In the Land of 10,000 Lakes (stingy in its estimate; there are, by some counts, more than 15,000), water is never too far. And that makes this often-frigid state quite attractive. You’re also never very far from some fine buildings that add to the landscape and that are the result of the outstanding work from some of the world’s leading architects—Cass Gilbert, Frank Lloyd Wright, Eero Saarinen, and Emmanuel Louis Masqueray among them. These are my favorites.

#1 Cathedral of St. Paul (St. Paul)

With lots of green space all around it on its hilltop setting, the Cathedral of St. Paul is a visual magnet just a stone’s throw out of downtown St. Paul. It’s a delight to walk completely around the outside of this cathedral, inspired by French churches and cathedrals, to admire the granite walls, twin 150’ bell towers, 120’-wide copper-clad dome with 24 windows, rose windows, statues and sculptures, multiple bulbous chapels protruding from the apse, and a monumental arch over the three front entrances. At more than 300’ in both height and length and over 210’ in width, it has a seating capacity of 3,000, making it the third-largest Catholic cathedral and sixth-largest church in the United States. Inside, the open design affords visitors unobstructed views of the altar and the pulpit. Three rose windows flood the interior with plenty of light. The 26’-diameter Resurrection Window depicts the Lamb of God, the Twelve Apostles, and a motif of vines and branches; the second commemorates North American Jesuit martyrs; and the third displays eight saints of the Americas who exemplify the Beatitudes. Other stained-glass windows in the transepts, entryways, and four side chapels add additional light.

I stood under the dome and looked up at the fine details in yellowish paint and gold leaf and the eight-pointed chandelier. At the top of each of the four massive piers supporting the dome is a 25’-high mosaic of an angel representing one of the four cardinal virtues, and at each pier’s base stands an eight-ton, 12’ statue of one of the Four Evangelists. It’s also the perfect spot to absorb all the parts of the sanctuary—the marble altar surrounded by a huge baldachin with six 24’-tall, eight-ton columns of black and gold marble and a bronze latticework canopy; massive bronze grills with depictions of the life and ministry of St. Paul on each; and the symbolism of the elements on the half dome above the altar: seven stained-glass windows representing the Seven Sacraments, and seven paintings representing the Holy Spirit’s Seven Gifts. Wrapping around the sanctuary, the Shrine of Nations honors the national patron saints of the people who settled the city and the state, including St. Anthony for the Italians, St. Patrick for the Irish, St. Boniface for the Germans, and saints Cyril and Methodius for the Slavic peoples. Each shrine holds a statue of the saint, an altar, stained-glass windows depicting other saints from the same country, and marble originating from that country. The cornerstone of this masterpiece was laid in 1907 during a grand celebration attended by a whopping 60,000 people from across Minnesota, and the structure wasn’t officially complete until 1941, when the final two rose windows were installed. Thirty-three years later, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. In 2013, the organ was restored and received a new organ case, a beautiful hand-carved walnut piece that preserves the view of the rose window above the entrance, with human-sized carved angels and a statue of St. Cecilia, patron saint of music. After a long visit here, it’s easy to understand why this Beaux Arts beauty earned its moniker, “The Great Temple on the Prairie.”

#2 Minnesota State Capitol (St. Paul)

The incomparable and prolific architect (and one of my favorites) Cass Gilbert produced three U.S. capitols during his career. The Minnesota State Capitol was his first (those for Arkansas and West Virginia would follow later on). Opened in 1905 after nine years of construction and at a cost of $4.5 million, the granite and white-marble capitol, and especially its impressive dome, is visible from many parts of the city. After a fire destroyed the first capitol and the second one was razed, Gilbert created this Beaux Arts / American Renaissance masterpiece, beating out more than 40 other submissions. Its numbers are impressive: 430’ in length, 220’ high, and more than 300,000 square feet of floor space, and its beauty and architectural and historical significance earned it a spot on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. The marble and granite exterior (look for the Viking ship, in a nod to the state’s large Scandinavian population) is enlivened by carvings, arched windows, plaques, and classical wreaths. Six heroic-sized statues representing a half dozen virtues—Bounty, Courage, Integrity, Prudence, Truth, and Wisdom—greet visitors above the main entrance. Above them, Progress of the State, a copper and steel quadriga covered in glittering gold leaf, depicts Christopher Columbus standing in a four-horse chariot guided by two maidens carrying staffs of victory. It rests at the bottom of the drum of the spectacular dome, ringed by Corinthian columns and a dozen eagles. The dome itself is the second-largest self-supported marble dome in the world, behind only the one that inspired Gilbert—the Basilica of St. Peter in Vatican City. It’s topped by a columned stone lantern capped by a finial globe covered in gold leaf.

The magnificence continues inside, with Guastavino tile ceilings, grand limestone staircases, three dozen variegated marble Corinthian columns, and 150 pieces of artwork, including murals, sculptures, and Civil War paintings. The gorgeous rotunda features deep bronze and purplish-gray columns, niches with statues of Minnesota’s political and civic leaders, a chandelier with a six-foot circumference, and a translucent glass eight-pointed star symbolizing the state’s motto, The Star of the North. The state’s nickname, Gopher State, also gets recognition with life-size cast iron gophers on the balustrade, and the state flower, the lady slipper, shows up in the column capitals. If you’re here during the legislative season, head downstairs and enjoy a light lunch in the German-themed Rathskeller Café, a cheerful beer hall and dining space with vaulted ceilings painting with grape vines, flowers, mythical birds, and German mottos—all newly restored after anti-German sentiment during World War I, Prohibition, and more anti-German sentiment during World War II prompted the entire space to be painted over, remaining hidden for decades behind 22 layers of paint.

#3 W.W. Bishop House (St. Paul)

Arguably one of the most beautiful streets in the United States, Summit Street in St. Paul runs for 4.5 miles and is lined with 373 grand mansions built from 1855 through the 1920s (another 67 didn’t survive), including the largest stretch of Victorian homes in the country. During the city’s rich golden age, 40 millionaires—lumber, mining, and railroad barons among them—were living on or near this street by 1890, and they showed off their wealth with gorgeous homes. My favorite is the W.W. Bishop House, a gingerbread Queen Anne–style home built around 1891 for Bishop, a local real estate agent, at a cost of $10,000. One of just a handful of wood-frame houses on Summit, the Bishop House is a three-story controlled jumble of siding, spindles, moldings, scroll work, brackets, windows of various shapes and sizes, a tall brick chimney, and a gorgeous polygonal tower. A full-façade porch wraps around the bow windows on the first floor. Today, it’s still a single-family residence, but around 1919, it became Mrs. Charles Porterfield’s Boarding House. That little blip in this beauty’s history is noteworthy in and of itself—during the summer of that year, a 22-year-old F. Scott Fitzgerald would walk here from his parents’ home a few doors down to meet his friends on the porch. I would wager that no one in that literary coterie—including Fitzgerald himself—could have predicted that, having returned from New York as a failed and potentially suicidal would-be writer, broke, rejected by his first love’s family for being too poor and by his next love, Zelda Sayre, until he proved to be a financial success, within a year he’d become a sensation with the smashing success of his debut novel, This Side of Paradise.

#4 Basilica of St. Mary (Minneapolis)

I caught my first glimpse of the Basilica of St. Mary while I was crossing the pedestrian bridge over I-94 on my way to Loring Park. It makes a striking first impression, and I immediately added it to my list of things to see that day. Designed by the same architect who created the Cathedral of St. Paul, St. Mary began with a groundbreaking in 1907 and the laying of the cornerstone the following year at a ceremony that attracted 30,000 Catholics, 500 cadets from the College of Saint Thomas, 300 priests and seminarians, and 20 bishops. They had to wait a long time until it was completed, however. Funded in part by private donations and money raised at fairs and bazaars, construction was halted during World War I, when money and attention was diverted toward the war effort. Finally, the church was completed in 1925. The following year, Pope Pius XI established it as a minor basilica—the first basilica established in the United States. In 1954, it received its final touches—eight double bronze doors bearing symbols of the apostles, evangelists, and coats-of-arms of archbishops and popes who were involved with its construction. Today it serves as the co-cathedral of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

This Beaux Arts beauty was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, and it’s easy to see why. With a Rockville granite foundation and white Vermont granite walls, the basilica features a colonnaded portico at the entrance. Above it is a lovely rose window. Two towers, rising 116’ feet, flank the entrance. After copper on the huge dome blew off during a storm in the 1980s, repairs were made in 1991 to stop water leaks and fix related damages. Today, it soars up to 200’ above street level, with a fine lantern with a bronze cross that tops it. Inside, five large arched stained-glass windows illuminate the nave, which has a barrel vault 82’ high. I was impressed by the numerous side shrines, the sculptures of the Twelve Apostles, and the elaborate wrought-iron grille around the sanctuary. Somewhere in the sanctuary there are two white silk covers for ciboria (receptacles for the Eucharist) made by nuns from a parachute that fell in Belgium during World War II. I was wowed by the marble-columned baldacchino topped with a statue of Mary that stands 50’ above the marble high altar (both designed by Boston architects and handcrafted in Italy), where I inadvertently intruded upon the end of a wedding ceremony. I wonder today if the bride and groom are still married; with such a beautiful setting for their nuptials, I would hope they are.

#5 Driscoll-Weyerhaeuser House (St. Paul)

Another Summit Avenue knockout, Driscoll-Weyerhaeuser House derives its name from the original owner, newspaper magnate Frederick Driscoll, who had it built for $25,000 in 1884, and lumber baron Frederick Weyerhaeuser, who purchased it in 1900 when Driscoll moved to Chicago and whose eponymous company is still thriving as a multi-billion-dollar business. The Queen Anne–style red-brick mansion with stone decoration features dormers, an eyebrow window, porches, eaves with pronounced brackets, and a three-story tower capped by a conical hat. It has seen some changes over the years in both its design—the front porch was removed in 1910 and replaced by a stone entrance, and a porte-cochère was added later on—and its uses, including serving as the headquarters for the Indianhead Council of the Boy Scouts of America, a nunnery for French nuns, an ill-fated hotel, part of a college, and a bastardized multifamily home before reverting to a single-family home. I considered, with envy, the good fortune of the owners of the 11,000-square-foot home with six bedrooms, 8.5 bathrooms, home theater, wine cellar, and a spacious entry foyer with a fireplace, marble black-and-white checkerboard floor, stunning grand staircase, and beamed ceilings. Good for them for restoring this regal home that remains one of St. Paul’s finest residences.

Five Runners-Up

• Plummer Building, Mayo Clinic (Rochester, 1928)
• James Hill House (St. Paul, 1891)
• Our Lady of Lourdes Church (Minneapolis, 1857)
• Landmark Center (St. Paul, 1902)
• Chateau Theater (Rochester, 1927)

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