This post originally ran on March 24 and has been updated with news of HPC approval. In summer 2024, the pavilion was completely disassembled and Pabst Mansion officials were saying fundraising and work to rebuild the pavilion could take a decade or more.
Things have not improved in the ensuing decade.
In March, the Pabst Mansion, Inc. announced that it would submit an application for a Certificate of Appropriateness from the City of Milwaukee’s Historic Preservation Commission to dismantle the structure in an attempt to preserve it for the future.
HPC approved the plan at its meeting on May 1.
The entire exterior and interior of the pavilion has been 3-D scanned and now the plan, according to Interim Executive Director of the Pabst Mansion Mame McCully, is to deconstruct the pavilion’s terra cotta and scan the individual pieces.
Elements that can be saved, will be kept, and the ones that are damaged beyond repair will be recast in partnership with UW-Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban Planning’s Historic Preservation Institute.
When that work is completed, the structure will be rebuilt as it was originally used on the mansion grounds, 2000 W. Wisconsin Ave. – as a free-standing airing porch.
The problem is that the Otto Strack-designed pavilion created for the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago – at which Pabst is said to have won its famous blue ribbon (it's a long story) – was constructed to be kept indoors.
Capt. Frederick Pabst, however, had the pavilion dismantled and shipped up to Milwaukee in 1895 and had it rebuilt on the lawn of his mansion, where it has been subjected to the Wisconsin winter ever since.
After Pabst’s death in 1904, the mansion was sold to the Milwaukee Archdiocese and the pavilion, which the beer baron's family had used as a conservatory, was transformed into a chapel and the windows replaced with stained glass.
The 10 years since I wrote this story about its woes have not been any kinder to the structure.
“This isn’t something new,” says McCully. “We’re preventing disaster. We have documents dating back 30 years telling us that’s it’s fate. Mother Nature will make the decision for us if we fail to act.”
Over time some stop-gap measures have been undertaken, but they have never been long-term solutions. In 2017, plastic was used to try to help keep the elements at bay and some stabilization work was done three years later.
In 2022, the pavilion was closed and the gift shop and ticketing operations were moved to a new space next door to the mansion.
“The Band-Aids are costing so much it’s making it hard to do the work that needs to be done,” says McCully.
“We could make the outside look great, but if we don’t address the underlying structural problems, it won’t solve the problem.”
By carefully taking apart the pavilion and inspecting and scanning individual pieces, the structure can be reassembled as it was originally intended in Milwaukee, but in a newly strengthened way.
The pavilion will be put back together with a skeleton that includes things it never possessed as a building designed for indoors, like movement joints, weather proofing and insulation.
Nothing from the project will go to waste. McCully says that broken terra cotta pieces will remain at UWM after being scanned and fabricated in their 3-D printing lab to be used as teaching objects.
She calls the relationship with SARUP, “a true partnership. We’re not paying them a dollar and their students are learning.”
The Historic Preservation Institute does this type of work around the world and has scanned, documented and fabricated pieces in a variety of materials for historic buildings around Milwaukee, too.
“As an organization, we are dedicated to celebrating the legacy of the Pabst family and its impact on the citizens, history and culture of the Greater Milwaukee community, most notably through the preservation and ongoing operation of the family’s 1892 historic Pabst Mansion,” says McCully.
“The deconstruction of the pavilion enables us to preserve the pavilion before it is lost, while we work towards our plan to reconstruct the pavilion.”
In addition to filing its application with HPC, the Pabst staff is also gathering estimates and creating a work plan as it prepares to launch a capital campaign to help raise the money needed to undertake the work.
“It’s really going to come down to fundraising,” says McCully when asked about a project timeline.
“If we decided today to say ‘go,’ it couldn’t start for at least a year because it’s going to take that long to get terra cotta. And we don’t even know what it looks like yet until we can scan the individual pieces to see what needs to be replaced.”
While some might see the deconstruction as a negative, it really is a positive step in the right direction if the pavilion is to be saved. It simply will not last much longer out in the elements in its current state.
The can cannot be kicked down the road any further.
“The Pabst Mansion is an incredible historic asset,” says historic preservation advocate Kathy Kean, who McCully says helped save the Pabst Mansion itself from demolition nearly half a century ago.
“I appreciate and support the focus on the future of the mansion, and the careful consideration of what is best for the long-term preservation of both the mansion itself, and the pavilion structure.”
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.
