Pabst Mansion

The Pabst Mansion on Wisconsin Avenue at 20th Street in the Avenues West neighborhood.

The Pabst Mansion is located at 2000 W. Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was once the home to Captain Frederick Pabst (1836-1904), founder of the Pabst Brewing Company.

History

Captain Pabst commissioned Milwaukee architect George Bowman Ferry to design a mansion in the Flemish Renaissance Revival style. On June 27, 1890, a building permit was issued for the construction of the home that would take two years to build. The Pabst family lived at the mansion from 1892 until 1908, when the Archdiocese of Milwaukee purchased the mansion. For the next 67 years, five Archbishops as well as many priests and sisters lived at the Pabst mansion.

In 1975 the Archdiocese put the mansion up for sale, with the hope that a historic preservation group would purchase it and restore it to its former glory. In 1978, Wisconsin Heritages, Inc., purchased the mansion, opening it to the public in May of that year. Until the purchase, the mansion had been slated to be demolished to make way for a parking structure.

In 1998, Wisconsin Heritages, Inc., was renamed Captain Frederick Pabst Mansion, Inc. The mansion is open to the public, with daily tours.

The mansion was the set for a series of 1980 Boston Store holiday commercials. The mansion was also briefly pictured during season 4 of the television sitcom How I Met Your Mother as the childhood home of the character Robin Scherbatsky in the 2008 episode "Happily Ever After".

Historic preservation

The first restored room of the Pabst Mansion was the main Dining Room. The ceiling, cove, walls, and paintings above the doors were all painted white by the archdiocese. In order to find the original paint color, restorers took down three large mirrors on the eastern wall that had hung there since the Captain's residence. The archdiocese had painted around the mirrors, but not underneath. A perfect color palette was preserved from which the restorers used to repaint the other walls.

Recent historic preservation efforts are focusing on the Master Suite. In February and March 2011 paint analysis was performed on the ceilings of the Master Bedroom and Sitting Room. Found under layers of paint were palm fronds painted directly onto the ceiling in the four corners of the Sitting Room. Experts used pictures taken around 1900 to find the location of items painted on the ceiling that otherwise would have been lost. The most recent restoration work in Emma's Room/the Regency Room is almost completed.

Gallery

• 
  Interior of the neo-Renaissance front porch
• 
  The porte-cochere
• 
  The neo-Rococo main parlor
• 
  East wall of the neo-Renaissance study
• 
  The dining room from the southeast
• 
  The dining room from the west
• 
  Chair off the first floor vestible
• 
  Neo-Renaissance chair on the second floor landing

See also

• Historic preservation
• National Register of Historic Places listings in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

External links

• The Pabst Mansion.com - The Pabst Mansion Official Site