This amazing house sits east of Lanesboro, MN. The house started off as just one room sometime in the mid 1800s.  In 1897 it was disassembled and rebuilt in its present location.  At that point its owners added a three-walled log addition of two rooms separated by an interior log wall.  Notice the butt ends of the interior log wall in the gable end.  When the house was rebuilt the staircase was removed from the large room and placed into the smaller room of the three walled addition.  The room adjacent the staircase served as a bedroom.  Unfortunately the outside log wall and corner notching of the room containing the staircase were removed when the one story shed roof addition was tacked onto that corner.  The intriguing part of this house is its clear delineation in building phases:  It began as a single room building and evolved into the prototypical Norwegian-American three room plan, and finally as a modern house with a large framed addition. 

The logs of the original one room house extend to the gable peaks on both gable ends but there are no purlins or ridgepole.  All the logs are oak. The logs of the addition are (I believe) red elm and are pretty amazing!  The largest one measures about 22″ in diameter.

I have no idea why the logs of the addition extend to only the height of the first floor.  Notice the framing above, including the huge 2” thick slabbed lumber used as sheathing. 

The original entrance to the house sat on the long side of the building facing the big framed addition. The current entrance (metal door w/ glass) was originally a window.  

The chimney is mounted on a stand centered in the middle of the wall separating the main room from the two smaller rooms. There is a cellar under the large room but not the two smaller rooms.