WAYZATA — The old cottonwood tree on Circle A Drive is gone, but the neighborhood legend that lived inside it has been given a new home.
For years, residents around Circle Drive have shared stories about Wise-Eddy, a small elf — or gnome, depending on the storyteller — believed by some neighbors to have resided inside the hollow of the towering cottonwood. The tree, described by residents as more than a century old, was recently cut down after concerns about its age and condition.
Rather than let the story end there, local residents Gordy Straka and Bill Berneking built Wise-Eddy a new house.
Neighbors recently gathered to dedicate the new home, turning the loss of an old tree into a small celebration of neighborhood lore, humor and continuity.
The Wise-Eddy story has become part of the fabric of the neighborhood, passed along with the kind of affection often reserved for old houses, familiar trees and quiet landmarks that become part of daily life. In a playful account written by Nan Sloan and Dean Knudson, Wise-Eddy was said to have taken up residence in the cottonwood in 1913 and watched generations of Wayzata life unfold from inside the tree.
Straka, described in the account as a local resident and self-proclaimed historian, helped keep the story alive as the tree’s removal approached. According to the neighborhood tale, Wise-Eddy had seen it all over the years.
The removal of the cottonwood marked the end of one chapter, but the dedication of Wise-Eddy’s new home offered neighbors a way to preserve the spirit of the old tree.
In a town where history often lives in depots, lakefront views, old homes and long-standing traditions, the gathering was a reminder that local history can also be found in smaller places — even in the hollow of a cottonwood tree, and now, in a handmade home built for an elf named Wise-Eddy.
