After getting loving makeover in recent years, the beautiful 1902 Gettelman Mansion, 2929 W. Highland Blvd., has been listed for sale.
Asking price for the 5,270-square-foot, five-bedroom, two-and-a-half bathroom brick mansion is $449,000.
You can see the complete listing here from Karen Block at Lannon Stone Realty.
Then check out the listing for more details on the property and lots of photos, too.
A few years ago after a visit with Brad and Cassia Carter invited me over to the see hard work they put into restoring the gorgeous house that was built for ... William Starke.
It's true. The original owner was not a Gettelman, but Starke, who owned C.H. Starke Bridge and Dock Co. with his brothers, who were also involved in a number of other businesses, too, including the Christopher Steamship Co. and the Sheriffs Manufacturing Co., which had a foundry and machine shop.
As I noted in the 2019 Urban Spelunking story I wrote on the house, "Starke was something of an octopus, it seems, with arms in a wide variety of concerns. In the 1900 census, he’s listed as owning a flour mill, and five years later he’s described as a contractor. Later in life, he was a vice president of the Concordia Fire Insurance Co. and the Old Line Life Insurance Co. of America."
He also served as a Milwaukee alderman and had a seat on the park commission, too.
In 1901, he hired Carl Barkhausen to design this elaborate German Renaissance Revival mansion.
So why's it called the Gettelman Mansion?
Starke's daughter Louise married Frederick "Fritz" Gettelman, the son of brewery magnate Adam Gettelman, around 1915-16, and a few years after her father's death the couple moved in.
Interestingly, they didn't even really stay all that long. By 1930, they livedon Upper Parkway in the Washington Highlands, before later moving to a new home on Washington Boulevard, where the family lived in 1940.
In the meantime, in 1931, the Gettelman Mansion was sold to Gamma Theta Pi (The Triangle), the engineering fraternity at Marquette University, which turned it into a club house, with the top floor serving as a dormitory residence for members.
You can read much more about the history here, and see some photos of remnants of past residents, too.
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.
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 be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
