Pabst Mansion Starts Major Exterior Restoration Project
Milwaukee's best-known house will no longer need buckets to capture rain inside.
Ald. Robert Bauman, Mame McCcully, Lindsey St. Arnold Bell, John Padberg and Jocelyn Slocum hold up trowels after signing terra cotta elements at Pabst Mansion. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.
Break out the golden trowels.
Work is starting on a comprehensive exterior restoration of Milwaukee’s most famous house: the Pabst Mansion.
Supporters, project partners and house museum staff members gathered Thursday to ceremonially start the work and sign terra cotta components that will be reinstalled as part of the $5.6 million project.
Billed as a generational project, the goal is to ensure the 133-year-old structure can stand for another 133 years. However, it will also benefit the museum’s operations in a not-so-subtle way. “I think the people it’s most exciting for are the ones that figure out where the buckets go when it rains,” joked board chair Mame McCully at a ceremony held on the house’s front porch.
The $2.5 million first phase is focused on restoring the south facade, gables, chimneys and porte-cochere. The second phase will focus on the north side as well as restoring the approximately 100 windows on the 20,000-square-foot structure. A potential third phase would involve reconstructing and restoring the building’s pavilion structure, originally built in Chicago as a Pabst Brewing Company booth for the 1893 World’s Fair, which was recently disassembled and stored in the basement.
“Starting this spring, utilizing the skill and the craftsmanship of our union tradespeople, we’ll begin to carefully dismantle and rebuild key components of the facade that deteriorated over time,” said John Padberg of general contractor Berglund Construction. “The process involves removal of individual pieces of terra cotta and bricks, piece-by-piece, salvaging as much of the original fabric as possible, and then rebuilding it in a similar manner in which it was originally constructed.”
“I’m glad to see this project moving forward,” said area Alderman Robert Bauman, the council’s leading preservation advocate and the owner of a house that one of the Pabst’s children briefly lived in. “It is a very challenging project, both from a technical standpoint and a fundraising standpoint.”
Pabst Mansion Director of Advancement Morgan Sweet said $1.2 million in philanthropic support has been raised so far, but more is still needed. The nonprofit also expects to use historic preservation tax credits from the state to cover 20% of the project’s costs.
“The work is tedious, slow, and precise, but when we’re done, it will be in place for the rest of our lifetimes,” said Padburg.
Near West Side Partners Executive Lindsey St. Arnold Bell called the house “the crown jewel of Wisconsin Avenue” and said the project ensures the historic house remains an icon for the city. “We are encouraging everyone to come out and rediscover the Pabst Mansion,” she said.
Starting in May, the building’s exterior will be temporarily shrouded in scaffolding. But the interior will remain unchanged during the restoration. The first phase is expected to last into the fall.
Klein & Hoffman is leading the design on the project.
The mansion was built as a home for Captain Frederick Pabst and his wife Maria in 1892 by Milwaukee architects Ferry & Clas. The couple’s descendants sold the house in 1908 to the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, which used it as the archbishop’s residence for 67 years. It was sold again in 1975 and was almost replaced with a parking lot. It was converted to a house museum in 1978.
Photos
Ceremony
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This is good news.
I haven’t been to the Pabst Mansion in years but, even back in the day, it needed some lovin’. (Note: I did a semester-long PR internship at the mansion back in 1984. Even then, Journalism majors needed to get what experience we could…)
I would love for something nice to happen with the grounds, too. The mansion is surrounded by commercial buildings of middling design. Trees and bushes would help!