(NOTE: Permission was granted and the boat house will get a new lighthouse to replace the failing one.)
Though I’ve written about numerous area lighthouses, including the Art Deco breakwater lighthouse, there’s one area beacon that’s about to come down that I haven’t gone inside.
That would be the lighthouse adjacent to the so-called “Boat House” at 3138 N. Cambridge Ave.
Owner Steven Tilton wants to tear down the current lighthouse and replace it with a similar one.
In an application to the City of Milwaukee’s Historic Preservation Commission, Tilton wrote that the lighthouse is in, “serious disrepair” and “in serious danger of tipping over.”
A certificate of appropriateness from HPC is required because the property is a designated landmark.
Tilton plans to build a new lighthouse, “of the same dimensions and similar materials,” in “a similar design.”
The boat-shaped house and lighthouse were built in 1922 by Acme Card System Co. traveling salesman Edmund B. Gustorf, whose father some say served in Finland’s Merchant Marine.
Gustorf – who raised and showed pedigreed cocker spaniels – appears to have had a taste for the unique. In 1921, the Milwaukee Journal called him, “a pioneer in small lot beautification,” and featured a small fairy garden that he built at his Cambridge Avenue bungalow.
“A more attractive little place would be hard to imagine,” the paper wrote, pointing to flower beds, bird feeders and baths, a pagoda porch and other aspects.
But even then, there were signs of what was to come.
“All over the house are pictures and models of boats – yachts and canoes and motor boats – for Mr. Gustorf is a devotee of water sports.”
“Ships have always been his fancy,” added the paper in 1922. “He has owned scores of them – pleasure yachts, small neat cruises, pulling boats and canoes. In vacation time he has sailed the pleasure craft on many waters, on Lakes Winnebago and Michigan and on the bluff Atlantic. And always he has found himself more comfortable, liked his quarters better when they were compactly arranged on ship than when they have been sprawled out in a building on shore.”
Gustorf pulled a permit in April 1922 and on May 1 began to build the boat house next to his bungalow, which still stands next door. By that August, the hull was framed and pictured in the Milwaukee Sentinel, which called it the “ship never to be launched” and noted that “Mr. Gustorf is doing almost every bit of work himself.”
One newspaper photo shows Gustorf shaping the ribs of the ship himself, noting that he did each one by hand, and “afterwards, he directed the ship’s carpenters who erected the house.”
Some pieces of the 500-square-foot house – which Gustorf christened “Landlubber” – were said to have been built by shipbuilders in a Green Bay boatyard and shipped to Milwaukee.
By November 1922, the Journal carried a photo of the nearly completed house on its front page.
Neighbors, it wrote, called Gustorf, “Noah, the Second” and would ask, “What day is the flood due, Gus?”
Gustorf, who died in 1940, and his wife Lotta lived in the house lived in the house until 1939.
From 1950 until 1985 the boat was owned by Samuel Burns, who sold it to Dr. William E. Kortsch and his wife.
The house was completely restored in the late 1980s. It’s unclear if the lighthouse was restored at that time.
The HPC will take up the issue and likely make a recommendation at its next meeting, at 3 p.m., Monday, June 6, at City Hall. If it approves the change, the matter will be sent to the full Common Council for a vote.
The lighthouse stands about 20 feet tall and is as impressive as its partner, the 72-foot-long and 18 feet wide (at its widest) boat house, which looks and feels like a real boat, both inside and out. There are portholes, life preservers, running lights and other features that mimic an actual watercraft.
The house’s design was based on a 1910 gasoline motor launch, according to my OnMilwaukee.colleague Molly Snyder. It was built atop a concrete basement.
According to the architectural inventory on the Wisconsin Historical Society website, “In the ‘pilothouse’ living room dark mahogany paneling, polished brass fittings, and oak flooring resemble a yacht interior. A ship’s wheel fits inside the arc of windows at the front of the room, the dining cabin opens aft of the pilothouse onto a sunny deck astern. Gustorf’s quarters, the house’s single bedroom, is crowded into the bow of the yacht, dimly lighted by portholes.”
Molly went inside and described the interior like this:
“house has a multi-leveled layout including a main floor with a salon, dining area, kitchen and two staircases leading below. One of the staircases is in the bow (front of the boat) and leads to the bedroom, bathroom and storage room. The other flight is in the middle of the boat and leads to what would be the engine room, but instead is a large area with a fireplace. There is also a furnace, laundry area and full bathroom on this level. Hardwood floors and maps on the walls make the interior feel even more ‘boaty’."
In 2018, OnMilwaukee reported that the house was being rented as an Airbnb for $285 per night.
The cost of a replacement lighthouse has been estimated at about $35,000-$40,000, which appears to include the rotating weatherproof signal light at the top.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
