Did you know that the Ferry & Clas-designed Pabst Mansion is the most toured historic site in Milwaukee, drawing 45,000 visitors each year, nearly half of them from out of state?
And did you know that 5,000 of them are young people on field trips, family friendly tours and via specialty programs? And did you know the Pabst, which offers a dozen different themed tours, has self-guided tour information in English, Spanish, German, French and Mandarin Chinese, in addition to guided tours in English and Spanish?
It’s true.
But the very foundation of it all is at risk.
“We have water infiltration,” says Pabst Mansion’s Director of Advancement Morgan Sweet. “The roof is a big factor. The flat roof is threadbare and so we have water coming in through the attic there, and then that has damaged some ceilings on the third floor.
“The entire building needs to be tuckpointed. We have water coming in through where the mortar (is missing).”
Thus the Pabst Mansion, built in 1892, is currently kicking off the largest restoration project in its history and fundraising for the $5.6 million required to get it done.
That includes $3.2 million for masonry restoration, $900,000 for roof replacement and repair, $1.3 million for window restoration and $200,000 for architecture and engineering work.
The work is slated to be done in two phases.
This year, work will begin on the roof and tuckpointing on the front of the building, where it is in the worst shape. Exterior tilework on the front porch – not original – is also desperately in need of repair and that is also part of the first phase.
After a gap year in 2026 to continue fundraising, the other three sides will get tuckpointed and the windows restored in 2027.
Staff recently announced that Wisconsin Historic Tax Credits have been secured to help fund the project. Those could cover just under 20 percent of the work, according to Sweet, who says that since Pabst Mansion is a nonprofit, it will have to sell the credits to reap the benefits.
A federal NPS Save America’s Treasures grant, if that funding exists in the coming years and if the mansion receives one, could cover about $750,000.
“Not including the tax credits, we've raised about $1.2 million,” Sweet explains, “with some bigger asks that are still outstanding. So, it’s still a long way to go, but we're about halfway there, I'd say, between the tax credits, should the National Park Service grant work out.”
Also on the to-do list but not part of the current plan are much-needed HVAC upgrades and replacing the mansion’s elevator for accessibility.
“This project was originally conceived in 2019, and it was supposed to start fundraising in 2020,” says Pabst Mansion Museum Director Jocelyn Slocum. “Obviously that didn't happen and costs increased; they basically doubled in that time. So HVAC was dropped along with replacing the current elevator.”
There will be a kickoff event at the mansion on April 17, from 9 to 10:30 a.m., with formal remarks at 9:45.
Once this work is complete, the mansion team can turn its attention back to the recently deconstructed 1893 Pabst Brewing Company’s Columbian Exposition pavilion, which requires reconstruction.
You can read some background on the project here, but suffice it to say for now that the pavilion, constructed for the world’s fair at which Pabst won a gold medal (not a blue ribbon), the pavilion, designed by architect Otto Strack was deconstructed and shipped to Milwaukee, where it was rebuilt.
It’s been connected to the mansion for well over a century, where for a time it served as a chapel (when the mansion was owned by the Archdiocese) and later as the entrance and gift shop for the museum.
But it was never meant to be outside. At the fair it was located inside a building.
Along with UWM’s School of Architecture and Urban Planning, the entire structure was scanned and as it was taken apart by Berglund Construction each piece was individually scanned.
Those pieces were catalogued and are stored in the basement of the mansion, except for a couple that were too big to fit through the doors. Those are stored off-site.
Sweet and Slocum take me from room to room to show me the stacks of floor tiles, the piles of woodwork, the ornamental terra cotta on shelving units.
“The original estimate was that they could save 25 percent (of the original pavilion’s pieces),” says Slocum, “but as they got in, they were able to save closer to 75 percent.”
As we walk around, I see one panel that’s emblazoned with a hop leaf. There are Corinthian capitals. Lots of carved detail work.
The stained glass windows that had been added during the chapel years were returned to the Archdiocese, says Slocum, who adds that during the deconstruction parts of the original dome that had been thought to be lost were uncovered, which will allow for a more accurate restoration of that important feature.
“Every single piece is cataloged and marked,” says Sweet. “When we are ready for reconstruction, a computer program can essentially put it back together like a puzzle, and then also identify the missing pieces.”
Those missing pieces can be recreated via 3-D printing and UWM’s SARUP has an entire lab that’s doing that kind of work.
Although the reconstruction project is estimated to cost $10 million, there’s hope that the cost of some of that work will come down.
“I think the technology will just get better and better,” says Sweet, who says the plan is to get the pavilion reconstructed within a decade. “One thing that I think we're lucky with the pavilion is it keeps getting cheaper.”
“Well, it increased significantly in cost,” adds Slocum, “but then with 3-D printing technology, that lowered again. It keeps getting cheaper.”
Sweet says that the teams working on the pavilion estimated it might survive two more winters before it collapsed in on itself or began dropping heavy elements down out of the exterior walls.
Doing nothing was not an option and the funds to restore it immediately did not exist.
To those who would fear the pavilion is never coming back, Slocum says, “it is an ambitious project, and it is an expensive project. Our current capital campaign is nearly $6 million approximately, and that's our largest ever capital campaign, and this would be closer to $10 million.
“So yes, it's a lot, but it's here (in storage) now. It's stable. It's not ‘if we don't do it now, we can never do it.’ So, we're very optimistic that at some point in the future we’ll be able to do it.”
The alternative, Sweet chimes in, “would have been demolition by neglect.”
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.
