T

he oldest building in Northfield, Minnesota, is a small structure with a rich history. It dates to 1857, when it was called the Lyceum and served as a place for lectures and debates about the important issues of the day, such as emancipation of slaves and women’s suffrage.

Since then, the one-story building has served many purposes—chicken hatchery, church, private residence, Prohibition-era speakeasy, and dental office, among others—and it has now become an office for U of M graduates Aaron and Kelly Street, who purchased the structure in 2023.

The couple met following their student days—Aaron received a B.A. in political science and philosophy in 2001 and a J.D. from the law school in 2004; Kelly earned a B.A. in communications and marketing in 2010—and lived in south Minneapolis near Lake Nokomis after marriage.

At first, they were content to pursue their careers in Minneapolis. As time went on, however, the couple changed their minds.

An unplanned return home

Aaron says that for most of his 23-year hiatus from Northfield, he had no interest in returning to his hometown. Oddly enough, perhaps, it was the Covid pandemic that changed the Streets’ thinking.

“I had a moment of epiphany that, after building a successful business, it was time to transfer some of my skills and resources back to the town I had grown up in,” he recalls. “Rather than doing all of my work on the internet, it was time to do some work in a specific community. That’s what sparked the idea of moving back to Northfield in the spring of 2020.”

Street and a friend from law school had launched a business that helped attorneys better manage their law practices. He’d also developed an interest in restoring and redeveloping historic properties as an investor in the Cerro Gordo Ghost Town, a privately owned property owned and operated by the Cerro Gordo Historical Society in California’s Death Valley.

“So, as we were figuring out moving back to Northfield, specifically for the purpose of investing in the local community, this building sparked something in me,” Aaron recalls. “I spent two years negotiating with the owner of it to figure out a path to us to take it over.”

Historical touches

For Kelly, a native of Finlayson, Minnesota, the move was equally attractive. She had worked in various marketing roles in Minneapolis after graduating from the U of M, but her new goal was to be a therapist. When the Streets moved to Northfield during the peak of the pandemic, Kelly began remote graduate studies for clinical psychology at Cappella University. As she was finishing her studies, so were their negotiations for purchase of the Lyceum building.

The Streets completed the purchase on January 1, 2023. They spent three months thoroughly rehabbing the building, including adding historic touches such as mother-of-pearl push-button light switches and French doors opening into Kelly’s office. On April 1, 2023, Kelly opened her practice, Embrace the Dark and Light Therapy and Coaching, which features a pleasant view onto the property’s private green space outside.

“I’m a mental health therapist and licensed professional counselor, and I work with adults and some couples focusing on transformational change in their lives,” she says. “People usually come to me when they want to address a specific thing, like divorce or trauma that they know from childhood.”

Aaron has a smaller office in the building, although he usually works from home on the small farm that the Streets purchased south of town. He and his partner sold their law practice consulting business in 2023, but he has several other business interests that keep him busy. One, notably, is connected to the Lyceum restoration. It’s called Remaking Ventures, a project focused on preserving and redeveloping historic real estate in the Northfield area.

The Streets hope their restoration will give life to an important historic building for the next 50 to 100 years.

“It’s known as the oldest building, but it’s been in private uses for the last 150 years since it was the Lyceum,” Aaron says. “So, I think most people probably still aren’t aware of all the interesting history and stories here. But we’ve certainly got a lot of feedback from people in town about how glad they are to see it being revived.”

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