Why does half of Orono still put "Navarre" on the return address instead of the city name that actually governs the mail?
The short answer is the ZIP code. Crystal Bay, the stretch of Orono along the north shore of Lake Minnetonka that includes Navarre, still runs its own post office under ZIP 55323, a holdover from when these were separate settlements rather than one municipality. Navarre remains a distinct place within Orono: one residents name rather than simply locate on a map.
Four Settlements Became One City, With Distinct Histories
Orono did not start as a single place. The city's own foundation documents lay out the mechanics: on January 1, 1955, Orono Village incorporated by folding together the remaining parts of the township, including the settlements of Navarre, Crystal Bay, Orono proper, and Bederwood at Stubbs Bay. Boundary tweaks kept happening for decades after, a strip annexed here for a road, a peninsula tip handed to Mound there.
What the incorporation paperwork didn't do was erase the fact that these were once distinct little towns with their own commercial strips and their own reasons for existing. Navarre grew up around a railroad stop. Its Shoreline Drive corridor filled in with the kind of small businesses that define a lake town before anyone calls it a suburb: grocers, a butcher, a pharmacy, a tavern or two. People didn't drive to "downtown Orono" for a loaf of bread. They went to Navarre.
Seventy years after incorporation, they still say it that way.
The City Has Called Navarre "The Closest Thing to a Downtown" Since at Least 2017
In the summer of 2017, Orono put out a request for proposals to study "reimagining" Navarre as a central gathering spot for the city. The Star Tribune's west metro briefs covered the announcement, quoting then-Community Development Director Jeremy Barnhart on why Navarre was worth the attention: it represented, in his words, the closest thing Orono had to a downtown, and the historic town center of the city.
The same brief reported that the city had commissioned four previous studies of the area over the prior several decades, none of which had produced significant changes on the ground. Barnhart described the 2017 round as community-driven and folded into the city's next comprehensive plan update.
It was folded in. The Navarre Area Plan became part of Orono's 2040 Comprehensive Plan, reviewed and authorized by the Metropolitan Council on May 22, 2019, and formally adopted by the Orono City Council three weeks later on June 10. The planning record even credits a dedicated Navarre Area Advisory Committee for shaping that section of the document.
The city is recruiting residents for a new 2050 Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee, the next full rewrite of the same governing document.
What's Actually on Shoreline Drive Right Now
A Lakeshore Weekly report traces the shared history of two businesses that give Navarre its current identity.
The Narrows Saloon has been running for more than 20 years, a live music venue that's been part of the Navarre scene long enough that most residents don't remember a version of the area without it. Next door is The Lake Room, an upscale New American restaurant that opened April 30, 2019, the same year the city's comprehensive plan went to Met Council review. The two properties share management. The idea for The Lake Room actually dates to 2012, when Jim Anderst, who ran the Narrows with general manager Cindy Sudheimer, first proposed building something adjacent to it. Anderst died in a motorcycle accident four years later, before the project came together. Sudheimer eventually saw it through, and by the time The Lake Room opened, it filled a gap area diners had been asking about for years, a place for a sit-down dinner on the water without leaving Navarre for Wayzata or Excelsior.
Their story shows how a newer restaurant grew out of an established local venue.
The Rest of the Fall Calendar Runs Right Past It
Navarre isn't the only fixed point on this stretch of shoreline, and late September is the moment two of the others are worth paying attention to.
A few minutes up the road, Noerenberg Gardens sits on Crystal Bay, on the site of the 1890 estate built by Frederick Noerenberg, the founder of what became Grain Belt Brewery. His daughter, Lora Noerenberg Hoppe, spent years as the property's chief horticulturist before willing the estate to what's now the Three Rivers Park District when she died in 1972, on the condition that the family home itself be removed. It was, and a memorial arbor now marks where it stood. The gardens are free to visit and open every day from May through October, which means the current display of asters, sedum, and ornamental grasses is on borrowed time this year. Anyone who wants to walk it before the season closes has roughly a month left.
The Dakota Rail Regional Trail runs along that same shoreline, a paved route that follows Lake Minnetonka's northern and western edge through Wayzata, Orono, Minnetonka Beach, Spring Park, Mound, and St. Bonifacius, with a 13.5-mile stretch inside Hennepin County. Late September through October is when the mature tree cover around Orono and Minnetonka Beach turns the ride into something worth doing for its own sake, with boat traffic thinned out and the lake visible in long stretches between the trees.
Together, Navarre's businesses, Noerenberg Gardens, and the Dakota Rail Regional Trail offer a picture of the area's local character.
If you're weighing what it actually costs to own and maintain a home near Navarre's village core, from dock rights on Crystal Bay to how a place like this holds its value compared to the rest of the Orono market, Huerkamp Home Group can walk through the specifics with you.
