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Property Location
Property Features
Henry Wallschlaeger was the builder. Breslauer was a partner in the family-owned wholesale liquor dealership of Abraham Breslauer and Co. The structure was converted into an eight-unit apartment in 1921 by Hawley C. Davis.
"These two residences were built and occupied by members of the same family and typify the tendency of German-American fmaily members to live in close proximity to one another. The property at 1425 was built for 60-year-old Abraham Breslauer (1832-1915), a German born Jewish clothing merchant who came to the U.S. as a young man. Although not much of his work survives, architect Edward V. Koch is known for his distinctive-looking residences. His work here reflects the German influence on the Queen Anne style with its heavy masonry treatment, extensive use of stone, recessed porch, and ornamental iron balustrade. The niche-like frame around the small, center, second story window and the groupings of windows below two arches in the front dormer are unusually decorative. Particularly noteworthy is the large 3-story corner tower whose uppermost level projects slightly over those below, giving the tower a particularly massive and top-heavy appearance. This feature is borrowed from the traditional late medieval and early Renaissance architecture of Germany and probably reminded Breslauer of the castles of his homeland.
The double house next door at No. 1425 was built six years later by Breslauer's Milwaukee-born son Joseph (1858-1913) and shows that even prosperous individuals constructed 2-family houses to earn extra income or to house extended family members. Here the symmetrical German Renaissance Revival style facade is embellished by two shaped gables trimmed with terra cotta and topped by plaques which feature heraldic shields and scrolls. The unusual bull's-eye like finials and the small dormers with steeply pitched roofs are features architects Crane & Barkhausen often used in their projects.
After completing his education, Joseph Breslauer went to work at his father's clothing store, and then in 1883 the two started a new wholesale wine and liquor business, which eventually located on Broadway in the Third Ward. Joseph died unexpectedly in 1913 at the age of 55, and his widow, Rose, and his children, Samuel, Clarence, Johanna and Paula, continued to occupy the house through 1917, after which they moved to the East Side. Joseph's father, Abraham, died at the age of 82 in 1915. His children from his second marriage, who were still living at home, then also moved to the East Side. By the end of World War I this once fashionable neighborhood of grand houses and rowhouses was beginning to become congested and commercial. Hawley C. Davis acquired both of the Breslauer houses and converted Abraham's large house to the Hotel Hawley, while Joseph's doublehouse was remodeled into an 8-unit apartment building in 1921." MILWAUKEE ETHNIC HOUSES TOUR, CITY OF MILWAUKEE DEPARTMENT OF DEVELOPMENT, 1994.
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