You might hear a lot of realtors refer to a listing as a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity. But if Corey Boldt of Double Boldt Real Estate say sit this week, pay attention, because it’s true.
On Sept. 5, Boldt will list for sale the most prominently situated house in the Washington Highlands at 1651 Alta Vista Ave. in Wauwatosa.
It's a stunning house in an at least as stunning location, at the highest point of the Highlands, with a protected park preserving forever the neighborhood’s view of the Tudor home, but also the home’s daily front row seat for sunrise (you also get sunsets up this high, too).
It’s also a house that was last sold in 1959 ... 66 years ago.
In fact, the 1929 home has only had two owners during its lifetime.
Everyone in the Highlands knows it as the Brennan House because, honestly, how many folks can even remember when the last member of the first family to own it lived there, back in 1954?
It also helps that the second owner, John Brennan, was a well-known and respected OB-GYN. He and his wife Joan raised 11 kids in the house, which was a Highlands kid-magnet thanks to its in-ground pool and welcoming vibe.
“It really was fun to have 10 brothers and sisters,” says one of the Brennans’ daughters, Jan Kaufman, “because we're on the hill, you walk out the front door, there's your sledding hill. Go two blocks down, you're ice skating at Elmer's ice skating rink. Go to the backyard, you have the pool. In summer, we always had a volleyball net up and the driveway had basketball, so our family was busy.
“Then you throw our friends in and the neighbors, it was just fun. I was at a store and this woman in front of me turns around and says, ‘are you a Brennan? I remember when we first moved in, my mom was like, 'where are all the kids?' And the neighbor said 'they're all up the street.’ And she said, ‘I remember spending so much time at your house. It really was fun.”
The asking price for the house is $2,150,000. There’s an inground pool, a .64-acre lot, six bedrooms, a den, a living room, family room, dining room, rec room, foyer and game room and a three-car garage.
And it’s the kind of house – leaded glass windows, wrought iron, unique tile, gorgeous woodwork, etc. – that really just couldn’t even be built today.
Once in a lifetime.
A little history of Highlands
In 1916, a decade before construction of the house started, the Pabst family decided it wanted to develop its old hop and horse farm in Wauwatosa since it had shifted most of its agricultural attention out to the Oconomowoc area beginning in 1906.
Pabst contacted German-born Werner Hegemann and Ohio-born landscape architect Elbert Peets to design the new subdivision. The design of the Washington Highlands was heavily influenced by the en vogue garden city movement, which aimed to blend the best of urban and rural living.
That’s why the neighborhood – rather uniquely for its area – not only made Schoonmaker Creek a prominent feature, rather than running it underground in pipes, but was also designed in a way that embraces the natural terrain with curving streets that rise and fall with the existing land.
These curving streets, and perhaps wartime anti-German sentiment, led some to believe that Hegemann – who also worked on the plan for Kohler with Peets (the latter also designed the Village of Greendale) – laid out the neighborhood to resemble a Prussian soldiers’ helmet. In fact, the shape was created by the streets that laced through the natural terrain.
Even today, the neighborhood is unique for its adherence to the designers’ philosophy that neighborhoods should feel like unique little villages rather than endless street grids graded flat and lined with identically designed houses.
Working with developers Richter, Dick & Reutemann, the lots were laid out and the first houses went up in 1918. That same year, Pabst transferred ownership to the Washington Homes Association, a homeowners group.
Unfortunately, the following year, the Highlands became the first Milwaukee-area neighborhood to enact a covenant that read, “at no time shall the land included in Washington Highlands or any part thereof, or any building thereon be purchased, owned, leased or occupied by any person other than of white race." (This is now illegal thanks to the 1968 Fair Housing Act.)
A huge building boom began in the neighborhood in 1920 and 297 of the 373 homes in the Highlands were constructed between then and 1930. (In 1931 and ‘32 only one house went up each year, due to the Depression, and most of the rest came after the end of World War II. Only six were built from 1961 to 1990.)
The Swendsons
One of those 297 homes was built for Ernest A. and Burdell Swendson, a couple living in the Story Hill neighborhood at 4728 W. Blue Mound Rd.
1885 July 25 Ernest Alexander Swendson was born in Milwaukee in 1885, son of Henry, who arrived from Norway in 1873.
In 1910, while out in Grand Forks, North Dakota, working as a manager for Schlitz Brewing Company, Swendson married Kokomo, Indiana-born Burdell Price.
The couple returned to Milwaukee where in April 1915 Swendson opened a tire shop and Swendson Ford – one of the earliest Ford automobile dealerships in the area – just east of 16th Street on National Avenue.
The business moved a few blocks west to 1924 W. National Ave. in 1924. While some sources claim that Northwest Ford on 24th and North was the first Ford dealership in the Milwaukee area, that one didn’t apparently open until 1916 (albeit after a merger of other businesses, so it’s murky who was actually first), with Soerens Ford following in 1917.
As automobiles began to grow in popularity, dealers like Swendson found themselves in a business generating good money. In 1926, there was even a local basketball team called the Swendson Fords.
With four kids at home, it perhaps seemed like a good time to move to a bigger house and what better place than the exciting new Washington Highlands?
And what better place in the Highlands than at the most visible point, with commanding views all around?
Buemming & Guth
The Swendsons turned to the firm of Buemming and Guth, a partnership launched by established architect Herman W. Buemming and his one-time employee Alexander Guth.
Guth had worked Buemming from 1904 until 1915 before striking out on his own and then working briefly with Alfred C. Clas. In 1919, Guth returned to go into business with his former boss in a partnership that would last until 1927, when Guth left to join Herbst & Kuenzli.
But in the meantime, they designed an English Tudor stunner of a house with six bedrooms and four-and-a-half bathrooms across more than 5,500 square feet of space that was to be perched at the height of the Highlands.
“In April 1926, construction started on the $40,000 home of Ernest and Burdell Swendson at 1651 Alta Vista Ave.,” notes a post on Historical Highlands. “The period revival home exhibits many of the style’s primary characteristics, including a dominant front-facing gabled entry; multiple-light, leaded-glass windows; stone, brick or stucco and false half-timber sheathing (or a combination thereof); wood-shingle, slate or tile-covered gabled roofs; and a dominant chimney.
“Although the home’s three-car garage would appear to be rather extravagant for the mid-1920s, knowing the original owner was a car dealer makes that extravagance logical.”
The house was built by contractor Reinhold A. Uecker, a stone mason who was born on a farm near Milwaukee in 1886 (and no apparent relation to Bob, whose father immigrated from Switzerland in 1923. Sorry.)
Uecker built a booming building business despite suffering a terrible accident in 1907 that badly injured both his legs when, while working on a church steeple, the scaffolding apparently failed.
The silver lining of that experience was that Uecker set about working to design and build more reliable, lighter and safer scaffolding for work sites, and patented his work.
In 1936 he started Safway Steel Scaffolds, which served customers like Allis-Chalmers and International Harvester, and his scaffolds were used on high profile projects like the 1939 New York World’s Fair pylon. (Uecker’s company still exists today as BrandSafway, which was created in a 2017 merger.)
One of the Brennan daughters, Brigid, says that during her research for a school project about the house, she learned that the design was a copy of a Tudor home in England, but I was unable to turn up any evidence of this.
However, it is a gem of a Tudor Revival house, with everything you’d expect to see, including leaded-glass windows, false half-timbering, etc. Inside there is beautiful tile and dark millwork throughout, and – masked by what appears to be a traditional gabled roof – a flat roof with an openable skylight to help illuminate the interior of the home and vent heat on warm days.
The Swendsons lived in the house until at least 1949, but what happens next is a little blurry.
They also owned a house on Lake Beulah, near East Troy, and apparently split their time between the two locations.
Burdell died “at home” in 1954, at which point it seems that the family left the Highlands house for good, but did not immediately sell it. Thus, it’s possible they continued to use it after 1954. However, the newspaper reports at the time do not specify at which home Burdell died.
Online sources note that she died in Milwaukee, which is neither Wauwatosa nor Lake Beulah, so your guess is as good as mine. (If there are any Swendsons out there, email me!)
Brennan family lore says that the house sat vacant for a decade before Dr. Brennan and his wife purchased it in 1959, but I can’t say with any certainty whether or not that’s accurate.
What we do know is that the house was listed for sale for the first time in July 1957 and at least one of the ads read, “Like a home on a hill?? At the HIGHEST POINT in “The Highlands” with unsurpassed views. Then see... 1651 Alta Vista Av. quality, architect built, 1 owner home with gracious rooms; living room with bay, dining room, kitchen, breakfast room, den, sunroom and lavatory down: 6 bedrooms and 4 baths on 2nd; such features as a double lot, 3 car attached garage, 44 ft. recreation room and tile roof. If you would like the MOST PROMINENT home in Wauwatosa, call Henry W. Marx Co.”
“You could cut and paste that,” says Brennan daughter Jeannie Brennan Beggan when I read the ad copy aloud to her. “Really, nothing’s changed.”
Another ad in February 1959 announced that the house had been sold.
(Before I move on, I’ll add that Ernest Swendson retired in 1942 and his son H.P. Swendson took over. In 1971, grandson Tom took over and continued to run the business until it closed in 1979, a “victim of high interest rates, inflation and inability to relocate due to Ford Motor Co. restrictions on dealer trading areas,” according to the Milwaukee Sentinel. “We will take our key employees and go into business with another dealership so we can continue to serve the customers that we have,” Swendson told the paper, without naming the dealership since the details were not yet agreed upon. However, in 1981, Swendson bought Southgate Ford and ran it until 1997, when he sold it to the Braeger family.)
The Brennans arrive
John Joseph Brennan was born in 1922 and graduated from Marquette University in 1946, and his future wife, Joan Margaret Gorman, was born in 1928.
“Mom is from Cleveland,” says Jeannie. “Dad was born here. My mom – she was a nurse – came to do post-graduate work at St. Joseph’s Hospital and she met my dad, who was a resident.”
The couple married in 1951 in Cleveland. At the time they bought the Highlands house from the Swendsons, the Brennans were living near 88th and North in Wauwatosa, according to their daughters.
By that time, they’d already had five children and so space was at a premium.
“Big time,” says Brigid.
“It was a three-bedroom salt box,” Jeannie adds.
The Brennans must have seen one of those newspaper ads, or heard about the house for sale in the Highlands some other way and went to check it out.
“It sat vacant for years and then somebody in their family must have sold it,” Brigid says. “Everyone was saying it was haunted. But my mom was like, ‘well, I need a house.’
“My mom went through the house and there were no ghosts. She came back a second time and they had washed the windows and she's like, ‘this is the house.’ And then they bought the house.”
Thus began a nearly 70-year family saga for the Brennan family in the old Swendson place, and there’s no way I can do justice to all the memories the 11 siblings and their children and grandchildren have of this place.
What I can say is that when I first visited the house, only Boldt was there and the house was quiet and serene and holding its stories close.
But when I returned and sat in the living room listening to three of the siblings talking about their family and growing up in this house, it was impossible not to feel the vibrancy, the hubbub.
You could see the kids with all their friends frolicking in the pool – after they’d passed Joan Brennan’s required swim test – as mom kept an eye on everything by moving her ironing board out to the backyard.
You could see them sailing precariously down the hill on a sled in winter, stopping traffic as they reached Washington Circle below.
You could imagine the comings and goings of 11 children, the family dinners together in the breakfast room, the late night gatherings around the dining table – built specifically for the house when the home was constructed – as the children reached adulthood.
You could picture Brigid’s wedding reception with hundreds of guests in the backyard, and the annual Catholic Mass said in the living room at Christmas.
You could hear Dr. Brennan arriving home after a long day in the maternity ward, calling out to Joan, who – despite looking good all day – put on an even nicer dress in anticipation ... “Beauty, Beauty, I’m home.”
“This is the thing,” Jeannie explains, “so much of why (family life) was so successful, was that the sun would rise and set on my mother for my father. He would come in the house after he would have been delivering babies or whatever, and just make a mad dash for her.
“Some people might be in the refrigerator opening up a beer. He had to find her wherever she was.”
That kind of love extended to the children and despite having a house – and their hands – full of kids, the Brennans, says Jan, “they really were laid back and they really liked all our friends.
“I literally remember mom opening the broilers and there were probably 30 hamburgers there and she would just flip 'em. She cooked every night."
It was clearly a fun-loving family.
In 1967, Dr. Brennan was named Irishman of the Year by the Shamrock Club at its seventh annual St. Patrick’s Day dinner dance.
In 1990, with the kids grown up, the Milwaukee Sentinel’s Jay Joslyn wrote about their togetherness, especially when it came to sports.
“The Brennan family will be one of more than 200 teams that will line up for Uecker's Ride for the Arts,” he wrote. “At 22, this team will be among the larger non-corporate units.”
The family cycled together, they played on the Club Tap volleyball team, they skied together.
They were social people.
“When Mom became an empty nester," Jan recalls, "she said, ‘I’ve got to do something’. So she got a job and ran the Ronald McDonald House (as executive director) for years.”
But time is unstoppable and the children all married, moved on, had families of their own. In 2014, Dr. Brennan passed away at the age of 91, and Joan remained in the home alone, often enjoying her favorite spot: a gazebo in the backyard.
“We all had a night where we'd come make her dinner,” Brigid recalls. “We'd come in, make her dinner, sit and have private time with her.”
In 2024, Joan passed away at the age of 96, and the time has come for a change at the house. With 11 siblings, plus grandkids and great-grandkids, it's the least complicated solution.
“It's kind of devastating,” says Brigid. But all three sisters agree that a new family deserves to experience – hopefully – what the Brennans did in this house.
“I hope they love it as much as we did,” says Jan.
“And flourish,” adds Jeannie, “because this is how I feel about this house. Everything flourishes in this house. Everything flourishes.”
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press. A fifth collects Urban Spelunking articles about breweries and maltsters.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has been heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
