Apartment Conversion of Historic School Maintains Charm
Mineral Point High School, Mineral Point, Wisconsin
Mineral Point High School, 1993
Mineral Point, WI. School prior to rehabilitation. View the property record: AHI 41917
Built as Mineral Point's High School in 1903, and later converted into the middle school, this building served the young people of the area well for decades.
It was designed by F.S. Allen, who also designed Washington School in Appleton and Kenosha High School.
Allen designed all three schools in the same Richardsonian Romanesque style, but the Mineral Point building is distinctive in its use of the dolomite limestone native to the southwestern part of the state.
Mineral Point High School, 2012
Mineral Point, WI. School after rehabilitation. View the property record: AHI 41917
When the Mineral Point school district abandoned the building, Stone House Development stepped in with a proposal to convert it to 11 apartments. The firm specializes in sensitively converting historic schools to apartments. It has many successful projects around the state, including in New Glarus, Janesville and Jefferson. The developers combine the use of affordable housing tax credits with state and federal preservation tax credits to make the projects feasible.
Stone House Development took particular care to maintain the special historic details to appreciate the building as a school despite the changes necessary to convert it to a new use. Lockers were left in place in the original wide corridors and blackboards were kept as interesting and functional wall treatments. Most old schools had their windows unsympathetically replaced or walled-over in ill-advised attempts to save energy. That was the case here, so Stone House Development replaced the blocked-down windows with new ones, based on the original appearance as documented in a historic photograph. The schoolhouse apartments are now easily rented. The special character of a historic building gives these apartments a real competitive advantage.
Read more about the history of the Mineral Point High School Building in the historic property record on our website.