There have been three official North Dakota Governors’ Residences in my lifetime. Only one really qualifies as a “mansion” in the historic sense of the word, as most states call the homes for their chief executives. That’s the one now operated as a State Historic Site on Bismarck’s 4th Street a few blocks south of the Capitol. That one, which rises up above most of the other homes in the neighborhood, as mansions should, was built in 1884 by a wealthy early North Dakota businessman who later sold it to the state in 1893 for $5,000 to become a home for our Governors.
Our Governors lived in that house until 1960, when the state paid $200,000 to build a new home on the Capitol Grounds. Governors John Davis, Bill Guy, Art Link, George Sinner, Ed Schafer, John Hoeven, Jack Dalrymple and Doug Burgum lived in that one, Burgum only briefly before the state build him a new home in 2018. Allen Olson, who served between Link and Sinner, didn’t live in it because his children were in a school up on the north side of town where he lived before becoming Governor, and he didn’t want to move them.
During Burgum’s first term the Legislature ponied up $4 million, and a group of citizens, led by my friend Jim Poolman and a Fargo Legislator named Pam Anderson, raised another million, and Burgum moved across his back lawn into a new $5 million home.
$5,000.
$200,000
$5,000,000
Three houses. Three price tags.
But times change over the years, as do appetites for things like Governor’s Mansions, which this one does, indeed, qualify as. It’s one big, fancy place, with not only living quarters for the state’s First Family, but a spacious gathering area for events of state importance. There are some photos of it here. Take a look. It’s pretty nice. And there’s a lot more information aobut the place on that website.
But $5 million, as it turns out, wasn’t enough. As the project neared completion, the architects and builders realized that there wasn’t enough money to complete the security fences and driveways envisioned in the original plans, so the fence was moved up almost right against the house, leaving little room for the Governor and his family to recreate outdoors, and the approach to the home from the Capitol mall was left pretty plain, instead of the pretty impressive plans in the original design.
So it was left to Burgum’s successor, Kelly Armstrong, to decide if that should be fixed. He did. It is. Work is underway, in fact, I think, getting close to being done, to finish the job envisioned back in 2018.
Armstrong’s no big spender, and is not generally given to ruffles and flourishes, but he recognized that the home’s designers had a good plan, and the plan ought to be finished, providing a look that North Dakota, and all of our citizens, as we experience pretty good financial times and continue to gain prominence in the eyes of the nation, can be proud of.
But it’s more than that. America is different today than when we paid $200,000 60 years ago for a house that had no security fence around it at all. Way, way different. We’re a much more violent, dangerous, place today than we’ve ever been, or ever imagined we might be.
Less than a year ago, in our next door neighbor state, Minnesota, elected officials were shot in their homes, and two of them died. That’s the state of our country today. It could happen here. In fact, just last week our Capitol Grounds went on lockdown because a fellow with some mental health issues was involved in an armed standoff with police out in front of the State Library. But now we’re taking steps to make sure our Capitol grounds and our state’s chief executive and his family are safe.
To do that, Armstrong asked the 2025 North Dakota Legislature to finish the job which was left unfinished eight years ago. The Legislature said yes, and gave him $2.35 million to get it done.
That’s a lot of money, about half again the original cost of the project. I haven’t seen evidence that the state will spend it all, but work is underway right now, and hopefully by fall the Governor’s Residence will be secure and it will look inviting from the front. I think we should all be proud of that.
So what’s being done? According to the Governor’s office, a couple of the largest projects include a whole new fence, which is projected to be $562,796 and a new front driveway, which is projected to cost $136,413. Other costs include the a new rear driveway and gate, architectural services, surveying services, demolition, electrical work, security cameras, motion sensors, landscaping, and gate footings.
Let me back up for a minute. I was out for a walk a few weeks ago on a fine Spring evening, and I hadn’t been on the Capitol Grounds for a while, but as I walked down 4th Street I noticed some dirt work being done on the spot where the Davis-Guy-Link-Sinner-Schafer-Hoeven-Dalrymple house had been before it was demolished after the new house was completed a hundred yards or so away. And the ground was torn up by vehicle tracks in the mud where the original driveway had been. So I walked through the mud and peered down into the hole where it looked like some kind of work was being done underground.
I was curious, so when I got home I texted the Governor (yeah, he was foolish enough to give me his cell phone number before he was elected and he hasn’t changed it) and asked if he was getting a swimming pool, and that it was about time our Governor had one for him and his family. He wrote back “No, just a fence upgrade. The current one is not very secure.”
Turns out there had been some stories about this during the 2025 Legislature, but I missed them. So I sent an e-mail to another old friend, Mike Nowatzki, the Governor’s Press Secretary, asking him about it. Mike was generous with me, sharing as much info as he could, given the need to protect the Governor’s security as much as possible.
Here’s what I learned.
There’s going to be a fence around the entire property, and it will be moved away from the current location up against the residence to provide room for outdoor activities, not only for the family, but for guests and events (I’m kind of hoping to get invited to a backyard barbecue sometime). There will be two gates. One is on 4th street behind the residence, where I saw the work being done on my walk, which will be locked with electronic access for “authorized users.”
The front gate, from the Capitol Mall loop entrance, will normally be open during business hours and for scheduled activities as events occur.
I asked Mike if there would be cameras monitoring the fence and the gates. He said, “We cannot comment on security measures regarding the governor, first family, and residence (reference NDCC 44-04-25),” and “The North Dakota Highway Patrol’s capitol security team provides 24-hour monitoring of cameras throughout the capitol complex.”
Okay, fair enough. Welcome to 21st Century America. There’s just a lot more to be worried about now than in 1893, or 1960, or 2018. It looks to me like there’s going to be a tall, metal fence on our Capitol Grounds now, to keep out bad guys trying to get in to do harm to our first family.
Good for us.
Here’s a couple of pictures of work underway.
The Prairie Blog 