at Aunt Mary’s Sunshine Cliff”. The name “Sunshine Cliff” may have been inspired by some connection to the International Sunshine Society.

    She was a suffragist, elected as a delegate for the convention in Atlantic City, and would have been an interesting citizen of Agincourt.

    • I looked for the house and was disappointed to find it either gone or modified beyond recognition. Have I missed it?

      • Roberta Herschleb says:

        It was torn down for a new owner’s bigger structure. Some original interior views of the Sunshine Cliff hand-made home are in a digitized Google book titled “Minnesotan: An Illustrated Monthly Magazine about Northwest People …, Volume 2”. Floor plans and building costs are there also.

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