Merriam Park Neighborhood, Saint Paul: Unlike most of the other mages who live in the wealthiest neighborhoods in the Twin Cities, Jonas Votan lives in Merriam Park, a relatively affluent but not nearly as extravagant neighborhood as Summit. Merriam Park is to the west of the Summit neighborhood with its western border following the Mississippi River.
I decided that Merriam Park would be a good place for Jonas to live because, while extremely wealthy, Jonas is much more integrated into normal society than the rest of the Great Family mages who tend to keep to themselves. This is why Jonas has friends on the police force and in government and also part of the reason that he is such a skilled social engineer.
Pictures are somewhat harder to find of Merriam Park houses because it is a neighborhood of medium-to-large well-maintained homes rather than the ornate mansions that tend to be favored by photographers. As I imagine it, Jonas’ residence would look a lot like the photograph below.
From the description in the book Jonas’ house has the kind of standard Victorian floorplan that this home’s exterior would suggest. We only ever see the first floor, but I imagine that Jonas’ ritual space would be either in the attic or a converted bedroom on the second floor.
On a personal note, my Masonic Lodge, Braden #168, meets at Triune Masonic Center in Merriam Park. The temple was built in 1910 around the time that many of the homes in the neighborhood were also being built.
It is one of the last surviving temples of its type in Minnesota and adds a lot to the neighborhood’s turn-of-the-last-century charm. It also is a wonderful ritual space that is far more impressive than many of the newer more generic lodge buildings that I have seen.
S C O T T M I C H A E L S T E N W I C K 