This week, the Wisconsin Historical Society announced the re-listing of the Frederick and Maria Pabst House in Milwaukee – that’s The Pabst Mansion to you – on the State Register of Historic Places.
The 1892 house, 2000 W. Wisconsin Ave., was designed by Ferry & Clas for brewery magnate and former lake captain Frederick Pabst and his family, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.
At that time, H. Russell Zimmermann wrote about the fate of the house in his newspaper column.
"If this landmark of landmarks is not capable of generating the interest and money necessary to save it from the wrecking ball," Zimmermann wrote, "it is doubtful that anything in Milwaukee can be called 'permanent.'"
Wisconsin Heritage (WHI), the group founded by Florence L. Schroeder that would ultimately save and that now runs The Pabst, bought it and opened it as a house museum in 1978.
The property was added to the State Register in 1989.
So, what’s a re-listing all about? It definitely does NOT mean that the house had been removed from the list, says Wisconsin Historical Society’s Kendall Poltzer.
“This wording is a bit confusing but the property was not removed from the register, it was just amended to be listed at the national level of significance,” she explained to me.
“Additional documentation was added that now recognizes it for its architectural significance at the national level.”
That architectural significance derives not only from Pabst’s status as a national figure as an inventive and prominent beer baron, but also from the rare aesthetic of the house, according to WHS.
“The Pabst House is the only high-style Flemish Renaissance Revival that has been identified to date, and it is the sole ‘academic’ example of the style that has yet been found outside of New York City,” noted the WHS announcement.
“Flemish Renaissance Revival is a very rare style in this country, recognizable by its steeply pitched roofs with stepped or curvilinear gables. The Pabst House was completed in 1892 and designed by (George Bowman) Ferry and (Alfred C.) Clas, important Milwaukee architects.
“The house rises to three stories on load-bearing masonry walls embellished with abundant terra cotta ornament. The Pabst Brewery became the largest lager brewery in the United States during the 1870s, and the largest in the world by 1892 when Frederick Pabst completed his grand mansion.”
You can read more about how the house was almost lost in this article.
More on The Pabst Mansion can be found at wisconsinhistory.org/Records/NationalRegister/NR2142.
Sadly, the the Otto Strack-designed pavilion created for the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago which long served as the entrance to the mansion was dismantled last year, due to decay to the structure which was not designed to be outside nor to last much beyond the World’s Fair for which it was built.
The structure was scanned and the pieces saved with the hope of reconstructing it in the future. There is no timeline currently for the rebuild.
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.
