Welcome to the billiard suite. This is a special feature on the self-guided audio tour, just for those who are in the billiard suite and can’t get enough local Duluth history.

This is the second largest room in the house and was originally built as a billiard suite, which is a room for entertaining. One of the most interesting features is the built-in, 20-foot-wide bench on the north side of the room.

Definitely larger than what’s needed for a billiards table. This room was sure to host many gatherings, dances, games, and the like. The built-in bench is ventilated and has an original 18-foot-long cast-iron radiator built into it.

It’s a cozy place for spectators to watch the dance or wait for their turn in a parlor game. Consider, in 1908, there was no TV or radio yet. Entertainment was only live. Whether attending a theater, the orchestra, or hosting entertainment at one’s local home, society, as it was called in the day, was largely built on extravagant, invite-only parties hosted by the elite at their own personal homes.

You’ll find in many homes of this era the third floor having a large room for gathering, family time, or entertaining, like this billiards room.

One fun artifact we found when we took over the Cotton Mansion was a host of blueprints and plans from different periods in Cotton Mansion’s history.

We took the liberty of framing several plans designed by the university in the 1940s that were reinventions of this third floor. They’re framed in the hallway in the billiard suite in front of the bedrooms.

You can see, if you look at the plans, several different layouts. They were making an audio studio. They had a theater space. They had a dark room and a handful of other rooms. Luckily, none of which ever got torn apart and recreated. We still have the billiards room, and most all of the third floor is intact as it originally was.

Through the door to the left, the long bench leads you to two modest bedrooms. These are two of the original servants’ bedrooms in the main house.

There was once a door at the end of the hall that led past the third servant bedroom and onto the private staircase that traversed the rear of the house down to the lowest level.

These bedrooms were for the female servant staff and included a seamstress, a maid, and a nanny for the kids. The chauffeur and the chef both lodged on the second floor of the carriage house.

Cotton Mansion had a total of five staff who lived with the Cotton family and helped run this home.

If you’d like to learn more about the Cotton Mansion, the Cotton family, and early-1900s Duluth history, follow the main self-guided audio tour. There are 12 stops that take you from top to bottom through the common rooms, starting with the QR code on the console in the foyer on the main floor.