Captain Pabst Mansion

On Memorial Day Monday we decided to do one of the top 5 Fun things to do in Milwaukee so we took the kids to Captain Pabst Mansion. It is downtown up on a hill overlooking the 3 Domes (that we already saw) & has an amazing view of the city.  It was so much fun to hear the one hour guided tour of the house & the kids were hanging on her every word. (Our guide has been volunteering her time to these tours for 33 years so she knew a lot!)

This side of the house was the carriage side so they could step off into the house without getting wet or snowy with what looked to be an elevated sliding glass door. 

So excited for the tour to start. 

They were going to have an Italian gardens put in but they decided they worked too much & couldn't take care of it. (I mean c'mon they only had 12 servants taking care of the place.) Right now while I need to clean my house & do the mountain of laundry one servant sounds nice. We had fun imagining though. 

Ding Dong - Anyone home?  ; )

At the time he paid $256,000 for this mansion.  That is equivalent to $10 million now. He was 52 when he moved in & she was 50.  Only one daughter lived at home (5years) by that time because the other 4 kids were grown. Then Captain Pabst & his wife raised one granddaughter in the house from 6 months on when her mom died of an appendicitis at age 26 & her Dad wanted to go back to Germany. 

His Theater is still being used to this day. The neighborhood in his time had 60 mansions along that same row. Now there are only 3 because as the guide said Mr. Marquette was growing his school & liked putting up new square buildings on the gardens & tearing down the mansions for Parking Lots. This one was not torn down because the priests lived there & used part as a chapel. Hence the stained glass windows on the far right add on to the mansion. 

We all had a great day. 

They have restored the main level & the 2nd floor back to its original so that made it more special. The Mahogany wood throughout the house & detail was truly amazing. Shaelyn's favorite was the pink & cream room where women went after dinner.  Greg & Brayden liked the room on the opposite side of the foyer where the men went after dinner that had Mahogany pillars & huge artwork. I liked that some of the dishes were similar to dishes I have from my relatives. And we all didn't want it to end.  Ironically our tour lasted an hour & 20 minutes (longer than usual) and the kids still did great!

But we are raising 2 History Buffs so that probably helps. And being that it was so humid outside that day it was a perfect day to be in an air conditioned mansion.