The Baker home is a distinctive, well-preserved design that wasn’t discovered until after the first edition of the Altfillisch tour brochure was printed. According to the current (2023) owners, the building is Decorah-manufactured concrete block covered with the original stucco. The chimney and other exterior features, including the modernist tucked-under front entrance, are also original. The original single-car garage was adapted for a large Winnebago trailer by the original owners. The interior, including the tile-surround fireplace, is largely original. The kitchen was remodeled in 2006-07. According to Midge Kjome at the Decorah Genealogical Association, the lot contained a large gladiolus farm before the house was built.

Carleton (1912-2002) and Genevieve (1915-2020) Baker met at Upper Iowa University, from which they both graduated. The couple were married on July 3, 1938, on the Belknap family farm near Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. Carleton, a Decorah native, returned to Decorah and took over the Winneshiek County Abstract and Title Company in 1944. Genevieve taught high school for two years before their two children were born. She was active in volunteer organizations and for twelve years beginning in the late 1950s was a member of the Upper Iowa University Board of Trustees.

In 1948 Genevieve was asked to revamp the Winneshiek County Credit Bureau, a merchant-owned non-profit organization, which she managed for two years. She then pursued a graduate degree in English from the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, receiving a Master of Arts in 1962. She held a number of teaching positions over the next several years, including Canton High School, Minnesota; Ridgeway High School, Iowa; Decorah Junior High School; Mason City Junior College (now North Iowa Area Community College); and her final two years before retirement in the English Department at Wartburg College, Waverly, Iowa.

The original central section of the 1914 Smith Memorial Hospital Building (NRHP 2023) was designed by Chicago architect Enock Hill Turnock and was local builder A. R. Coffeen’s first major building project. Charles Altfillisch designed the building’s four additions in 1930, 1947, 1955, and 1961. For the building’s complete history see the 2023 National Register of Historic Places nomination.

The replacement 1971 Winneshiek County Medical Center further south at 901 Montgomery St. was designed by the Altfillisch firm after Altfillisch’s retirement.

In his 1998 National Register nomination for the East Side Elementary and Middle Schools, David Anderson clearly delineates the development of this public school complex. The 1897 building, demolished in 2008, was designed by Minneapolis architects. Anderson, who worked with newspaper articles and the partial building plans available to him, credits the Davenport, Iowa, architectural firm Temple and Burrows with designing the 1922 building (the extant Carrie Lee Elementary School), then called the Decorah High School. Anderson says that Altfillisch was “retained as supervising architect by Temple and Burrows for the execution of their plans in 1922.”

Bill Hart in his Feb. 23, 1978 Decorah Journal “Red Book Notes” column on Altfillisch has a somewhat different story about the 1922 “Carrie Lee” building. Hart claims that the original designs by a Waterloo (sic), Iowa, firm were exceeding the approved budget, and that the school board “paid off the firm of Waterloo architects and hired Charles Altfillisch to make adjustments in the plan for the new building so they could build it for under the amount voted by the taxpayers. Charles did this and took charge of the project until completion.”  It is hard to judge the truth of this claim, but Hart notes that his father was one of the school board’s five members during this project and that he himself and his wife became freshmen at the school in January 1923.

There is, however, no dispute about Altfillisch’s complete control over the 1935 additions to the 1922 building. Anderson includes floor plans and a careful discussion of the additions. The 1922 building had two entrances on the south, Vernon-Street side. Altfillisch added a section to the west that provided a third entrance. The brick and stone work of the addition are so perfectly matched that most viewers would not recognize that this section is later, although a slight seam between the two parts is still visible. Anderson notes that the original building had a stone marker “High School 1922” and that in 1935 Altfillisch added a new marker on the west section that says “1935 Decorah.”  (The combination of the two name bands therefore became the rather odd  “1935 Decorah…High School 1922.”

The 1935 addition also included an expansion of the original 1922 auditorium, and the addition of a large gymnasium to the north. (In 2014 the auditorium was refurbished in sympathy with Altfillisch’s original plans by local designer Constance Johnson.) The gymnasium is also built of red brick with Bedford stone detailing, but according to Anderson the styling evokes the somewhat more contemporary “Streamline Moderne” tradition. Anderson claims that “the truss roof support system is designed with an economy of means that gives the whole an unexpected lightweight appearance.” Anderson notes that the large original windows have been replaced with brick infill and that in 1974 an addition was built to the northwest of the original gym.

The 1998 National Register of Historic Places designation included all the school buildings on a single, sizable piece of land. When the East Side School was demolished in 2008, the National Park Service, at the request of the Iowa State Historic Preservation Office, delisted the complete property–thus the remaining 1922/1935 building, now named “Carrie Lee Elementary,” is no longer included on the NRHP.

The West Decorah tour includes a description and photos of Altfillisch’s 1936 West Side School and its major expansion in 1955.

Altfillisch also designed the 1955 John Roberts High School. This colorized photo by Larry Peterson shows the school’s original look, before major remodeling in the early 2000s.

Altfillisch also designed the well-preserved 1962 Midcentury Modern John Cline Elementary School.

Howard Barthell (1869-1948), whose parents brought him to Decorah at the age of six, earned a law degree at the University of Iowa in 1893 and thereafter worked as a lawyer and elected justice of the peace in Decorah. He is said to have given his wife Mathilda (1876-1964) the large house at 107 Riverside Ave. as a wedding present in 1907. That house was moved to 603 Mechanic St. ca. 2018. The 1940 census shows the Barthells living at 109 Riverside, a 1937 house that was designed by Charles Altfillisch. The current (2023) owners of 109 Riverside have the blueprints (Altfillisch file #3701) and a detailed specification book that includes a landscape design by the Sherman Nursery Co. of Charles City, Iowa.

On his project list Altfillisch identifies the home as a “one-story Ranch.” The home’s exterior, including the east-facing bay window, is original. The original wide chimney was removed in 2021. Many original interior features are intact, including the flooring (red oak in the living room, and fir or pine in the kitchen and bath), the woodwork, a built-in china hutch with bench in the dining room, bookshelves under the living room bay window, a kitchen ironing board (used now [2023] as a spice cabinet), and a second-story linen cabinet with clothes chute.

Mathilda Barthell was the major donor for the 1967 Barthell O.E.S. Home (911 Ridgewood Dr.) that bears her name.

NRHP 1976

This building to the rear of the Courthouse Square was built in 1969 as the Winneshiek County Sheriff’s office, which in July 1994 moved to share space at the Decorah Municipal Center with the Decorah Police Department. After 1994 the Courthouse Annex space was rented by various agencies, including the Iowa Department of Human Services. In 2017 the space was refurbished in order to provide greater security for county meetings outside of regular Courthouse hours.

At first glance, the Altfillisch firm design for this utilitarian structure seems prosaic, perhaps even pedestrian. Some County workers have complained about their view of the flat-roofed annex from their offices in the main Courthouse. But the dark-brick foundation and light-brick upper story does echo the coloring of the Courthouse, and the annex comfortably incorporates the 1910 boiler chimney. Most importantly, the building completely defers in its design and effect to the much more important 1904 Courthouse. Winneshiek County retains the original blueprints, which list Charles Altfillisch as architect, but given the late date, it is likely that someone else from the firm did the actual design.

The original Aase Haugen home was built southwest of Decorah in 1915. In 1962 the Altfillisch firm designed the extant building on Ohio St. Since then, Aase Haugen has expanded to include assisted and independent living units near the Ohio St. building, and at Vennehjem off Locust Road northwest of Decorah.

The original owner of this house was Frederic “Fritz” Carlson, a son of the Frederic Hjalmar Carlson (who built the Altfillisch-designed home at 303 Upper Broadway and the duplex at 606 Vernon St.) and a nephew of Roy Carlson (who built the Altfillisch-designed home at 212 High St.).

The original house was considerably smaller than the current house. The primary family entry was off Spring St. to the right (east) side. The original flat roofs were pitched in the 1970s by the original owner’s son, Frederic “Reed” Carlson. In 1963-64, a carport (later enclosed as a garage) was added to the left (west) side of the house, and a great room was added to the front/middle, which in effect made the Mound St. door the family’s primary entrance. Later, another section was added to the right (east) side. The home retains its original broad redwood exterior siding and considerable natural wood on the interior walls and ceilings.

This building, originally identified as 120 Bridge St. and in another place as “on Leiv Erickson Drive,” was designed by Altfillisch for Drs. R. N. Dahlquist and  R. H. Svendsen. As the attached ad from the August 6, 1951 Decorah Public Opinion shows, the original building was an elegant, minimalist Midcentury Modern design. Since then, a number of windows have been blocked and a steep pitched roof has greatly altered the building’s original look.

In the 1949 Decorah Public Opinion Centennial Edition (June 9, 1949), an ad for the Altfillisch firm notes that they have designed the “Buick, Ford, and Chevrolet garages.” The Weis Buick “Garage and Apartment” is included as project #4708 on the Altfillisch Complete Project list. But in an interview with Elizabeth Lorentzen for the “Walk into the Past” signs, Jim Weis made clear that William Lockard was the principal designer. In the Centennial ad, Altfillisch is listed as the firm’s only architect, and Lockard is identified as “chief designer.”

As the “Walk into the Past” sign indicates, the original Weis building exhibited typical International Style features: flat roof, flush-set windows, lack of decoration, and asymmetrical facade. Since that time, the building has been given a pitched roof, and some of the rich horizontal thrust of the original building has been obscured or has disappeared.

The Green Parrot was a Decorah landmark, a major gathering place for people of all generations. The above photo (ca. 2021) of what was for many years called the “Pub” and was later called “Roscoe’s” suggests that the original building–shown below–existed underneath the later painted wooden overlay. The building was demolished in 2023 in preparation for a new Kwik Star gas station. For the restaurant’s complete history, see the Decorah Genealogy Association Newsletter (April-June 2023, pp. 4-5). The original building was aluminum and perhaps stucco.