Back in April, the Pabst Mansion announced that it was preparing to begin an ambitious effort to address much-needed work to repair the 1892 Ferry & Clas-designed landmark at 2000 W. Wisconsin Ave.
“We have water infiltration,” said Pabst Mansion’s Director of Advancement Morgan Sweet at the time. “The roof is a big factor. The flat roof is threadbare and so we have water coming in through the attic there, and then that has damaged some ceilings on the third floor.
“The entire building needs to be tuckpointed. We have water coming in through where the mortar (is missing).”
A $5.6 million fundraising campaign was launched to pay for the work at the house Capt. Frederick Pabst built, which includes $3.2 million for masonry restoration, $900,000 for roof replacement and repair, $1.3 million for window restoration and $200,000 for architecture and engineering work.
The plan is to do the work in two phases, the first of which got started in May and is ongoing. After a year off to continue to raise money, phase two will pick up again 2027.
This year, work will begin on the roof and tuckpointing on the front of the building, where it is in the worst shape. Exterior tilework on the front porch – not original – is also desperately in need of repair and that is also part of the first phase.
Then in 2027 the other three sides will get tuckpointed and the windows will be restored.
Some of the cost is being covered by Wisconsin Historic Tax Credits and the Mansion is seeking a federal NPS Save America’s Treasures grant, which could cover about $750,000.
The current plan does not cover interior work, like elevator and HVAC upgrades and repairs caused by water infiltration, though some of the latter might be eligible for funding via the tax credits, says Sweet, who invited me over for a hard hat tour.
David Weirick, architect at Klein & Hoffman, met me at the mansion and with Sweet, we climbed to the top of the scaffolding for a closer look.
But first, we took a look at some newly fired terra cotta replacement pieces that are destined for installation on the exterior of the mansion.
The pieces were largely created using laser scans of identical pieces in good condition. The upside of this technique is that the scans can be done with the pieces remaining in place. In the past, good examples had to be “harvested” from the building to create molds.
In the cases where this has been done on this project, those harvested examples are being returned to the facade after being sent to Gladding McBean for reproduction.
Before we ascend, Weirick explains, “the bulk of the work is deconstruction of the masonry that is deteriorated from age, freeze-thaw cycles, weathering. It's kind of carefully taking that stuff apart and reconstructing it and then also pointing as maintenance work in other areas and some wood window restoration.”
Additionally, the flat roof – which isn’t visible from street level – will be redone this autumn, too, due to a number of leaks that have been causing damage inside the building.
The porch work will come later because, Weirick says, that area can be enclosed and heated to allow for work to continue throughout the winter.
The scaffolding, Sweet says, will come down in mid-November to accommodate the annual holiday season rush, which is the mansion’s most popular season for visitors.
That means that Berglund is focused on doing the work highest up on the mansion for now. Once the holiday season is over, Weirick adds, work will continue lower down and that can be done with boom lifts, etc.
Right now, says Berglund Construction’s Dave Herman, “during the disassembly we were running around about six, seven (workers on site), (but) our numbers are up right now because of the rebuild. Now we're up to 13, 14 guys.”
The work that they’re doing is on masonry that in some cases is original, from 1892, and in other cases took place later.
“You can see where there's been multiple different repairs over the years,” Herman says. “Even some of the repairs are deteriorating. It's been so long.”
Weirick adds that the deconstruction work also exposed more problems that weren’t visible before.
“When you're just sort of doing a visual inspection of the exterior of this stuff and it has been recently repaired with pointing campaigns and things like that,” he explains, “you don't really realize the extent of the deterioration that's happening underneath because some of the repairs that have been done in the recent past have been more superficial.
“But once we got up there and started taking things apart, it was really evident how the mortar that's holding all of these bricks and terracotta together was just crumbling. Bricks and terracotta could be removed by hand without power tools and that's really the kind of thing that allows water to infiltrate the walls and make it worse and damage interior finishes and cause all kinds of problems.”
Herman adds that in some cases the deterioration of the original metal pins and straps was so bad that entire sections of masonry could be moved back and forth by hand. In some sports there was no pinning or strapping and the masonry was held solely by mortar.
Thus, all the rusted out old straps and pins are being replaced with stronger stainless steel and often doubling the pinning and strapping.
Whenever possible, original bricks and terra cotta are going right back in. Even if there’s a little damage on them, if they’re safe, they’re being reused.
“We’re making sure as things are coming apart, we're not doing any more damage than is already done by Mother Nature,” Herman says.
“We want to recreate how it was historically, obviously, and not just from a historic preservation standpoint, but just because it has performed well for 130 years,” adds Weirick.
“These buildings obviously were well-constructed to begin with and so we just want to reconstruct it the way it was historically, making some improvements with the modern materials that we have available, but to have a light touch and hopefully when it's all done, it'll really just be kind of a subtle improvement that most people probably won't even notice.”
Up at the top of the scaffolding we can see a deconstructed chimney and nearby, masons are busy reconstructing another one.
On the west facade, another mason is reconstructing a gable.
The lower segment is complete and at the peak we can see how it was built, with a wooden frame clad in a variety of bricks that were then covered with the brown face brick that covers the entire exterior of the mansion.
Where an original piece of terra cotta is about to be reset we can see the gleaming new stainless steel pins and straps.
A rusted old strap still hangs in its original position and as it’s not in the way, it’ll be left in place, though no longer serving a supporting role.
The base mortar joints are done but a finish mortar still needs to go in and be pointed. Some of the bricks are splotched with fluorescence that comes from salt in the air and materials and that will be cleaned off in the final phase.
“Original pictures of the house shortly after it was constructed (show) these gables were just covered in efflorescence already (in the 1910s),” Weirick says. “It's unsightly, but just kind of a natural part of the work.”
While we’re up here and can see the flat roof and skylight, Sweet says the latter is also leaky and is due to be replaced in the second phase of the project.
In addition to stabilizing and sealing the building’s envelope, the work that’s going on now will also restore some original features of the mansion that have been altered over the years.
Now that no one lives in the building anymore, the fire escape added to the east side of the building can be removed. That means that the windows that were converted to doors to allow access to the fire escape can also be returned to their original configuration.
Also on the east side, the conservatory’s window will be restored to its original style.
As we head back down to ground level, Weirick explains that the porte cochere is getting a full slate of repairs, too – more than expected, as deconstruction of the balustrade for repair exposed considerably more roof damage than had been predicted.
But just a few months in, it’s clear that progress is being made and the sections that have been redone are looking great.
That's a welcome sight for Sweet.
“It’s exciting to see the gables being reconstructed,” says Sweet. “So much of the work up until now has been deconstructing.”
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.
