1810 W WISCONSIN AVE | Property Record | Wisconsin Historical Society

Property Record

1810 W WISCONSIN AVE

Architecture and History Inventory
1810 W WISCONSIN AVE | Property Record | Wisconsin Historical Society
NAMES
Historic Name:Sovereign Apartments
Other Name:Sovereign Apartments
Contributing:
Reference Number:99898
PROPERTY LOCATION
Location (Address):1810 W WISCONSIN AVE
County:Milwaukee
City:Milwaukee
Township/Village:
Unincorporated Community:
Town:
Range:
Direction:
Section:
Quarter Section:
Quarter/Quarter Section:
PROPERTY FEATURES
Year Built:1929
Additions:
Survey Date:1984
Historic Use:apartment/condominium
Architectural Style:Art Deco
Structural System:
Wall Material:Brick
Architect: Bruce Uthus
Other Buildings On Site:
Demolished?:No
Demolished Date:
NATIONAL AND STATE REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES
National/State Register Listing Name: Sovereign Apartments
National Register Multiple Property Name:
NOTES
Additional Information:A 'site file' exists for this property. It contains additional information such as correspondence, newspaper clippings, or historical information. It is a public record and may be viewed in person at the Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Historic Preservation. Melbourne Apt., Inc. was the builder.

The Sovereign Apartments is an eight story plus penthouse, brick, flat roofed; 'H' shaped Art Deco style apartment block built in 1929. It is sited back from the sidewalk behind a narrow strip of lawn at the northwest corner of North 18th Street and West Wisconsin Avenue. The symmetrical design of the building displays typical Art Deco features including vertical banding of the windows accented by brick piers that continue through the parapet, projecting horizontal and vertical brick courses used for emphasis, and a large terra cotta foliated zigzag frieze at the roof line. The building rises from a molded base accented with horizontal polished granite belt courses and terra cotta enjramed patterned tile ornamental panels. The side entrances to the building are framed with notched brick and have patterned terra cotta reveals and simple steel Art Deco style ornamental railings. The main entrance is simply articulated with a boldly profiled, projecting polished granite engframement with bronze and frosted glass half round sconces and bronze letters. The unusual double hung windows have upper sash divided vertically into three lights over a single light lower sash to further enhance the vertical emphasis of the design. The most distinctive feature of the building is the multilevel, stepped back, flat roofed penthouse with its projecting brick piers between the windows juxtaposed with prominent horizontal bands of zigzag patterned terra cotta at the roof planes.

The interior has a fine streamlined Art Moderne lobby with terrazzo floors, plaster moldings and Moderne globe style light fixtures. The building contains 123 apartments.

With the exception of the replacement of the original front doors, the building's exterior has not been altered.

The Sovereign Apartments is the finest large Art Deco apartment building in Milwaukee. The dramatic design, fine materials and high level of craftsmanship exemplify the distinguished modern architecture being constructed in Milwaukee at the end of the 1920s before the onset of the Great Depression curtailed new construction. This is one of the few known buildings by local architect Bruce Uthus, who, judging by this and his other known works, was one of the city's more talented and forward looking designers of the late 1920s. The Sovereign is the finest Uthus building that is known. (For biographical information on architect see Historical Information).

The Sovereign Apartments was constructed in 1929 for a syndicate of investors. Its construction reflected two important trends that were affecting Milwaukee's old upperclass residential areas at the time: (1) the flight of the rich and the subsequent replacement of the large Victorian mansions on the grand builevards such as Prospect and Wisconsin Avenues with more intensive land uses and (2) the growing demand for apartment builidings with small, moderately priced units in pleasant residential areas with easy access via public transportation to the central business district. This latter phenomenon was a result of the growing number of single white collar workers choosing to live independently rather than with a family or in hotels or boarding houses as had previously been the case, and a similar rise in the number of older people - particularly unmarried women and widows - requiring manageable accomodations in an increasingly servantless age. Fashionable buildings such as the Sovereign fulfilled this demand for conveniately located, affordable, modern quarters. A few other buildings were constructed elsewhere in the city in the 1920s - particularly in the old Yankee HIll area downtown and on Prospect Avenue - in response to the same demand. The Sovereign was one of the largest apartment buildings in Milwaukee until the 1950s. No doubt much of Wisconsin Avenue would have become lined with similar buildings had not the Great Depression, World War II, and the Korean conflict lead to a twenty five year suspension of most major new residential construction in Milwaukee, by which time the center of fashionable living had shifted to the fringes of the city.

Bruce Uthus was an architect who practiced in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Little is known about him other than that he designed several other apartment buildings and an apartment hotel, all in the Art Deco style. He sometimes collaborated with the architect Nicholas Bache.
Bibliographic References:Datestone. Permit. City Directories. City Inventory - Milwaukee 1930 Architect's Plaque.
RECORD LOCATION
Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory, State Historic Preservation Office, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin

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