Nearly 120 years ago, Theodore Kronshage — who would become Fox Point's first village president — had a home designed above Lake Michigan.
Somehow the designs were used to build a house in Fort Atkinson and Bubbler Talk listener, David Covey, wanted to find out how it happened.
Covey's great-grandfather George Becker built the Fort Atkinson house for his family around 1915. "I tried to put together the mystery as to how my great-grandfather had ever gotten these blueprints and how he could have possibly known Kronshage" says Covey.
The house Kronshage built
On one of Fox Point’s more elegant spots, Barnett Lane is situated on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan.
“A lot of these residents who built homes on the bluff were vey civic-minded in many ways, including Kronshage,” says Douglas Frazer.
He’s a recent Fox Point village president. Frazer says, during his lifetime Theodore Kronshage was a very important person.
“He was a trial lawyer specializing in utilities, he served as president of the Board of Regents. He served as the president of the Public Service Commission. As I mentioned, [he] was village president from 1926 to 1931,” Frazer says.
But it’s Kronshage’s house in Fox Point that got this Bubbler Talk story going. Years before he became village president, Kronshage built a house on a portion of a five-acre parcel he purchased. Frazer says Kronshage house was later demolished. "That was probably torn down between 1958 and probably 1980,” Frazer says.
The house that Becker built
But some 60 miles west of Fox Point, in Fort Atkinson, a mirror image of Kronshage’s long gone home still stands. Fort Atkinson resident David Covey discovered the connection in the home of his great-grandfather built around 1915.
As Covey and his wife started restoring the house, “The administrator informed us that the blueprints were in the house and we found them. And it took us a while to figure out that they weren’t really … well they were for the house, but they were originally owned by Theodore Kronshage — or the architect Uehling,” Covey says.
The blueprints read, “Plan for a cottage for Mr. Theo Kronshage – O.C. Uehling architect. August 23, 1906."
Covey’s great-grandfather, George Becker, followed the same plans that were used for Kronshage’s home. Although Covey’s family’s Dutch Revival had some differences. “When you see the original blueprints, they’re a little fancier,” Covey says.
For instance, the Kronshage house in Fox Point called for, “Speaking tubes between the floors. I’m assuming he was going to have staff to wait on him. I could find no speaking tubes in this house. I think when George called for help the kids gotta come running,” Covey says.
As it turns out, the two houses are likely connected because of the architect behind the design – O.C. Uehling. He graduated from University of Wisconsin in 1900. Two years later, he was making his name in the architecture world in Milwaukee.
Uehling designed homes, schools, a knitting factory that still stands in the city’s Third Ward and the list goes on.
Dana Bertelsen does some digging
It was Dana Bertelsen who discovered O.C. Uehling had a connection to Fort Atkinson. Bertelsen is the assistant director of Fort Atkinson’s historical museum.
“I noticed that one of the church designs that he did, looks like our St. Paul’s. And then I looked in our card catalog and I found low and behold, he was the architect for our church,” Bertelsen says.
The church Uehling designed still stands magnificently in downtown Fort Atkinson. Bertelsen thinks architect Uehling got to know Covey’s great-great-grandfather, John Valentine Becker.
The Beckers were respected masons and orchestrated the construction of many buildings in and around town.
Bertelsen suspects Uehling might have passed along the Fox Point Kronshage house design to Becker.
"I am just wondering how well these men knew each other, maybe there was a further friendship and connection, maybe — I need paperwork," she says.
Bertelsen intends to keep digging. However Becker and Uehling connected, it resulted in twin homes – one in Fox Point and one, still very much alive, in Fort Atkinson.
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