Doors Open Milwaukee

So there's this annual event where for free or cheap you can get into buildings around town that are usually not open to the public. One of my colleagues was going and invited me along. I had no idea what to want to do so I just went along with whatever she wanted.

First we went to the Pabst Mansion. Built around 1890 as a retirement home - up on the hill away from the stink of all the breweries it is now surrounded by what is otherwise a not very nice neighborhood. There is only the house left. There used to be a couple of acres with a carriage house and stables and stuff. A developer tore them down to build a parking lot.

The family only lived there for about 20 years and then it got sold to the arch diocese. The bishop lived there until the mid-70s. They converted the pavilion to a chapel and added stained glass. But there was still a lot of hops and beer steins and stuff carved into all the ornate corners.

The staff dining room. Seemed nice enough to me.

Then we walked into the family dining room. Yeah ok.

The domes. There are three: desert, tropical, and local. They are actually all closed now because they were run down and falling apart. But apparently work has been on going because they said they hoped to have all 3 open again by the end of the year. Yay!

There is a block - only the one block, but all the houses in the row - that was at the very edge of the city in 1910. Across the street were celery fields. All the houses are Frank Lloyd Wright. Kit homes for working class people. (There's a name for it; Karen can tell us in the comments.) This near one was a duplex.

This one was single family. It was pretty small, but very cool.