Live jazz is back on Milwaukee’s East Side, which can only mean one thing these days: The Estate, 2423 N. Murray Ave., is back!

For years, the Estate – aka the Jazz Estate – has been one of the only club settings in town to regularly host live jazz, along with some other music, too.

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Though it’s an East Side landmark – and its home has been a bar since the end of Prohibition – the Estate may not be quite as old as you think, though, it is pretty long-lived so far.

But recently many feared it might be gone for good.

In September 2023, after trying to shift to just doing cocktails, causing a stir, owner John Dye closed the place, opening only for occasional special events, sparking concern that it might never reopen.

But, recently, Dye did reopen The Estate with regular – if somewhat limited for now – hours and a calendar of live music.

“We just had to do that because we were having shows and 10 people would show up, and that's just not a business,” Dye says. “So our choice back then was we either try to kind of rebrand and put a placeholder in it, and hopefully people will just come for cocktails or we just close. We gave that a shot and ended up just closing anyway.  

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“People weren't into it. That’s part of historic businesses – they have a wonderful following, but sometimes it's also a little inflexible.”

Part of what ultimately allowed The Estate to survive is the fact that Dye is his own landlord.

“We were faced with a lot of hard decisions during Covid, and honestly, if we didn't own the building, that would've been the end of this club,” Dye says. “And part of it, too, is that we were trying to save the staff's jobs.

“We had a staff here and we knew if we closed, we'd be letting them all go, and we didn't particularly want to do that. We did the best with the information we had. It was very hard, and it was just a lot of struggle to keep it going.”

No one was saddened more about it all than Dye himself, who also owns At Random and Bryant’s Cocktail Lounge (and, soon, Von Trier). He loves history and he loves the historic businesses of which he’s a steward.

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This history of his East Side place is no less interesting than the long, storied pasts of Bryant’s and At Random.

While The Estate appears to occupy a small single-story building in front of a house – which it does – it is also literally and physically tied to that house, with the stage, back seating area and restrooms occupying the bulk of the home’s basement.

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As you might expect, the house at the back was constructed first, in the late 19th century and served mainly as a residence, though in the 1920s, realtor Louis Hicks had his office there.

By early 1931 the Gibes family had moved in.

John Gibes was born Janusz Francisek Gibes, near Jadowniki Mokre in the Russian-controlled Kingdom of Poland, to Jozef Mathias Gibes and Salomei Ania Budek, who emigrated to the United States with their three children in 1894 and Salomei 8 months pregnant.

Gibes’ father had come to America at least four times before between 1885 and 1893 and thus they had a specific destination: Lark’s Lake, near Pellston, Michigan, where the elder Gibes had cleared 60 acres of land and built a house and via land purchases and sales helped spark a Polish community there. That community erected the first St. Nicholas Church (since replaced).

John moved to Milwaukee in 1909, taking on work as chief marine engineer for Pittsburgh Steamship Co., suggesting he’d be doing similar work previously. Two years later, he married  Anastasia Scislowski – known to her friends as Stella – at St Hedwig's on Brady Street.

Together they would have nine children, including twin boys in September 1930.

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Gibes left the steamship company in 1926 and began selling used cars, but after four years he went back out on the lake.

Perhaps due to the arrival of his twin boys in late 1930, Gibes wanted to set himself – and/or Stella – with a business closer to home and in March 1931, he pulled a permit to build a small, 17x20, store building with a basement for use as a “soft drink parlor” (which by now we know was quote often code for a bar illicitly selling alcohol during Prohibition).

However, the authorities back then knew that, too, and maybe that’s why it appears that, after the building was put up, an occupancy permit for that type of business dead-ended.

Instead, in June 1932, Gibes rented the new space to Lillydahl Corporation, a local real estate firm, that in addition to brokering property sales, also built investment properties, like the small retail and residential building that survives today on the southwest corner of Ogden and Astor.

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Somewhat confusingly, in 1932, a William Frank Gibes was arrested in 1932 “for decorating his wife Antonia with a black eye on Decoration Day,” and the couple and their five children were living at the Murray Avenue address.

I haven’t been able to discover how William and John are related, though the latter was only 10 years older than the former. It’s possible they were brothers – both worked for the Pittsburgh Steamship Co., William as a marine oiler – but a list of John’s siblings I found on a genealogy website did not include a William.

William, who was born in Pellston, was married to a woman with the same surname, Scislowski, as John’s mother. Perhaps he and John were cousins?

Not long after Repeal arrived in 1933, Lillydahl seems to have vacated the space. A few years later, in 1940, Earl Lillydahl was recruited to run against long-time incumbent Socialist Mayor Daniel Hoan, though in the end Carl Zeidler also ran, as a Democrat, and Zeidler won the seat.

In 1936, a Helen Jumps was operating a tavern in the tiny bar, which back then only occupied the bar space in what is now The Estate. The area with the stage was a storage room separated by a wall.

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The Gibes family – William, not John, is now listed as the owner of the property on permits – was also renting an apartment or rooms in the house for income.

But things were not rosy as in 1937, William, then 39, was arrested and charged with manslaughter after a fight that led to the death of John Stewart who ran a gas station on Green Bay and Silver Spring.

However, Gibes was acquitted by a jury that heard testimony from witnesses that Stewart struck Gibes first.

Around this time, the tiny tap was being operated by an Edward Czech.

From August 1942 through April 1943, “Business Opportunity” classified ads offered the tavern presumably for rent, though possibly also for sale, noting its, “fine East Side location, modern fixtures, good trade.”

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According to the 1950 census, Antonina was still living at the Murray Avenue house with her two sons, but was separated from William, who was lodging elsewhere. None of the three is noted as operating a tavern.

Documents show that by 1950, Erwin Pociecha had opened Lolly’s, named in honor of his wife Rosella Gibes (sound familiar?), whose nickname was Lolly.

Pociecha – who everyone called Chuck – was born in Milwaukee in 1921 and graduated from South Division High. Pociecha worked at Cutler-Hammer when America entered World War II. 

In 1945 he mustered into the U.S. Marine Corps and according to his obituary, he spent time in Okinawa, Japan; New Britain island; Tientsin, China; and occupied Japan.

Returning to Milwaukee, he married William and Antonina Gibes’ daughter Lolly in 1947, likely opening the bar around that time.

By either 1953 or 1956 – depending on the source – they closed Lolly’s but operated other bars.

Though the Pociechas leave our story for now, they’re not gone for good.

After Lolly’s, Jimmy Champion ran the Coach Inn in the diminutive saloon and he stayed a long time.

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Champion was born in Milwaukee in 1919 and graduated from Lincoln High School.

Joining the Army in 1942, Champion served in Burma, India and China before coming back home in 1946.

After the war, says his grandson Bobby Greenya, Champion worked as a bartender at The Tuxedo on Downer, Buddy Beek's and Denny Holland's Club Midnight.

Coach Inn, opened with his wife Bette, was Champion’s first bar.

Greenya says, “My mom said they had 13 bar stools. I can't remember there being (as many as) 13 stools there. At the end of the bar, there was a wall and a jukebox and (behind the wall was) the storage area.”

Coach Inn was a well-known stop on the St. Patrick’s Day circuit, famed for its Irish stew. It also became known for the long-running Champion’s Coach Inn Invitational, which is still going at Lake Park.

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This year’s event will be the 67th iteration of the 18-hole tournament that finishes in record time.

“My grandfather was a genius,” Greenya says. “Because people go out and do these golf outings and they're out at the course all day. They drink in the sun, they're out there for five, six hours, then they come back. They're not going to spend any money at your place, but you go out for an hour and a half...

“Even if you're terrible like me, it still only takes about an hour and a half, maybe an hour.”

By the early 1970s, the Pociechas wanted to get back into the business, says Greenya.

“They wanted to kick us out,” Greenya says. “But because we had the liquor license, they couldn’t, because the license is tied to a person, not the address.

“So we bought this place,” he adds as we sit at the bar at Champion’s Pub, 2417 N. Bartlett Ave., which he now owns and operates.

For a few years, though, the Champions ran both places.

“My grandfather kept the old guys that he had in the business over there (at Coach Inn),” Greenya explains. And then my uncle, Jimmy Jr. ran this place with kind of a younger crowd. There was music, and he would have things like hat night and just different weird things.”

In 1977, the Gibes family listed the house and tavern for sale but in the end the buyers were familiar folks.

Erwin and Lolly Pociecha bought it from her mother’s estate, hence the name of the bar they opened there – The Estate – when in mid-1978, Jimmy Champion shut the Coach Inn and went to work with his son on Bartlett Avenue.

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(More on the history of Champion’s is on the way next week!)

When the Pociechas opened The Estate they wanted to give it a jazz club vibe, so they installed a juke box and Erwin brought in his stash of Stan Kenton records.

“I always had this idea of having a real jazz environment, playing records from my own personal collection,” Erwin told a local newspaper.

"Now we might stick a little Chuck Mangione in there once in a while to please some customers, but mostly it’s what we ourselves want to hear – Charlie Parker, Charlie Byrd, Getz, Kenton, Ellington and all the old jazz greats."

It would seem that this is when the storage space became a performance area and over the years, its miniscule stage would host gigs by everyone from jazz veterans like saxophonists Joe Henderson, pianist Cedar Walton and singer Little Jimmy Scott to then-newbies like Harry Connick Jr.

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Of course, local legends like guitarist Manty Ellis, organist Mel Rhyne and saxmen Berkeley Fudge and Hattush Alexander also performed.

In 1983, drummer and club owner Sal Monreal took over and further emphasized live music, often with himself on drums.

Monreal hired Steve Wickman to manage the place in 1989 and the following year Wickman bought it and the music kept on coming, as it did after Mike Honkamp bought it with Brian Sanders in 2000.

Later, Honkamp, who also owned Rochambo on Brady Street with his wife Melissa, became the sole owner.

It was during this era that The Estate became synonymous with local jazz funk group The Erotic Adventures of the Static Chicken, which would lead hours-long jam sessions that became very popular.

It made sense that musician Matt Turner, an employee and a member of the Static Chicken, might take over The Estate when Honkamp decided to sell, but in the end, Turner pitched the venue to John Dye.

"The Estate is another piece of Milwaukee history," he told Molly Snyder. "It’s really exciting for me to keep the tradition going."

"John is an established and successful operator who has all the right skills and knowledge to take The Estate to the next level and keep the positive evolution we started in 2000," Honkamp added.

Dye then spent much of 2016 remodeling the place, keeping the classic vibe while spiffing things up.

He opened the windows in front; updated the bathroom, carpeting, flooring, furniture and more; scrubbed off the smell of stale cigarette smoke; and added acoustic dampening materials that you’d never know are doing that work (such as a ceiling that looks like old pressed tin), among other things.

But Covid worked its black magic on The Estate, as it did on pretty much every bar, restaurant and club, leading to the woes discussed earlier.

“During that time after Covid, I only had so much attention,” Dye recalls. “I only have 14-hour days to work. “And the fact is that At Random and Bryant's really needed my attention, too, and they were just financially more important. Not saying it’s not important here, but just financially I had to make that decision.”

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But that’s the past and now The Estate is back, though if folks want it to stay open and keep hosting live music, they’ll have to vote with their feet by showing up.

When I visited, the place looked great and was ready to go for the return to regular hours.  I especially like the photos of local jazz legends like Manty Ellis and dancer Satin Doll that decorate the walls.

While I was there, Dye also showed me some back-of-house spaces (there are not many), including the basement added when the bar was constructed.

That area is tiny and accessed by a trap door in the floor near the bar.

“It’s little, but it sort of works,” Dye says with a laugh. “It's funny because the new beer delivery guys look at the stairway and they're like, ‘what?’”

Dye says that his staff only really goes down there before and after service because when the bar is open, there is seating atop the trap door.

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“We take up everything we think we're going to need, that door gets closed and it doesn't get opened back up,” he says. “Every once in a while we'll be like, ‘oh no, we need to get back down there,’ and we have to clear everyone away.”

After we peek into a small storage area at the back of The Estate – which is in the basement of the house – we go out and around to see one of the flats in the duplex.

While one is rented, the other is being gussied up for rent as an Airbnb.

It’ll be a nice-sized place to stay in the heart of Milwaukee’s East Side, walkable to the lake.

And, hey, when folks rent it, they’ll be helping to keep The Estate rocking with great cocktails and top local musicians.