Property Record
1841 N PROSPECT AVE
Architecture and History Inventory
| Historic Name: | Sanford R. Kane House |
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| Reference Number: | 32291 |
| Location (Address): | 1841 N PROSPECT AVE |
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| County: | Milwaukee |
| City: | Milwaukee |
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| Year Built: | 1883 |
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| Additions: | 1884 |
| Survey Date: | 1986 |
| Historic Use: | house |
| Architectural Style: | Queen Anne |
| Structural System: | Balloon Frame |
| Wall Material: | Brick |
| Architect: | JAMES DOUGLAS |
| Other Buildings On Site: | |
| Demolished?: | No |
| Demolished Date: |
| National/State Register Listing Name: | Kane, Sanford R., House |
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| National Register Listing Date: | 9/13/1991 |
| State Register Listing Date: | 1/18/1991 |
| National Register Multiple Property Name: |
| Additional Information: | Original cost of construction was $15,000. It was the second house built for Sanford Kane. His first was located at the site of 1825 N. Prospect Ave. Outstanding exterior wooden Queen Anne detailing. In 1900, the property was owned by Louis Gimbel. From 1908-1920, it was owned by G. Stanley Mitchell. One of the few grand Queen Anne style residences on Prospect Avenue that has remained virtually unaltered. Fans of the Queen Anne style must make a pilgrimage to this marvelous house. The Kane mansion’s main facade, virtually unaltered since 1883, boasts some of Milwaukee’s finest pattern shingles, decorative panels, and spindlework porches. This James Douglas design positively bursts with projecting bays, gables, dormers, and porches. In the 1880s and 1890s, Americans thought these features conveyed domestic warmth and coziness. Like the exterior, its original features remain intact, including a paneled mahogany staircase and fancy woodwork floral and sunburst motifs. In the 1880s, the free-flowing, interconnected arrangement of the spacious first-floor rooms consciously broke away from the narrow stair halls and closed formal rooms of earlier American house planning. Sanford Kane, a businessman, and his second wife, Ellen, hosted a number of socially prestigious events. With Sanford's death in 1894, Ellen moved out, and the house passed through successive uses before becoming a Lakeshore Montessori School in 1976. |
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| Bibliographic References: | ZIMMERMAN, The Past in Our Present, v. 2, 86-89. MILWAUKEE JOURNAL 9/8/1974. BUILT IN MILWAUKEE, LANDSCAPE RESEARCH, P. 49. Zimmerman, Milwaukee Journal 9/8/1974. Milwaukee Sentinel 3/4/1883, 3/1. Tax Program. Buildings of Wisconsin manuscript. |
| Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory, State Historic Preservation Office, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin |