For Immediate Release

Contact: Kara O’Keeffe
608-261-9596
Kara.okeeffe@wisconsinhistory.org

May 17, 2019

Milwaukee, Wis. - The Wisconsin Historical Society has announced the listing of the Milwaukee Athletic Club in Milwaukee, Milwaukee County, in the National Register of Historic Places. National Register designation provides access to certain benefits, including qualification for grants and for rehabilitation income tax credits, while it does not restrict private property owners in the use of their property.

The Milwaukee Athletic Club was designed by architect Armand D. Kahn; built as an athletic club facility and hotel, it continues in this use to this day. The club has undergone major renovations, the first of which were in 1948, continuing in 1954 and further improvements were completed in the 1960s.

Early in its history, the club focused solely on athletics, with an emphasis on competitive amateur team and individual sports in relatively spare spaces. This changed in 1917 with the construction of the subject building, a 12-story clubhouse in the heart of the city’s downtown, that coincided with a shift in the purpose and direction of the club, from “a society founded for athletic purposes” to “the center of not only athletic, but civic, business, and social life in the city.” The new building offered more social and recreational spaces than any of its previous quarters and included residential floors to serve as both long-term and temporary housing for club members. The building was also the first in the club’s history to provide dedicated space to women associated with the organization.

In the years following World War II, the Milwaukee Athletic Club sought to retain and grow its membership in the face of stiff competition from suburban country clubs by embarking on a nine-year renovation of many of the club’s social spaces and athletic facilities. Several of the club’s most significant historic interior spaces, including the Bali Room, Men’s Lounge, and the Elephant Room, date from this renovation.  The building reflects its historic significance as the city’s premier athletic club from the early twentieth century through the post-war period.

The register is the official national list of historic properties in America deemed worthy of preservation and is maintained by the National Park Service in the U.S. Department of the Interior. The Wisconsin Historical Society administers the program within Wisconsin. It includes sites, buildings, structures, objects and districts that are significant in national, state or local history, architecture, archaeology, engineering or culture.

To learn more about the State and National Register programs in Wisconsin, visitwww.wisconsinhistory.org.

About Wisconsin Historical Society

The Wisconsin Historical Society, founded in 1846, ranks as one of the largest, most active and most diversified state historical societies in the nation. As both a state agency and a private membership organization, its mission is to help people connect to the past by collecting, preserving and sharing stories. The Wisconsin Historical Society serves millions of people every year through a wide range of sites, programs and services. For more information, visit wisconsinhistory.org.

###