Root cellar

How it is built

Materials

• Concrete
• Fieldstone
• Earth hillside

1. The Historic American Buildings Survey records one root cellar at the Joyce Estate in Itasca County, Minnesota. The cellar was built during the estate’s first season; contemporary newspaper accounts place that season in 1917. This page uses the Joyce cellar as a documented example, not as a template for every root cellar.
2. The cellar was cut into the hill rising behind the estate’s main cabin. The Library of Congress record says its east wall is the only exposed side and describes it as concrete trimmed with fieldstone. The entry sits near the main cabin’s kitchen door, while the stored produce came from the estate garden some distance to the north.
3. The HABS account says the cellar was built to store the estate’s garden produce. It later served for general storage and was vacant when documented. A 2021 photograph by Lorie Shaull shows the same structure’s exposed wall and entrance; it documents the surviving exterior, not its original interior arrangement or temperature conditions.
4. The record does not give dimensions, ventilation details, drainage, crop-specific storage conditions, or a construction plan. No storage setpoint or present-day food-safety guidance is implied here. The linked photograph is an actual view of this named cellar; the generated hero is an editorial illustration based on that view and the HABS description.

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