Bushaway Road Real Estate, Wayzata

Bushaway Road offers some of the qualities buyers come to Lake Minnetonka to find: substantial homes, wooded grounds, lake views and room for privacy, close to downtown Wayzata. Along Carpenter's Point, the road passes between Wayzata Bay and Grays Bay, through land that once held summer estates and working country properties.

The homes have changed over the years, but the appeal of the location is easy to understand. Here, you can have a house overlooking the lake, a garden sheltered by mature trees, and dinner in town a short distance away.

Homes Along Bushaway Road

Real estate along Bushaway Road includes historic lake homes, newer custom residences and wooded properties set back from the water. Some retain the acreage and outbuildings of an earlier estate. Others occupy smaller portions of land that once belonged to a single family.

That history matters when looking at a property here. The shoreline, elevation, approach to the house and relationship to neighboring homes can be quite different from one address to the next. A broad view across Wayzata Bay offers one experience; a sheltered setting near Grays Bay offers another. Interior properties have their own appeal, particularly for buyers who want space and proximity to the lake.

I look at those differences closely with buyers. The address is a starting point. Understanding the land and how you would live on it is where the more useful conversation begins.

Summer Houses and Country Estates

During the early twentieth century, Bushaway became a summer address for families whose businesses helped shape Minneapolis. The Piper, Brooks and Sweatt families established homes and estates here, bringing architects, gardens, horses and a lively summer community to this part of the lake.

Three Piper brothers had summer homes along the road. At 555 Bushaway Road, George F. Piper Jr. commissioned Andrew Schuehle to design the house later known as Meadow Knoll. Built in 1926, its long arrangement of rooms allowed lake breezes to pass through the house without a conventional network of hallways. Screened porches and terraces made summer life outdoors an easy extension of the rooms within.

At 601 Bushaway Road, Harry Wild Jones designed a Tudor Revival summer home for Paul and Hazel Brooks. Its sweeping cedar-shingle roof and substantial stone chimneys give it an unmistakable character. The original estate extended across the road toward Grays Bay, with separate buildings serving the household.

These houses help explain Bushaway's architectural variety. Each was shaped by the land, the family and a particular idea of life at the lake.

The Decker and Hill Houses

Farther north, 250 Bushaway Road holds another chapter in the lake's architectural history.

In 1912, banker Edward W. Decker commissioned William Gray Purcell and George Grant Elmslie to design a Prairie School summer residence overlooking the lake. Large windows, decorative glass and carefully worked wood gave the house a close relationship to its wooded setting.

Allan Janney Hill later replaced the main residence with a French-inspired house designed by Guy Crawford, incorporating the earlier carriage house and connecting breezeway. Historic French interiors brought another layer of craftsmanship to the property.

The two commissions reflect the changing tastes of the families who made their homes here, and the enduring attraction of the site itself.

Carpenter's Point and Locust Hills

South of McGinty Road, much of the neighborhood was once part of Herbert M. Carpenter's holdings. Carpenter's Point was subdivided in 1916, creating nine lots fronting Wayzata Bay.

East of the road, the property that became Locust Hills Farm developed into an extensive country estate under Charles Baxter Sweatt and his family. Horses, gardens, summer shows and the annual St. Martin's-by-the-Lake country fair made it a familiar part of neighborhood life. White swans on the lagoon were a memorable sight for people passing along the road.

Today's Locust Hills neighborhood occupies part of that former estate.

An Old Road Into Wayzata

The road's documented history reaches back to the Dayton-to-Shakopee Road survey of 1858, the year Minnesota became a state. The area was already part of the Dakota homeland long before that survey.

The name Bushaway is generally traced to John Bourgeois, an early settler whose French surname acquired a local English pronunciation. The neighborhood became part of Wayzata through annexation in 1956.

For buyers considering a home here today, that history adds context to a very practical attraction: an established residential setting beside Lake Minnetonka, close to the shops, restaurants and waterfront of downtown Wayzata.

If you are considering buying or selling along Bushaway Road, I would welcome the opportunity to walk the property with you and talk about what makes it distinctive.