University Club Milwaukee, $2,728,500

University Club of Milwaukee, 924 E. Wells St. Michael Barera, (CC BY-SA 4.0), via Wikimedia Commons

Simply because an event occurred suddenly doesn’t mean it came as a surprise. Case in point: Tuesday’s permanent closure of the city campus of The University Club of Milwaukee after 125 years in operation. Established in 1898 and still housed today in a 1926 John Russell Pope historic-designated Georgian building at 924 E. Wells St., its management had tried many strategies to keep the organization viable over the decades. These included the 2016 merger with the Tripoli Country Club [Est. 1921]. It was renamed University Club Country Club. That campus, at 7401 N. 43rd St., Brown Deer, will remain.

Management announced the permanent closure Wednesday, citing deferred maintenance, dwindling membership and other issues:

The Board contemplated and exhausted all reasonable alternative scenarios to improve the Club’s financial position and determined that the closure of the downtown facility was the only responsible option. The Club changed focus to preserve the country club experience.

A letter to members states:

Though leadership of both clubs believed that the array of amenities offered by the combined club would positively drive member retention and recruitment, the cultural and operational synergies we hoped for were never realized.

Some years ago a windmill was added to the University Club logo, perhaps a forecast of which way the winds were blowing. Non-golf membership at the club dropped from 500 to 220, while office culture changed post-Covid; appeals for leading fundraising gifts from members were not successful — and the Millennials who were driving the growth of Downtown turned out to not be the joiners of generations past. I doubt many of them are toting golf clubs from their Third Ward condos to the links in Brown Deer, for that matter. The culture clash between suburbia and urban Milwaukee continues.

Building to be Sold

Over the years management liquidated a number of its assets, including a magnificent Deco bronze sculpture that netted in the six-figures about a decade ago. Gone are the fine duck decoys from the library. Significantly, in 2006 ground was broken on the University Club Tower, on land to the north originally intended for club expansion. At 446 feet, it is the tallest residential structure in the state of Wisconsin. It has 53 residences in 37 floors. Buyers were lured by direct access to the club from their building, reached by a corridor lined with the owners’ wine collections. (Brewers owner Mark Attanasio stores his vintages in Wine Room 329.)

Today, any two of the units in the tower are worth more than the entire clubhouse, which has a total assessed valuation of $2,728,500. Five, including Attanasio’s 9,173-square-foot spread are worth more.

Management has elected to sell the downtown clubhouse, although it has not yet been listed. And what are you going to do with this thing?

The Clubhouse in History

We learn from The American Architect and Architecture of June 5th, 1926, published while the building was under construction:

Undoubtedly, it will rank among the best of structures designed to carry out the traditions of the Georgian style, a style that marked the buildings that comprised college groups during the earliest periods of our history. … It will be noted that the ladies’ dining room has a separate entrance and a separate elevator with adequate retiring rooms, all separate and distinct from the club.”

It should also be noted that it is highly unlikely that the ladies of the University Club would have been the sort to find their way up to the 52 sleeping rooms that were then on the fourth and fifth floors of the structure, designed by Pope, a New York architect [1874-1937] and noted traditionalist whose commissions were mainly on the East Coast, including such notable structures as the Jefferson Memorial, the National Gallery of Art and the National Archives.

The building, on a corner lot overlooking Lake Michigan, is 110-feet by 75-feet in area and contains 58,125 square feet of space in its five stories set upon a 18,326 square foot lot. Although its walls are stone and brick, the building is noticeably creaky inside, and filled with nooks and crannies. The library is perhaps the most traditional and untouched of the rooms. This goes for the books themselves, many quite dated at the time of the building’s construction, and some perhaps that might provide another asset to be sold. It probably won’t do much good to haul them up to the country club, unless perhaps they are about golfing.

Having been built during Prohibition, the club’s plans do not indicate any space that might have been used for the purpose of why many people join clubs, and that is to drink. Perhaps some bottles were opened down in the basement, where the four bowling lanes had seating for 50 spectators. Or maybe in one of the two squash courts down there — or maybe in the “Indoor Golf Room,” a harbinger of the club’s future.

To remedy this deficiency, a copper clad penthouse bar was added to the building in 1953, just as the first post-Prohibition babies came of legal drinking age. The bar, called “The Ram,” (because the ram is atop the “U”), was shut down some time ago. It was the only fun place in the whole joint. (The bowling lanes, squash courts and indoor golf disappeared decades ago.)

The Clubhouse Today

In June 2003, history activist Donna Schlieman, who died at 76 in 2013, nominated the University Club for city historic designation, which request was granted by the Common Council and approved by Mayor John Norquist. Barring such designation, it is very likely the building would be marketed as a site for a residential high-rise. This would dismay the residents of the University Club Tower, who had been the winners of the lake view dispute, having been built a year after the next door Kilbourn Tower was constructed, whose residents thus lost the views looking south.

Real estate professionals are doubtless assessing possible future uses for the building. It is unlikely that a new club could be organized “for the congeniality and the social intimacy so very desirable between men of similar tastes or similar occupations,” as The American Architect put it in describing this building.

Perhaps the remaining sleeping rooms might hold a key to the future marketing of the building as a hotel. Yet this might pose an issue, as the amount of non-revenue producing square footage is considerable, what with the library, the 70-foot by 30-foot living room, the card rooms, private dining rooms and rooms for ladies to withdraw. Perhaps it could become an event venue. Or maybe the Millennials might be drawn to the building if it became a glorified live-work space.

Maybe the top three floors could be converted into apartments, and the first two could serve owners of the tower. Barry Mandel built the University Club Tower and lives there. Maybe he can figure this out!

Whoever purchases the building, and whatever its future use, the new owner is obligated by order of the City of Milwaukee Department of Neighborhood Services to “correct exterior maintenance violations cited in Facade Inspection Report. … Correct by 03/01/2025.”

Is a crumbling facade a metaphor for the state of private city clubs?

The Rundown:

• Name of Property: The University Club of Milwaukee
• Address: 924 E. Wells St., City of Milwaukee
• Assessed Valuation: The 18,326 square foot lot is assessed at $1,924,200 ($43.88/s.f.) and the improvements are valued at $804,300 for a total assessed valuation of $2,728,500. (2014 assessment: $2,012,000)
• Taxes: 2023: $69,544.19; current on installment plan.
• Owner: The University Club of Milwaukee. Incorporated 11/12/1898. Jeff Podbielski, Registered Agent.
• Type: Special Mercantile “Sport, Health & Recreational Properties”
• Architect: John Russell Pope
• Year Built: 1926; numerous updates over the years, including a 1953 penthouse bar and a 3-story 1972 porte cochere addition. Named a City of Milwaukee Historic Structure, 2003.
• Neighborhood: Juneau Town
• Aldermanic District: 4th; Robert Bauman
• Walk Score: 93 out of 100 “Walker’s Paradise”
• Transit Score: 63 out of 100 “Good Transit”
• Bike Score: 70 out of 100 “Very Bikeable”
• How Milwaukee is it? It is 0.6 miles, or a 12-minute walk, from City Hall