Secret Garden Unveils Classic Batchelder Fountain

It’s not every day when you suddenly find a historic tiled fountain on your property. Though, if you are running a daycare and launching a new school in a 26,000-square-foot building from 1931, it can be a possibility, as it certainly was when I met Sherry Williams, Executive Director of the Universal Scholars Academy.

In 2021, Sherry Williams and her partner, William Warren, embarked on a new journey of creating a school within the historic funeral home at 53rd and North Ave. As you can imagine, there is no shortage of quirks in such a facility.

Driven to educate learners of all types, Williams and Warren call their school the Universal Scholars Academy (USA). They do just about anything you can imagine in running the academy, from operations to teaching, cleaning, cooking, giving moral support and life lessons, and more. After successfully completing three years of educating K4-5 children, they now have a staff of five teachers and facilities and kitchen help for their 75 students at USA.

There is also a daycare called Young Creative Minds Academy, that can serve over a hundred children from 4 weeks to 13 years old. The daycare is on the ground floor and the school is in the basement.

Considering all the myriad of tasks they do, cleaning up their quaint garden patio tucked behind an office was not on the top of their to-do list. Until last summer when I walked by the building and noticed something familiar.

Finding tiles in plain sight on Milwaukee streets is certainly a pleasure, but this was something more. This was a tiled fountain, a feature usually nestled in the sunroom of a private residence, but here it was visible from the sidewalk. The fountain was set back in the patio, behind a decorative wrought iron screen and robust vegetation. I left a message with Williams asking for a tour, and the next morning, her spouse and I were ripping out a tree from the fountain!

Initially when we entered the patio, we found a layer of soil filling the basin with weeds growing in abundance. Warren and I eagerly cleaned it all out, from which we found buried shards of tiles that belonged to the top of the fountain. We set those aside, and were left with a tree that wouldn’t easily go. The tough roots stubbornly held their ground among the tiny one-inch tiles of the basin. We yanked, pulled, and finally with a cutting tool released the junk tree from the fountain.

What we’d discovered was a Batchelder tile fountain design 545. It’s approximately seven feet tall and was probably used as a fish pond as there is no water spout or fountain bowl. The focal point has a tile known as Pot and Seven Flowers, nestled in a field of bright blue and green mosaic tiles. Various parrot tiles keep your eye moving, with foliage going in different directions that make it feel like you are discovering a new bird in every tile. Sailing ship tiles are arranged in fleets along the basin.

The design of the fountain is what one would expect in a Mediterranean Revival building in this country, which is the style of the building.

These tiles are significant in that they were manufactured by the Batchelder-Wilson Company from Pasadena, California. The company was founded by designer Ernest Batchelder, who started his tile company in his home studio in 1915. By the time this fountain was installed, Batchelder was one of the most desired handmade tile makers in America and his tiles were found in many residences across southeast Wisconsin.

In addition to the impressive fountain, more decorative features are found inside the building. The historic entrance greets guests with Flandria pavers from the Continental Faience & Tile Co. of South Milwaukee, WI, as well as a colorful dado (the lower part of a wall) made of glazed Batchelder tiles. There are also more floors with tiles and terrazzo, decorative plasterwork on the walls, wrought iron doors, and bronze chandeliers hanging from wooden beamed ceilings with hand painted designs.

The elaborate design of this building is rather grand, but was not unique when it was built as the Ritter Funeral Home in 1931. In the same year, the architects, Dick & Bauer, also designed the Wendler & Son Funeral Home (now New Pitts Mortuary) on Capitol Drive and Teutonia Avenue and the Fred C. Fass & Son Funeral Home (now Northshore Funeral Services) on Oakland Avenue in Shorewood.

In the Northshore Funeral Services building, many similar decorations are found as well, including Batchelder fireplaces and other colorful, faience tiles.

The handmade tiles and other historic finishes may not have been the driving force for Williams and Warren in deciding to operate their school here, but these decorations offer a unique backdrop to the learning environment of their pupils and inspire their creative thinking.

Meanwhile, it’s worth adding that most of all the original features of the funeral home, such as some of the mortuary equipment, remain interspersed between classrooms. Although they are left alone and for the large part are barely noticeable, it’s interesting to observe how creatively these two have transformed the building to meet the needs of their scholars.

If interested in enrolling your children to Universal Scholars Academy or the daycare services, you can contact Sherry Williams by going to their website, https://universalscholarsacademy.org/.

Photos

This is the eighth in a series of stories on tile artworks in Milwaukee by writer Ben Tyjeski, an art teacher who was named a 2023 Mildred L. Harpole Artist of the Year by the Milwaukee Arts Board. 

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