See Inside Historic “Red Castle” Mansion, Now For Sale

Schuster Mansion. Photo from Beth Rose Real Estate and Auctions

One of Milwaukee’s most notable homes is on the market.

The Schuster Mansion, 3209 W. Wells St. contains 19 rooms (eight bedrooms) across its approximately 9,300 square feet of space in the city’s Concordia neighborhood. Dubbed “the Red Castle,” it was built in 1891 for George Schuster.

Most recently, it’s been used as a bed and breakfast. Now, it can be your dream home or turnkey business if you’re the winner of a newly-opened auction. The bidding starts at $500,000 and closes on Dec. 17.

Laura Sue and husband Richard Mosier report investing approximately $1 million in renovating the three-story, German Renaissance Revival-style home, including replacing all of the windows and spending $200,000 on improvements to the garden.

Schuster, the son of German immigrants, owned and operated a tobacco merchant business in the Historic Third Ward with his brother. He was not, at least according to contemporary newspaper accounts, related to the department store family.

Architects Charles Crane and Carl Barkhausen designed the ‘castle’ as a single-family home and it stayed that way until Schuster’s widow sold it in 1924. From then until 2001 it served as an apartment building, one of many historic west-side mansions to be carved up. In the past two decades, a series of owners did their best to restore the home to its original grandeur.

The current owners purchased the property from Arne and Eunice Vedum, who initiated the bed-and-breakfast conversion.

“This is the opportunity of a lifetime for anyone with a dream of owning a bed and breakfast, and in this case, a magnificent mansion too,” said auctioneer Beth Rose.

A 2007 historic designation study called it “Milwaukee’s premier 19th-century‘ castle.’”

You can try it before you buy it. The bed and breakfast is currently offering rooms starting at $100 per night. If you don’t want to spend the night, the inn also offers a regularly scheduled tea service.

A public walk-through is planned for Dec. 5.

The inn offers four suites and three single rooms. An innkeeper’s quarters is located on the top floor.

The house was listed for sale for $2.2 million earlier this year with Tina Ferlindes of Realty Executives – Integrity. The new auction is in partnership with Realty Executives.

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