Can you imagine what young F. Scott Fitzgerald saw as he walked in the Cathedral Hill/Crocus Hill neighborhoods?

Scott, born in 1896, saw big, beautiful St. Paul homes that we drive by every day. Some of the city’s great mansions built in the last half of the 19th century were razed. But many more are preserved, and the stories they tell about Fitzgerald and the kids with whom he and his sister Annabel spent time make up “F. Scott Fitzgerald in Minnesota,” the beautiful new coffee-table book that is the first publishing venture for Fitzgerald in St. Paul. The nonprofit organization is dedicated to celebrating the life and literature of this St. Paul native whose short stories and novels captured the Jazz Age.

“F Scott Fitzgerald in Minnesota” is filled with dozens of color photos of houses that were important in Fitzgerald’s boyhood. Each page has a picture of the house, including architectural details, along with biographies of the owner or owners, and information about how these people influenced Fitzgerald’s views about wealth and belonging, whether as childhood friends or as inspiration for characters in his stories. There are insets of interesting drawings from old newspapers and pictures of original owners.

“I don’t know how many people know that St. Paul is well known nationally and possibly internationally for its residential architecture,” says Page, a Fitzgerald scholar. “It’s unusual for a neighborhood like this, of architect-designed houses, to be virtually intact.”

Krueger, a freelance professional photographer, agrees.

“The Cathedral Hill neighborhood is a national treasure, not just the individual structures but how intact are the gardens, the mature trees. I wanted to do something with that,” he said. “Fitzgerald is a natural way to make that accessible to a larger audience. I was trying to photograph the neighborhood the way a young, aspiring writer might poetically see it when he was young.”

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Readers and Writers: Minnesota writers give us plenty to read while we stay home this fall Krueger was careful to shoot timeless pictures with no contemporary cars or people in modern clothing. As much as possible, he wanted to convey the 19th-century atmosphere. For interior shots, for instance, he tried to simulate gas lighting, which is softer than LED lights.

The book is divided by geography: Summit Hill, where Fitzgerald was born on Laurel Avenue; downtown St. Paul, including the Fitzgerald theater and the Guardian Life building on Fourth Street, home of the Kilmarnock Books bookstore, where Fitzgerald and other writers met; White Bear Lake, where Scott and his wife, Zelda, spent time when she was pregnant with daughter Scottie; and Old Frontenac, where Fitzgerald vacationed.

Pictures of houses on Summit Avenue, which Page calls “the spine of Fitzgerald’s neighborhood,” open the book. Fitzgerald’s parents were living at 599 Summit when Scott came back to St. Paul in 1919 and re-wrote “This Side of Paradise” in a third-floor bedroom.

Later in life, Fitzgerald seemed to have ambivalent feelings about the city of his birth. He never returned after he and Zelda left in 1922, but he carried on correspondence with his friends here. And although he sometimes liked to give the impression he was the poor outsider looking in at St. Paul society, his maternal grandmother, Louisa McQuillan, was well-to-do. He attended dancing school, wrote plays and attended parties with friends whose names and homes are part of St. Paul history — Hill, Weyerhaeuser, Ordway, Lightner, Driscoll, Archer, Ames, Jackson.

“Scott Fitzgerald was pretty much a St. Paul boy,” Page says. “He liked to play the outsider. Hemingway did the same ‘I am a poor boy’ thing. I think they didn’t want people to think they were spoiled rich boys. But they were definitely spoiled upper-middle-class boys.”

Proof of how deeply Scott and Annabel were “integrated into this wealthy St. Paul society,” Page says, is how often Annabel appeared in newspapers.

“There are tons of pictures of Annabel that blew me away. I searched and searched for a photo of Annabel with a Weyerhaeuser and one of the Hills at a skating party,” he continued. That picture, published in the Jan. 4,1920, St. Paul Pioneer Press, is on page 34 of “F. Scott Fitzgerald in Minnesota.” It shows Annabel skating with Maud Hill, daughter of James J. Hill’s son, Louis W., and Philip Weyerhaeuser, grandson of Frederick Weyerhaeuser.

The Louis Hill home at 260 Summit, which is in the book, was the scene of the costume party that inspired Fitzgerald to write his short story “The Camel’s Back.” Scott himself didn’t attend that event, but he was at the Hill residence for a dance in 1915, with his friend Marie Hersey.

“F. Scott Fitzgerald in Minnesota” will appeal not only to Fitzgerald fans but also to people who are interested in the history of these houses and the families who lived in them.

“I know people are going to dip into the book at various places,” Page says, “I’m hoping they will start reading and say, ‘Oh, wow. That’s really a neat place.’ The book invites that. Every little section is supposed to stand on its own.”

WHEN PAGE MET KRUEGER

Two years ago, Dave Page and Jeff Krueger had never met and didn’t know they were working separately on similar projects.

Page is co-author of “F. Scott Fitzgerald in Minnesota: Toward the Summit,” and editor of “The Saint Paul Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald” and “The Thoughtbook of F. Scott Fitzgerald.” He grew up in Iowa and taught courses on Fitzgerald when he was a professor at Inver Hills Community College. A former editor of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Society newsletter, he has lectured widely on how St. Paul influenced Fitzgerald’s writing.

Krueger, who grew up in Connecticut, came to Minnesota to earn an art degree at the University of Minnesota in 1993. He’s lived near the Cathedral Hill neighborhood for 17 years and started taking pictures of the houses, alleys, parks and surrounding landscapes in 2012.

When Krueger heard about the Fitzgerald in St. Paul organization, he attended the monthly Fitz@Four lectures at Common Good Books. He eventually “worked up the courage” to talk to Stu Wilson, president of Fitzgerald in St. Paul, and showed Wilson some of his photos.

“Stu took it from there,” recalls Page, who had lots of research left from his work on Fitzgerald’s “Thoughtbook” that was useful in putting together this book.

Wilson introduced the men and they worked together smoothly, helped by a grant from the Minnesota Arts and Culture Heritage Fund, the Rlchard P. McDermott Fitzgerald Fund at the St. Paul Foundation, and individual sponsors.

MORE FITZ, PAGE AND KRUEGER

Dave Page was co-chair of the 2002 International Fitzgerald Conference in St. Paul and is on the committee for this year’s 14th annual international event, which will bring Fitzgerald scholars from all over the world to St. Paul June 25-July 1. He will do a presentation and lead a private trip to Old Frontenac. The international conference is open to the public for a fee. Information is at Fitzgerald2017.org.

In conjunction with the conference, a show of Krueger’s photography from the book, as well as some pictures that didn’t make the cut, will be on display from June 21 to July 1 at Show Gallery, 346 Sibley St., St. Paul.

IF YOU GO