Duluth's most expensive listing is $1.8M home designed for entertaining

Are you a wine connoisseur who likes to share?

There's a house on the market in Duluth where you could host a tasting party surrounded by 2,000 bottles of vino. Guests enter the wine room through a bronze door, custom-aged to create a greenish patina. It's a separate entrance, so your oenophile friends don't have to set foot in the rest of your house — unless you want them to.

The wine room, filled with Tuscan design touches, is climate-controlled for the wine, but you can turn off the chiller and turn on the cozy fireplace.

"You can have dinner in there," said owner Diane Link.

And if any friends want to spend the night, there's a guest apartment above the wine room, with its own staircase.

Rob Link, a developer who died in 2016, built the custom home for himself in 1997.

"He built it for entertaining purposes," said Diane, his widow, who collaborated with him on the wine room. "We had some good parties there."

Rob grew up in the Twin Cities but came to Duluth in the 1980s and adopted it as his hometown, becoming active in downtown development. (His wine room contains a bar salvaged from one of his favorite watering holes, the Warehouse Bar in Canal Park.)

The house, designed by Tom Rauscher, Rauscher & Associates, is contemporary in style, complete with a flat roof — an unusual feature at the time it was built.

"He had the first flat roof on a private residence in Duluth," Diane said. "People drove through our cul-de-sac to see it. It was like a California house."

The 5,435-square-foot house, set on a triple lot that covers 1.6 acres, is surrounded by nature and has its own pond. "It's quiet, like a bird sanctuary — you can hear them singing," said Diane.

Inside, the house has an open floor plan with lots of windows to bring the outdoors in. There's a catwalk that overlooks the living room and connects the second-floor master suite with two other bedrooms. There's also a second master suite on the lower level.

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Light natural woodwork give the interiors a Scandinavian vibe, according to Diane, while the Brazilian cherry floors have in-floor heat for toasty-warm feet during Duluth winters.

The kitchen also was designed for hosting, with a center island and an adjacent bar area big enough to host chef demonstrations, Diane said. Other amenities include a main-floor movie theater, a sauna, a steam shower, an exercise room and a five-stall garage. The guest suite, which has a kitchenette, could be used as an in-law apartment or nanny's quarters.

The house is on the market for $1.8 million, making it the highest-priced listing currently in the city.

"It's a really cool contemporary home, fabulous for entertaining," said Edina Realty agent Susan Dusek. "It's a showpiece."

Susan Dusek, 218-390-6673, Edina Realty, has the listing.