25,000-Square-Foot East Side Mansion For Sale

In the market for a new home? Is money no object? UW-Milwaukee has just the house for you.

The university is looking to sell or lease its alumni center, located at the east end of E. Kenwood Blvd. on the city’s East Side.

Included in the sale, offered via a request for proposal (RFP) process, is a three-story, 25,553-square-foot house as well as 3.9 acres of land. The property includes approximately 175 feet of Lake Michigan frontage.

“The Myron T. MacLaren House is architecturally significant as one of the city’s finest Tudor style mansions. It displays a fineness of materials and craftsmanship nearly unequaled in Milwaukee,” says a 1991 historic designation report on the property at 3230 E. Kenwood Blvd.

Built in 1923 to the specifications of architect Fitzhugh Scott, the mansion has been owned by the university since 1949. What was then the Milwaukee State Teachers College purchased the building for $75,000 for use as a woman’s dormitory before it was converted to a conference center in 1964.

The only owners of the property other than the university were Myron and Gertrude MacLaren (nee Schlesinger), though the couple divorced less than four years after the home was finished. Myron worked for Schlesinger family business, Milwaukee Coke and Gas Company (the site of which is currently being redeveloped), as an executive. They remarried in 1936 and resumed living in the home together until Myron passed away in 1941 at the age of 54. Gertrude married, for a fourth time, in 1947 and moved out of the city.

The home, and its 14 bedrooms, could now be yours. But the university warns that upgrades to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act necessary for any public use could be costly. A private residence would not have to comply with ADA-standards, but any exterior modifications would need to be approved by the city’s Historic Preservation Commission.

Bids are due at 4 p.m. on August 5th. The Assessor’s Office estimates the tax-exempt property is worth $1.9 million, but its records for tax-exempt properties are often out of date. Case in point, the records indicate the 3.9-acre lot is worth only $120,800.

Tom Daykin of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel first reported on the listing.

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