What’s The Future of The Charles Allis Art Museum?

Charles Allis Art Museum. Photo by Dave Reid.

The Charles Allis Art Museum has long been owned and maintained by Milwaukee County, but lately the cost to maintain the early 20th century has proven more than policymakers can bear.

Like many of Milwaukee County government’s assets, the mansion housing the museum at 1801 N. Prospect Ave. came into its possession in the late 1970s, long before the financial turmoil that has shaped county government.

The mansion was built by Charles and Sarah Allis in 1911 as their personal residence, and as a future home for the world-class art collection they had amassed. Charles had inherited the Edward P. Allis Company from his father and, through a merger, it grew into the giant Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company. The Tudor-style building was designed by famed Milwaukee architect Alexander C. Eschweiler.

The Allis’ had always planned to leave the mansion and their art collection to the public as a museum. The gift originally went to the Milwaukee Public Library, but was transferred to the county in 1979.

The building is now 112 years old and in need of regular repair and maintenance. But as a public asset, major renovations have to be pushed through the political process of the county board, and that has proven difficult. A pending budget amendment seeks to get the county off the hook altogether.

An amendment to the 2024 county budget would have county officials review the county’s contractual obligations to the museum and “explore opportunities to terminate the County’s on-going operational and capital support.”

The brick facade of the building is sagging and in need of repair. In recent years, there have also been improvements and maintenance identified by the county’s Facilities Management Division that are needed to keep the building safe.

The 2023 county budget originally included $1.8 million for repairs to the facade of the building. But during the budget process, supervisors Shawn Rolland, Juan Miguel Martinez, Steve Taylor, Deanna Alexander, Peter Burgelis and Patti Logsdon successfully introduced an amendment that pulled the funding from the museum and moved it to a handful of Parks-system projects.

During the past summer, as the county’s ad-hoc Capital Improvements Committee (CIC) was working through infrastructure and maintenance projects to recommend to County Executive David Crowley, the Charles Allis Museum was once again among a long list of projects for committee members to consider.

“I understand this the sentiment that this is not necessarily the top priority in terms of county services, and such, but I also know it’s a county-owned building, and we own it,” said Joe Lamers, director of the Office of Performance, Strategy and Budget at the CIC meeting. “And even if we wanted to not own it, there’s some complications to that as well.”

Celia Benton, with the county’s Department of Administrative Services, told the committee that it is no surprise to leadership at the museum that the county’s appetite to own the museum is waning. She said there have been conversations with museum leaders about “our relationship and future opportunities.”

“But I can say it is my understanding that we are responsible for the facilities and do have a responsibility to maintain health and safety issues,” Benton said.

Sup. Liz Sumner, who chairs the county board’s powerful Finance and Budget Committees, has pushed for Charles Allis funding in the budget, but has also expressed doubt about its ability to survive the board.

“I am in favor of [recommending it to the county executive],” Sumner told the CIC. “But I think even if it made it through this committee, it’s not going to make it out of the Finance Committee. So I don’t really know what the point is in [recommending it].”

The Budget Committee has already endorsed a major omnibus amendment to the 2024 budget, which included funding for Charles Allis in addition to many other projects. Approximately $270,000 is budgeted to make safety repairs and to replace a number of doors and windows.

But the same day that funding earned the endorsement of the Budget Committee, another amendment, sponsored by Rolland, also gained the support of the committee. It calls for an “exit strategy” to be developed.

“So what this amendment would do is simply ask the administration — I think we just need to make a call on this — ask the administration to investigate if there is a good way to create an exit strategy that allows Charles Allis to become independent from the county,” Rolland explained to his colleagues, “to go after philanthropy, and funders as an independent entity.”

Rolland said he felt like the board in recent years had been rejecting funding for Charles Allis without developing a “Plan B.”

“I know our board has had several conversations about Charles Allis,” he said. “Whether it fits well within the portfolio of capital improvements that we need to make, or if it feels off-center, in comparison to the long laundry list of things that we need to tackle.”

Both Rolland’s amendment and the funding for improvements to the museum are headed to the full board for possible for inclusion in the 2024 budget, canceling out a clear signal of county policymakers’ intentions for the old mansion on Milwaukee’s East Side.

Operationally, the Charles Allis Art Museum is managed in tandem with another unusual county asset: the Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum, 2200 N. Terrace Ave. Jaymee Harvey Willms serves as the executive director of the nonprofit overseeing the two museums.