Lake Minnetonka mansion, Minnesota's most expensive, lists at $55M

Minnesota's most-expensive home listing just hit the public market with a marketing campaign of equal grandeur.

Pajama-clad tween girls leap from a dozen bunk beds, bound past a grand piano and down a staircase in pursuit of colorful pastries, which they share on a sunny lakeside terrace.

A string of exotic sports cars zip along the driveway, passing a pair of guest house and over a bridge. Well-dressed revelers sip cocktails on yachts, luxuriate in a Himalayan salt cave and bowl on two private lanes.

These are all scenes from a film at the larger-than-life Lake Minnetonka mansion. Except no one has ever actually lived in the home. The scripted film with actors is just one stop the Realtors selling the property are pulling out in pursuit of closing the most-expensive sale in Minnesota history.

Another: knocking the price down $13 million to a still-staggering $55 million.

"We're showing how [the new owners] would use it with their family and friends," listing agent John C. Adams said of the nearly seven-minute video that includes drone shots of the lakefront, close-ups of an elaborate chandelier and an end-credit reel that accounts for nearly half the run time. "It gives you goose bumps when you watch it."

John C. Adams is the younger half of the father-son business partnership behind the home's marketing. He and the elder John F. Adams are affiliated with national brokerage Compass, which is quickly gaining market share in the Twin Cities.

They started quietly shopping the 8-acre, 28,000-square-foot property in August for $68 million. That still gained national attention but translated to a couple dozen showings without a sale.

Though the house has been available for several months, the Adamses are confident the 19% discount, public listing and promo that took four months to create will make all the difference. The Twin Cities being one of the frothiest luxury markets in the country should ease the way, too.

"I'd be surprised if it's not sold this summer," John F. Adams said.

Timing the market

The decision to privately market the house at first was strategic. It was late summer, when lake home sales typically slow before significantly dropping off in fall and winter.

Plus, construction of the house finished on the cusp of the presidential election, a time when buyers are historically timid.

"We didn't want to launch it on the MLS until the timing was right," John F. Adams said of the Regional Multiple Listing Service, the centralized database for real estate agents to share data about houses for sale.

The wait also helped the mega mansion hit the market at a particularly prime time for big-budget abodes.

While this spring has been especially stressful for most Twin Cities homebuyers, there's one segment of the housing market that's not feeling the pressure. Sales of $1 million-plus houses were up more than 20% last month, making it the hottest current price range in the area, according to April data from the St. Paul Area Association of Realtors.

The Twin Cities is one of only a handful of metros across the country where such high-end sales are on the rise, per a Redfin report. Nationwide, luxury homes sold for near-record prices in April, increasing 6.5% from the previous year. But pending sales dropped 10% to the lowest level in more than a decade amid widespread economic uncertainty.

Despite that, agents said there's no shortage of well-heeled buyers willing to spend seven figures or more, which suggests upper-bracket shoppers are far more immune to the jitters plaguing others.

Jeffrey Dewing, a Wayzata-based Coldwell Banker agent who was the state's top-ranking individual agent by sales volume last year, said those figures align with the reality of today's market.

"I believe the ongoing limited supply and large buyer pool will continue to play a significant role in this," he said.

As of April, there were 6% fewer $1 million-plus listings in the Twin Cities compared with the same time last year, the only price range that saw an annual decline.

Though $1 million-plus properties often take years to find a buyer, most eventually do. That segment of the market was also the one where sellers had to offer the biggest discounts, on average receiving only 96.2% of their original list price compared with 99.5% for houses priced from $250,000 to $350,000.

During March, the five-county metro had about 540 $1 million-plus houses for sale, including the area's most-expensive current Regional Multiple Listing Service posting for an $18.5 million Edina house on more than 15 acres, according to Sotheby's agent Julie Regan. In the past 12 months, there were nearly 1,300 seven-figure sales in the metro.

Multi-use mansion

Businessman and Canterbury Park Hall of Fame horse owner Robert Lothenbach commissioned the house as his primary residence, a place to entertain family and friends.

But he never lived out that dream, dying unexpectedly in November 2023 as crews were putting the finishing touches on the house. In all, 92 companies and more than 1,000 workers each month helped bring Lothenbach's vision to life, according to builder John Kraemer of John Kraemer & Sons.

The mansion's new $55 million price tag is about half of what it would cost to build today, the agents say. The would-be buyer will also enjoy an entirely new home without enduring the yearslong design-and-build process.

"No one has objected to the value," John F. Adams said, noting construction costs and land prices have soared in the seven years since planning on the home initially began.

The agents are targeting uber-wealthy families looking to lure children and grandchildren to Minnesota for multi-gen gatherings with the home's resort-style amenities, privacy and security.

A philanthropist in need of a picturesque backdrop for fundraising events or a sports team owner looking to wine and dine free agents are other potential prospective buyers.

"There are so many uses for a properly like this," John C. Adams said. "There's never been a comparable listing or sale anywhere in the state."

In addition to the hostel-size bunk room seen in the video's sleepover scene, the property has seven private bedroom suites and a pair of matching 2,000-square-foot guesthouses.

Along 655 feet of west-facing shoreline, there's a main dock with its own boathouse as well as a boat dock for guests. The swimming pool has its own pool house, and there's a lakeside "porch" that's bigger than many starter houses.

Several walls of windows open completely onto a sprawling lake-facing terrace: $4 million worth of Italian bulletproof doors and windows. Indoor parking can fit 16 cars.

"This is a crown jewel," John C. Adams said, "it just doesn't get any better."

No comparisons

The Lake Point Estate, as it's known, has already attracted a couple dozen high-net-worth buyers, including one overseas shopper and another with ties to Silicon Valley.

Because there's so much ground to cover and features to explore, showings take at least two hours — wine and cheese sometimes included.

One of those parties even made an undisclosed offer, but the seller declined.

Minnesota's current sales record is $17 million, though there could have been more expensive deals that happened privately. Other properties could also be worth that and more but just haven't traded hands.

And along the shores of Lake Minnetonka, there's many homes that value at more than $25 million and a handful that push past $50 million.

The Adamses know this house carries an unprecedented price tag. But they feel the property is incomparable to match and will capture the heart, and brokerage account, of a savvy buyer sometime soon.

"It's right there, fully furnished, and you're making memories this summer," John C. Adams said. "And that's an incredible value proposition for someone seeking to own something that lives like a private country club."