Property Location
Property Features
F.I. Vogel and Sons were the builders; Paul Riesen & Co. was the mason. City of Milwaukee designated 4-15-1986.
The Koeffler-Baumgarten Double House is locally significant under Criterion C: Architecture as an excellent and highly intact example of the German Renaissance Revival style. Characteristics of the style exhibited on the house include Flemish-inspired shaped gables crowned with finials, a bell-domed tower, and limestone trim throughout, most notably exemplified by its decoratively carved balustrade along the roofline.
Designed by the prominent architectural firm Ferry & Clas and built in 1898, the Koeffler-Baumgarten Double House reflects the Germanic character of Milwaukee at a time when the city was cited as “the most German city in the most German state in the Union." This ethnic influence is evident in Milwaukee’s built environment, which possesses the greatest concentration of German Renaissance Revival-style buildings in Wisconsin, although their number has steadily declined since the height of their popularity in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. It also specifically reflects the Germanic cultural affinity of its sibling owners, Charles Koeffler, Jr. and Hermine (Koeffler) Baumgarten, who were Milwaukee-born children of German immigrant parents. Whether it is Charles’ education at the German-English Academy of Milwaukee and later memberships in the Milwaukee Turnverein and the Germania, or the trips taken by Hermine and her husband to Germany, this evidence suggests both Charles and Hermine maintained ties to their ethnic roots.
Charles Koeffler, Jr., his wife Jessie, their son Carl, and Charles' brother Hugo lived in the south unit of the double house, while Charles' sister, Hermine (Koeffler) Baumgarten, her husband Francis, and sons, Otto & Edgar lived in the north unit. Beginning in the 1920s, the building served as a rooming house for many years.
National And State Register Of Historic Places Listings
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817-819 N MARSHALL ST
100005755
Located in Milwaukee, Milwaukee County
