Property Record
2611 N TERRACE AVE
Architecture and History Inventory
| Historic Name: | Anna and Gustav J.A. Trostel House |
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| Other Name: | |
| Contributing: | Yes |
| Reference Number: | 30222 |
| Location (Address): | 2611 N TERRACE AVE |
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| County: | Milwaukee |
| City: | Milwaukee |
| Township/Village: | |
| Unincorporated Community: | |
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| Year Built: | 1900 |
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| Additions: | |
| Survey Date: | 1980 |
| Historic Use: | house |
| Architectural Style: | German Renaissance Revival |
| Structural System: | |
| Wall Material: | Brick |
| Architect: | ADOLPH FINKLER AND HANS LIEBERT |
| Other Buildings On Site: | |
| Demolished?: | No |
| Demolished Date: |
| National/State Register Listing Name: | North Point North Historic District |
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| National Register Listing Date: | 3/24/2000 |
| State Register Listing Date: | 7/16/1999 |
| National Register Multiple Property Name: |
| 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 State Historical Society, Division of Historic Preservation. SHORTLY AFTER THE HOUSE WAS FINISHED, TROSTEL TOOK OVER THE FAMILY TANNERY. ALBERT TROSTEL AND SONS CO. EVENTUALLY BECAME A MAJOR MANUFACTURER OF SIDE LEATHER FOR SHOES. Trostel lived here until 1942. THE HOUSE HAS BEEN CONVERTED TO A DUPLEX SINCE 1944. The Gustav Trostel House’s flamboyant German Renaissance Revival style easily distinguished it from its more traditional-looking English and Colonial Revival style neighbors. The facade is dominated by a massive front-facing gable, scrolled in its first stage, then peaked and pedimented. Dressed limestone, decorative copper, clay tile, and stained glass embellish the house; Cyril Colnik crafted the ornate ironwork. Third-floor dormers punctuate the steeply pitched tile roof, some of them decorated with medieval-style false half-timbering and with hand-carved human faces on the beam ends. Carpenter was August Holstein. Mason was Frank Mizoranski. The house's German-immigrant architects, Adolph Finkler and Hans Liebert, knew that German elites delighted in constructing mansions based on the rustic dwellings and hunting lodges of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Tannery owner Gustav Trostel, like many of Milwaukee's wealthy German Americans, must have shared this nostalgia. "The Gustav Trostel house is one of the most flamboyantly German style residences in Milwaukee. It looks like it would be more at home in the Black Forest than in an upper-class urban residential area in Milwaukee. Its unique character certainly distinguishes it from its more traditional-looking English and Colonial Revival style neighbors. Like something out of a picture book on Dresden, Germany, the Trostel home is beautifully embellished with cut limestone, copper, tile, stained glass, terra cotta, and the ornate iron work of famous craftsman Cyril Colnik. A form of medieval German timber constrution can be seen in the third floor gables and dormers, and some of the projecting brackets feature interesting hand carved heads. Architects Finkler & Liebert were very much in tune with 1890s design trends in Germany where the well-to-do delighted in constructing mansions based on the rustic dwellings and hunting lodges built in the 15th and 16th centuries. Family lore indicates that Trostel actually preffered another design for his house, but that Finkler, his brother-in-law, talked him into this showier German scheme. The hosue was the first to be built at this end of Terrace Avenue and has always been thought of as one of Milwaukee's most quintessentially German houses. There is nothing else quite like it. Gustav's father, Albert Trostel, was a native of Wurtemberg, Germany, who opened his first tannery in Milwaukee in 1858. Large tannery complexes owned by German families lined the Milwaukee River north of Pleasant Street near John Kern's Eagle Flour Mills...Gustav took over the family tannery in 1907. He lived in this house until his death in 1936 at the age of 71. His widow, Anna, lived on here until her death in 1944. The house has since been converted to a duplex. The Trostel House is in the City of Milwaukee's North Point North Historic District." MILWAUKEE ETHNIC HOUSES TOUR, CITY OF MILWAUKEE DEPARTMENT OF DEVELOPMENT, 1994. |
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| Bibliographic References: | MILWAUKEE JOURNAL 5/5/1991. MILWAUKEE ETHNIC HOUSES TOUR, CITY OF MILWAUKEE DEPARTMENT OF DEVELOPMENT, 1994. MILWAUKEE SENTINEL 10/31/1992. MILWAUKEE HISTORIC BUILDINGS TOUR: NORTH POINT, CITY OF MILWAUKEE DEPARTMENT OF CITY DEVELOPMENT, 1994. Zimmermann, The Past in Our Present, v. 1, 40-42. Buildings of Wisconsin manuscript. |
| Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory, State Historic Preservation Office, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin |