Geoffrey Serdar

Who You're Calling

A hunter, not a farmer.

That's been my line for years — I'd rather go find you the right house than sit and wait for one to show up.

In Victoria, it needs a footnote.

This town was built by farmers. The Diethelm brothers put up the first shelter in 1851, and families came from Germany, Holland and Switzerland on word of mouth about the soil. Wheat was the cash crop. Potatoes, carrots, cabbage and corn fed the families that grew them. The town got its name in 1856, when families on opposite sides of Lake Bavaria settled their differences and the north shore donated the land for a church.

And one of those farmers changed the country. Wendelin Grimm arrived in 1859 carrying seed from Germany he called “everlasting clover.” He spent fifteen winters keeping seed only from the plants that lived through them — and grew the first truly winter-hardy alfalfa in North America. Every modern variety in this country came out of that field.

His farmstead is still standing, inside Carver Park Reserve. The road it sits on carries his name.

So — hunter, not farmer. But I know whose ground this is.

What Victoria Actually Is

The City of Lakes and Parks — and it means it.

Victoria calls itself the City of Lakes and Parks, which is the rare case of a city slogan being an understatement. Carver Park Reserve alone holds 604 acres of water and three fishable lakes — Stieger, Auburn and Zumbra — plus 25 miles of hiking trail, 10 miles of mountain-bike singletrack, cross-country ski and horseback trails, a campground, and the Lowry Nature Center, the first public nature center ever built in the Twin Cities.

The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum is here. So is the Wassermann Lake Preserve. The Lake Minnetonka LRT Regional Trail runs more than fifteen miles from Hopkins straight through town and into the park reserve — you can ride to Excelsior for lunch without touching a highway.

Kids attend Eastern Carver County Schools (District 112). Downtown is small and walkable, Bayfront Park sits on Stieger Lake, and you are twenty-five minutes from a Minneapolis office and about four minutes from a trailhead.

Choosing Victoria over Excelsior or Shorewood. In Excelsior or Shorewood you are buying a Lake Minnetonka address, and the address is a large part of the price. Victoria trades that for room — generally more house and more lot for the same money, District 112 schools, and Carver Park Reserve on the edge of town rather than a dock on the water. Here the lakes are somewhere you go, not something you pay a premium to look at. Both are good answers. They are just answers to different questions, and it is worth knowing which one you want before you start touring.

Closed Oct 5 to Oct 11, 2026

Victoria this week

4 homes closed in Victoria between Oct 5 and Oct 11, 2026, at a typical price of $547,500.

Updated October 12, 2026

Same numbers as the card above and the Lake Minnetonka weekly.

Listings from the October 4 search. These are separate from the closed sales above. They are the homes that were listed, pending, or off market when the Victoria search ran on October 4.

Four homes are off market.

For sale and coming soon

• 5392 Rolling Hills Parkway, Victoria, MN 55318-7410$925,000 · 5 beds · 4,819 sq ft · $192 per square foot
• 5500 Rolling Hills Parkway, Victoria, MN 55318-7412$925,000 · 5 beds · 4,948 sq ft · $187 per square foot
• 1640 Field Drive, Victoria, MN 55386-4575$899,999 · 5 beds · 5,392 sq ft · $167 per square foot
• 2442 Lacy Lane, Victoria, MN 55386-2302$759,900 · 4 beds · 4,466 sq ft · $170 per square foot
• 1929 Woodstone Drive, Victoria, MN 55386-9637$599,900 · 4 beds · 3,388 sq ft · $177 per square foot
• 8340 Grace Court, Victoria, MN 55386-9566$449,900 · 4 beds · 1,896 sq ft · $237 per square foot