In Milwaukee on the campus of Loyola University you'll find a really cool old Mansion...the Pabst Mansion.
Captain Frederick Pabst and his wife, Maria Best Pabst, had this house built in 1892 on fashionable Wisconsin Avenue. Captain Pabst was an actual captain of a boat. He captained a steamer on the Great Lakes. In 1862, he married Maria Best. Maria's father, Phillip Best, owned a brewery. In 1864, Best sold half the interest of Best Brewery to his son-in-law. Best retired in 1866 and then, in 1899, the company was officially renamed Pabst Brewery. The family lived near the brewery until this house was built in 1892.
When you walk in the front door (which we did not because the porch is under construction), this is the view that you see. This is the reception hall. Most of the furnishings are original to the house. Not so this particular chandelier. The original is actually in a bar. This is a reproduction. It was set up for electricity as well as gas.
The house has 20,000 square feet and 14 fireplaces. This bust of Frederick Pabst was created from a mask taken at his death. It sits in the entryway of the reception hall. The Pabsts had ten children, five of whom survived to adulthood. None of them were raised in this house. As his children married, they were given mansions of their own. Since they all had their own places, none of them wanted the house or any of the belongings when their parents died. The house was sold to the Archdiocese in 1908.
At the far end of the reception hall is this Musician's Nook. The Pabsts built this house mostly for entertaining. If you attended a party here, there would be musicians playing stringed instruments that could be heard throughout the house. The light fixture hanging here originally hung in the third floor.
This is a Black Forest grandfather clock. I love the antelope that is carved at the top.
A view of the reception hall from the other side. Back in the day, there would have been ceremonial chairs along with this built in bench for visitors to sit.
From the front doors to the left is Mars. Pabst's Parlor. The bright pink is a bit much but all the furnishings are original to the room. The room was used exclusively by Mrs. Pabst and often where she would have afternoon coffees (not tea!) or where the ladies would retreat for conversation following a dinner party.
This room had embedded mirrors. In the back to the left you can see the oak shutters that folded into the wall. The shutters were designed for security, ventilation and insulation. The shades are reproductions of the originals that were created in Franklin, Indiana.
Also in Mrs. Pabst's Salon you can see this bust of their daughter, Marie. It was sculpted in 1893 for Marie and her husband, William Osborne Goodrich, as a wedding present. I don't think that's a gift I could appreciate. It was done by a famous sculptor named Gaetano Tentanove. He also did the bust of Frederick Pabst.
Across the Reception Hall from Mrs. Pabst's Salon is the Music Room. The architectural style of this room is Italian Renaissance. It's very dark. The Pabst family would entertain guests here with performances by popular singers accompanied on the grand piano. I find it interesting that none of the Pabst family members played any instruments.
In this room is a portrait of Frederick Pabst that he really didn't like. When the Archdiocese bought the property, they painted everything white.
In 1897, Captain Pabst's youngest daughter, Emma, married Rudolph Nunnemacher in this room. They held the reception out on the front lawn.
In the doorway to the music room, Elsbeth Pabst, granddaughter to the Pabsts, carved her name into the woodwork.
In the Music Room is this very large music box. It has a large gold wheel that plays the William Tell Overture. Apparently, it still works too! Too bad we couldn't get a demo.
This little side room off the dining room is the conservatory. It was used by the Pabst family as an intimate place to read the paper and sip coffee and to be seen from the street. Apparently, Wisconsin Avenue was where a lot of the wealthy families in Milwaukee lived. So from this big window Captain Pabst could be seen by passers by as he read all the morning papers.
The Dining Room is done in Louis XV style. It's a gorgeous room. The table is laid out with a full set of China that used to belong to Mrs. Pabst's sister. The table is original to the house was designed specifically for this room.
There are two of these built in cabinets, one in each corner of this side of the room. They were done by the Matthews Brothers who were the finest craftsmen in Milwaukee at the time.
Note the rose in the shell motif along the ceiling. The painted scenes along the wall were done by the Pabst's son-in-law, Otto von Ernst. These murals were painted over white when the archdiocese bought the house.
The mirrors in this room are not embedded but when the archdiocese had this place, they painted around the mirrors. That was helpful for the restoration. When the mirrors were taken down, the restoration team was able to see what the original pattern of the walls was.
When Captain Pabst went to the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, there was a pavilion that he liked so much, he had it moved to his property. It sat outside the dining room. This is the doorway that led to a covered passage which led to the pavilion.
To the back of the house near the port cochere entrance is The Captain's Study aka The Smoking Room. It's a cool room with lots of built in or hidden cabinets. It's kind of dark though.
This is a photo of Captain Pabst. Our guide, Maura, who was full of interesting nuggets of information told us that he preferred this photo of himself to the portrait that was hanging in the music room.
The windows are hand-blown glass. The desk is kind of small so maybe not a lot of work was done here.
In the ceiling, the German Fraktur lettering presents several proverbs reflecting Captain Pabst's outlook on life. Working counter clockwise from above the fireplace mantel they translate as the following: Learn/A feeling heart suffers pain - Strive/Bread eaten with thankfulness inspires a joyful heart - Honor/Never have I found on earth anything more priceless than a quiet and true heart. - Wait/Never soft, never loud what a friend confides in you.
The Grand Staircase is gorgeous! The newel posts are crowned with hops buds, a nod to the brewing profession.
On the second floor is this landing. It would be a cool spot for a kid who is supposed to be in bed to watch the festivities on the first floor. The only "kid" that actually lived here when the Pabsts were here was their granddaughter Elsbeth. More on her later.
This is Emma's Room. Emma was the youngest surviving daughter of Frederick and Maria Pabst. At the time the Pabsts' moved into the mansion, Emma was unmarried.
Her room was unusual in that she had her own ensuite bathroom. The sink is marble and the faucet as well as the legs are nickel-plated.
The tub is cast iron trimmed in wood. It was sitting in the basement. Maura was telling us that it was very difficult to get back up in this room as it was super heavy.
Mrs. Pabst felt that the upstairs was a private area for family only. This is the second floor foyer. It's furnished with comfortable chairs. Behind the stained glass doors on the left is a bathroom. It seems odd that a bathroom would have windows in the doors but, again, this was a private area. You can't really see them in the photo but there are hooks on the walls outside the bedroom door. When a garment needed to be laundered, it would be hung on the hooks and the maids would come by and take them to the laundress.
This is Elsbeth's room. Elsbeth was the daughter of Elizabeth and Otto von Ernst. When Elizabeth died in 1891, the Pabsts adopted her. Her father, Otto von Ernst went back to Germany. The portrait over the fireplace is of Elsbeth. She was 16 when her grandmother passed away in 1906. She was sent to boarding school. In 1915, she married Douglas Parmentier but she never lived in this house again.
Elsbeth had a nice sized room along with a nice sized bathroom. The family had, what I think, is an odd fixation on animal feet. Many of the sinks in the house, like this one, have legs that end in hooves. Elsbeth also had a changing room and closet just beyond the bathroom.
The next room is Mrs. Pabst's sitting room. It has the same footprint as the music room on the first floor. This is where Mrs. Pabst would spend her time writing letters, and most likely running the household. The room is lovely. My favorite spot is the area by the front windows but it seems like wasted space. I believe the portrait over the fireplace is Mrs. Pabst.
Adjacent to Mrs. Pabst's sitting room is the master bedroom. Maura told us that this room would have contained two beds, one at each end of the room. The space is huge. The doorway to the back leads to an ensuite bathroom. Considering the house was built in 1892, there were quite a few bathrooms in this house.
This painting in the master bedroom used to hang at the Pabst Brewery and was quite controversial as the children in the painting are drinking beer. The painting is called "The Art of Brewing" and it's supposed to represent purity suggesting Pabst beer was brewed with the purest ingredients.
Up on the third floor, is this glass skylight above the Grand Staircase. This skylight's pattern features four shields surrounded by garlands of ribbons and leaves. In the center are two decorative panels embellished with volutes and scrolls. These can be opened to provide ventilation through a rooftop cupola during the hot summary days. While there were a many conveniences in this house, air conditioning was not one of them.
A view of the grand staircase looking down from the third floor. There was also an elevator in the area where the servants worked.
The Secondary Guest Bedroom was up on the third floor. It looks quite simple and maybe it is. This room has the only two north facing windows in the main portion of the mansion.
The third floor had a foyer as well. Not quite as cozy as the one on the second floor, it was more of a transitional space.
This was the primary guest room once thought to be occupied by Marie Pabst, eldest daughter of the Pabst family. She stayed here from July 1892 to November 1892 before she married William Goodrich. The doorway on the left leads to another bathroom.
The Library, also on this floor, was used by the two Pabst sons. This room also has access to a bathroom.
There's a whole section of all three floors of the house that are designated for the servants. This is where the elevator is.
The servants staircase in the back. There are rooms on this side of the house on all three floors as well that were used by the servants. There was also a separate servants residence on the property. Both the butler and the coachman, for example, lived in residences outside the main mansion.
This is the drying porch on the second floor. Laundry in the 1890s was a three day affair: one to wash, one to dry and one to press.
The servants dining room was effectively a staging area for any final preparations for meals in addition to a place for the servants to each. Note the marble sink with the nickel legs as well as the Dutch tiles that were made in Delft.
The tiles were hand-painted. The wood box has the speaking tubes that the family would use to communicate with the servants.
Next to the servants dining room is the Butler's Pantry. It's from this room the food would be served. This room had a large safe that was fitted with felt-lined drawers. The safe stored all the valuables such as silverware that was real silver, jewelry as well as other valuables. The butler had to be the most trusted servant in the house to be trusted with the combination to the safe. He was in charge of the kitchen staff.
The Butler's Pantry held everything required to set the dining room table. In the back of the photo is an ice-box to keep cold food cold. Above that is a wood door where ice was stored to keep the ice box cool. Every two weeks the Wisconsin Lakes Ice and Cartage company delivered a supply of ice to the mansion.
Inside the ice box is this bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer. The Captain added the blue ribbon to the bottle for the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. While his beer did win awards, it never won a "blue ribbon".
This was a cool little alcove. It was just outside the Captain's Study. It's a telephone room! Mrs. Pabst thought that the phone conversations should have a little privacy. Maura said there were plenty of times on the tour she would find visitors huddling in here on their cell phones. Seriously? Who is too important to turn their phone off for a couple of hours? Cool room though.
This tour is one of the better ones I've taken. Our guide, Maura, is a retired history teacher. When she started doing these tours she took a interest in the family and their history so she had all kinds of interesting factoids to share.
Captain Pabst died in 1904 so he only had about ten years in the house. His wife, Maria Best Pabst, died two years later. All the children were married and had their own houses so none of them wanted anything from this house.
In 1908, the house was sold to the Catholic Archdiocese. During that time, they painted everything white. They assumed ownership of all the furniture that was left behind. The third floor became a convent for the nuns, Sisters of St. Francis, that worked here. It also served as a residence for several priests that lived in the outbuildings.
By 1975, the mansion had become burdensome to maintain so the Archdiocese sold the property to a man named Nathan Rakita. Nathan owned a hotel that was next door to the mansion. Unbeknownst to the Archdiocese, Nathan's plan was to tear the place down and make it a parking lot.
That didn't go over too well with the city of Milwaukee and in 1978, a group called Wisconsin Heritages, Inc. bought the house and opened it as a museum after some renovations. The outbuildings did not survive. Oddly, over time, neither did the hotel. It was eventually absorbed into Marquette University and became a residence hall for the students.
The Pabst Brewery is still there but it's now an event center. After Captain Pabst died, his sons took over. When Prohibition came along, the brewery began producing non-alcoholic beer or "near beer" along with bottling water and soda to keep the company afloat. They also began making cheese.
In 1933, they resumed brewing beer. However, because they needed money to ensure continuity of the brewery, they merged with another company and lost control of the company.
I found the whole story fascinating and plan to delve a little deeper. Meanwhile, if you're in Milwaukee and you have a couple of hours, check out the Pabst Mansion and take the tour. It's awesome!
