Milwaukees Famous boat House Is for Sale Again
Like then many beautiful Milwaukee homes, the English language Tudor gem at 2701 N. Lake Dr. – which is for sale – has had a number of interesting residents.
Among them was Edward Gillen, whose company mastered the art of – amid numerous other things – piling stones up to create Milwaukee's breakwaters.
The house he occupied in the 1940s until his death in 1951 is made of stone, merely it can hardly exist described as a pile.
Built in 1895-6 at a toll of $6,000, the house was designed past George Bowman Ferry and Alfred C. Clas, the renowned Milwaukee architects of structures like The Pabst Mansion, Cardinal Library, St. James Court Apartments and, in Madison, the Wisconsin Historical Society.
Information technology's clad in ashlar ruby sandstone quarried at the Prentice quarries in Ashland, and has ornate Gothic details and half-timbered gables.
In 1908, architect William Schuchardt designed a $10,000 addition to the westward with a four-auto garage and a small invitee apartment above.
The domicile, congenital for Milwaukee Mutual Life Insurance Company executive and Republican political activist George Wiswell, it was among the primeval homes erected in the Prospect Hill Subdivision facing the then-new Lake Park.
"Perhaps more than influential in setting the architectural ane for the future development of Lake Bulldoze was the George Wiswell Firm," notes the North Lake Bulldoze Historic District Celebrated Designation Study Study.
"This Elizabethan Revival house with its rambling, multi-gabled, picturesque silhouette, and half-timbering is the earliest of the Elizabethan and Jacobean Revival style houses that would dominate architectural design on North Lake Drive in the twentieth century."
Who was George Wiswell?
Born in LaFayette, in Walworth Canton, on July nineteen, 1852, George Nelson Wiswell was the son of Welsh immigrant farmers.
The youngest of the sons, young Wiswell was enlisted for farm work while his brothers were off fighting the Ceremonious State of war. He attended school during winters in Elkhorn.
According to an obituary in the Milwaukee Journal, when Wiswell was 15 he began a four-yr apprenticeship with a tinsmith, after which he started working at a hardware business organisation in Elkhorn.
In 1873, he married Clara M. Perry and went back to farming and in 1886 opened a cheese factory on his property.
He launched a career in politics, winning the 1886 election for Walworth County Sheriff, an office he held for two years. The post-obit year, President William Henry Harrison appointed Wiswell U.S. Marshall for the Eastern District of Wisconsin and he served in that role until 1893.
Side by side, he entered the insurance game, serving every bit general managing director of Milwaukee'southward Congenial Alliance Life Insurance Visitor and and then as president of Milwaukee Common.
At the same time, he was extremely active in Republican Party politics.
He was assistant sergeant-at-artillery at 2 national party conventions– in 1888 and '92 – and in 1900 drew much acclaim for his piece of work as sergeant-at-arms at the Philadelphia Republican National Convention at which Teddy Roosevelt was nominated as vice president on a ticket topped by the incumbent, William McKinley.
Back on Lake Drive, the Wiswell's new house was the scene of their daughter Harriet Lou's nuptials to Walter Layfield O'Neill in July 1896, not long after the completion of the house. And information technology was quite an affair, earning a lengthy clarification in the pages of the Milwaukee Journal:
"One of the prettiest of the summertime weddings was that of Miss Harriet Lou Wiswell to Walter Layfield O'Neill which took place last evening at vii o'clock at the residence of the bride's parents, Mr. and Mrs. George N. Wiswell, 609 Lake Avenue," wrote the paper. "The ceremony was performed by the Rev. Otho Humphreys and the wedding couple stood under a canopy of smilax festooned from the bay window to the chandelier. The decorations in the parlor were white sweet peas and asparagus ferns and roses of all colors, which were gifts to the bride. The decorations in the dining room were red, with red sweet peas with ferns and the centerpiece of the table was American Beauty roses.
"The bride wore a gown of white silk and carried a bouquet of white sweet peas. Her bridal veil was fastened with orangish blossoms. The bride was attended by Miss Minnie O'Neil as maid of accolade and by four bridesmaids, the Misses Lillian Ferguson, Minerva Ellsworth, Rosalie Morefield of Elkhorn and Agnes Seabrease of Fort Wayne, Indiana, and two fiddling flower girls, Jean and Margaret Wiswell, sisters of the bride. The bridesmaids were attired in gowns of white organdie and carried bouquets of pink sweet peas. Ludington Patton was best man. Miss Rosalie Morefield was the fortunate young lady who caught the bride'southward boutonniere when it was thrown. At the reception Mrs. Frank Hall Cottrill and Miss Julia Davis presided at the table in the dining room. Others assisting were Mrs. James. H. Turner, Miss Mildred Ormsby, Miss Alice Blanchard and Miss Bates of Racine."
If that weren't enough detail, the Journal also listed the names of all the wedding guests.
Sadly, on Jan. 10, 1902, less than ii years later on the glory of the Philadelphia convention, the Wiswell dwelling hosted some other ceremony, this 1 considerably more somber: a memorial for owner George Wiswell.
"A large concourse of friends assembled at the dwelling of the tardily George N. Wiswell, 609 Lake Bulldoze, this morning at 10:30 o'clock to pay their last respects," wrote the Journal. "In the library, the walls existence virtually subconscious by the various floral offerings from the unlike clubs, lodges and business organizations to which the deceased belonged. ... The Rev. C. S. Lester of St. Paul's officiated, a quartette from Immanuel Church, of which Mr. Wiswell was once a member, rendering Atomic number 82, Kindly Light and Rock of Ages.
"The funeral political party left the Union Station at 12:fifteen in the cars Richwood and Okauchee, which were attached to the regular train. Many of the political and business friends of Mr. Wiswell who were in town for the funeral went to Elkhorn. Fifty-half-dozen members of the uniformed rank of Knight Templars and a delegation from the consistory also went. The railroad train arrived in Elkhorn at 2:30 o'clock and the body of Mr. Wiswell volition prevarication in state at the court house."
Wiswell was buried in his family plot at Elkhorn Cemetery.
Judge Frank M. Fish
Wiswell'south widow sold the domicile to Racine native and excursion court judge Frank M. Fish.
In 1902, Fish had left his position at the Racine firm of Fish & Gillen (formed that aforementioned twelvemonth with Metropolis Attorney Martin Gillen) to move his family unit to Beaumont, Texas, where, co-ordinate to a newpaper report, "he ha(d) interests in property on which are paying oil wells."
Merely by 1904 Fish was in Milwaukee, where he was president of the Annoy Long Altitude Phone Co., which was one of about 300 independent Wisconsin phone companies working with the new U.Due south. Telegraph and Telephone Comany, joining a new network that was expected to connect equally far east equally Boston, as far south every bit Galveston and at least equally far w as Omaha, if non farther.
Fish, however, died in 1908 at historic period l, before the telephone actually became ubiquitous.
The Prescotts, sawmill moguls
The home was sold to Fred M. Prescott, who had moved to Milwaukee in 1904 from his abode in Menominee, Michigan, where he worked in the family business organization.
Born Sept. xxx, 1863 in Denver, Prescott was the son of the colorfully named DeWitt Clinton Prescott, who had founded the Prescott Co. in 1867, manufacturing and repairing sawmills. 5 years later on, the elderberry Prescott bought out his partners and started the Marinette Iron Works Co., which continued to make sawmill machinery, but expanded into steam engines, locomotives, car wheels and mining equipment.
In 1890, the family moved to Wisconsin, virtually Duluth, but his company tanked during the financial panic that year and Prescott relaunched the Prescott Co., moving to Chicago in 1898 and the next twelvemonth to Menominee.
It was the younger Prescott who built the big add-on (which you can see in the photograph above), but within v years, he connected the family tradition of moving on and the firm was listed for sale, with a notation that read, "Continued absence from the city renders this dwelling unnecessary to the owner and the disposal of it desirable."
A Nov. 30, 1913 real manor brandish advertisement described the home:
"Those who know this location know it to be one of the most charming residence spots in Milwaukee'southward fashionable residence district. Beautiful Lake Park, maintained forever at public expense, is yours, every bit it is directly opposite. The panoramic views of Lake Park – of the purple Lake Michigan and the glorious Milwaukee Bay are unequaled anywhere in the state. The interior of this homestead is a real home. The serenity refinement of every detail is indeed impressive. Three commodious tiled bathrooms, vacuum cleaner and every modern convenience is available. A three car capacity garage, fully equipped with tanks, washracks, etc., etc., is an incidental of this consummate homestead."
The Wahls
The next resident appears to take been Natalie Rice Wahl, the widow of George Henry Wahl, who died in 1900.
Wahl, the son Forty-Eighters who fled Germany later on the failed revolution of 1848, had briefly been a public schoolhouse teacher earlier studying police in Madison and opening a firm with Emil Wallber, a future judge and mayor of Milwaukee. (It's unclear if Wahl was related to Christian Wahl, for whom nearby Wahl Avenue is named.)
Wahl arrived by 1915 – potentially equally early on as 1913 – and remained until 1922.
In her 40s, Rice Wahl had only earned a degree in letters and science at Madison and aslope her yearbook photograph in "The Badger" is her motto: "Information technology is never besides late to learn."
Abraham Saltzstein, borough leader
Information technology'southward unclear how long Wahl remained in the dwelling, but she was nevertheless in that location in 1917. By 1925, however, she'd been replaced by A.L. Saltzstein, an insurance man just like the dwelling's original possessor.
Saltzstein – whose proper noun was Abraham Louis, but was always referred to in newspapers past his initials – was born in Plock, Poland in 1867. He went to Washington, D.C. in 1884, where he married Fannie Cohen.
He arrived in Milwaukee in 1896 as an agent for Templar Insurance Company and four years later became the general amanuensis for Wisconsin of The New England Common Life Insurance Co. That was a position he would hold until his death 47 years later on, at which point he was both the oldest and the longest-tenured in his position at the company.
Well-known and respected in insurance circles around the state, Saltzstein was also extremely active in civic and Jewish causes.
In 1902, he was among the founders of the Federated Jewish Charities and the following year Saltzstein became president of the Hebrew Relief Society. In 1904 he proposed creating a loan bureau for poor people, hoping to forestall them having to deal with loan sharks.
He served on the board of the American Jewish Articulation Distribution Commission, which aided Jews effectually the world, Hebrew College and of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. In 1926, he was Wisconsin chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, raising a record amount that yr.
In 1929, he went to Switzerland to help found the Jewish Agency for Palestine.
Saltzstein likewise served equally president of Temple Emanu-El-B'ne Jeshurun.
It was presumably in one of those roles that, in 1914, he went to Rome with Milwaukee Italian Consul Erminio Conte for an audience with the Pope at Vatican Metropolis, and a tour of Italy, France and England. A decade later he visited Palestine and gave public lectures on the subject when he returned to Milwaukee.
Presumably to downsize, Saltzstein and his wife moved to the Shorecrest Hotel in 1946 and sold the firm to Edward Gillen.
Edward Gillen, builder of Milwaukee
Gillen was, and remains, a well-known name in the construction and marine worlds in Milwaukee (and beyond), as his eponymous visitor has, for more than a century, built docks, seawalls and bridges, towed boats, dredged waterways and driven piles for the construction of buildings similar the Plankinton Arcade, the 1930 Northwestern Mutual addition on East Wisconsin Avenue and brewery structures for Miller, Pabst and Schlitz.
Gillen built slips for carferrys like the Milwaukee Clipper in Milwaukee, Muskegon and Ludington, also every bit the Kilbourn Avenue Bridge in Milwaukee and the State Street Bridge in Racine. It also constructed Lock No. five on the Mississippi River and a levee near Kansas City.
The company congenital docks on Commerce Street, structures in the Menomonee Valley and, on Jones Island, the bulkheads and foundations for the sewage treatment plant and a 1951 tanker pier.
Edward E. Gillen was born in Racine in on December. 30, 1878. His Ohio-born begetter, also named Edward, was built-in in Ohio and arrived in The Belle City in 1861, where he worked in marine construction.
Edward Jr. ditched dental school at Marquette University for his begetter's marine construction business and in 1910, he launched his ain marine construction company in Milwaukee and brought his blood brother Harry upward from Racine to bring together him in 1917.
According to i newspaper article, Gillen'southward company "developed harbors and rivers along Lake Michigan shore. He was ane of the pioneers in the construction of rubble mound breakwaters on the western shore of Lake Michigan. He originated the employ of self-unloader boats for laying the stone cores of breakwaters."
He and his Chicago-born, Racine-raised wife Mae (O'Laughlin) lived at the Lake Drive dwelling house for just a few years when Gillen fell victim to asthma and heart issues and died in 1951 at the historic period of 72.
The Gillens had no children and Edward left his unabridged estate to Mae. His brother, Harry, had passed away fifteen years earlier. Mae was an experienced baron who by 1921 was secretarial assistant and treasurer of her family's quarry business – Waukesha Lime and Stone Visitor – which similar Gillen still exists.
I asked Jullane Jackson of Gillen Marine Construction about what happened to the ownership upon Mae's passing.
"My grandfather, Andrew E. Jackson started accumulating visitor shares from Mr. Gillen starting in 1945 through 1953," she said. " Edward Gillen's estate passed the shares to Mae in 1953. In 1960, her estate passed the remaining shares to my gramps, Andrew Jackson. My grandpa started with Mr. Gillen correct out of MU as an engineer."
Mae, in the concurrently, listed the house for sale the year subsequently her hubby's decease, sparking a number of sales and residents over the next 15 years. A 1952 display ad for the home offered a photo and a terse description: "Estate offers beautiful compact older dwelling house at an incredibly low toll. Excellent condition and construction. Immediate possession. Consult."
Mae moved to Cudahy Tower, where she died in 1959.
The Kissingers
In 1966 the Kissinger family unit moved in, breathing life into the house over again.
John Kissinger, who is CEO of the pattern, engineering and architecture firm GRAEF, which has its stunning offices in the one-time Yard Avenue Mall food courtroom, was nine and lived there until 1980, when he was 22 and says his family remained there until 1983.
"I retrieve painting the business firm with my dad and brother and erecting scaffolding, breaking up and removing giant onetime bandage atomic number 26 furnace in basement, having a clubhouse in the onetime coal bin in the basement, climbing on the roof and watching people get out lakefront fireworks, watching cycle races get past our house in Lake Drive, my sisters and their friends making Riverside high float in our driveway."
And, he says, he had a party at that place in honor of his wedding in 1980, reprising that archetype moment in the business firm'due south get-go year of existence.
"We just had a party there," he says, "(just) my brother Bill was married in the house."
Wiswell's house today
These days, the house is back on the market place, or soon to be.
I got a look inside after its electric current owner, a designer and adjunct fellow member of the MIAD interior compages and blueprint faculty, moved to a new place.
It felt a piffling moving to stand in the dining room and see the bay window and chandelier from which the canopy of smilax was hung for Miss Harriet Lou Wiswell's 1896 wedding.
Moving, besides, to stand in the library – with its congenital-in bookshelves and gorgeous plaster ceiling, which suffered water damage from a bathroom to a higher place and was repaired at neat expense past the Kissingers – and imagine the friends (including neighbour Edward Cowdery, whose home I wrote about recently) mourning the passing of the home'due south building George Wiswell six years later.
Just it's easy to come across why and then many accept lived in and loved the home, which manages to experience both intimate and grand at the same fourth dimension.
The entry and m staircase are beautiful, as are the fireplaces in the parlor and library and the built-ins in the dining room.
The kitchen has been modernized and the current possessor but recently installed a large, bright, useful laundry room upstairs.
There's a lot of space – a few feet shy of 6,000 foursquare feet – including vi bedrooms, v and a half baths (including one with a vintage hook-foot tub), spacious servant's quarters and likely a quondam ballroom on the third floor, plus that four-auto garage and flat above.
In the basement, at that place's a vino cellar, and tucked abroad out of the public heart outside is a puddle.
The grand isn't huge, but with the landmark Olmsted-designed Lake Park literally a few steps out the front door, that would hardly seem to thing.
The home is certainly every bit lovely as you'd expect a Ferry & Clas-designed place to be, simply office of its charm is the pantheon of interesting Milwaukee folks who have lived their lives inside.
Source: https://onmilwaukee.com/articles/wiswell-gillen-house
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