Plankinton’s Palace: The House & Grounds

1/2/26 54 Comments

Authored & Curated By

M.J.G.

Palace (1880s) – period view

This is the first in a series of posts examining the elaborate exterior and interior of John Plankinton’s Milwaukee, Wisconsin, home. With the kind permission of Marquette University’s Raynor Library, Archival Collections & Institutional Repository, I’m able to share the TIFF images they provided. In this article, we’ll start with the 19th-century exterior before moving photo-by-photo through the interiors in future posts. While these photos aren’t as crisp as some other photographs we've explored, they still offer a fascinating time-travel window into a world now long gone. All images are courtesy of Marquette University’s Raynor Library, Archival Collections & Institutional Repository.

As always, if you have any additional images or history on this home, please post it in the comments section below so we can memorialize this great mansion's history here.

Special thanks to Katie Blank, University and Digital Records Archivist, for her help with permissions and documentation.

John Plankinton’s palatial Milwaukee residence, in its prime, sat on its own block at the corner of 15th and Grand Avenue—on what many say was seven acres of land. What we see in this photo are mature trees, a carriage and horse in the carriage house, his son William’s mansion next door, and his son’s carriage house off in the distance.

Many are shocked to learn that the house we see here, however, has old bones. Beneath the palatial appearance was an earlier, smaller house that formed the core of what would later become this mansion. It’s often said that no images of the original house survive, but I was able to spot it in an etching focused on his son’s home, where Plankinton’s own residence is sketched in the background.

Before we discuss the home, let’s start with the people who lived there.

John was a Milwaukee meat-packing magnate, banker, and real-estate developer who helped transform Grand Avenue into a prominent mansion district. He built his fortune through firms such as Layton & Plankinton and Plankinton & Armour, supplying meat during and after the Civil War. After arriving in Milwaukee in 1844, he began packing beef and hog products in 1849 and quickly became one of the city’s leading packers, helping establish Milwaukee as a major meatpacking center. ([Wisconsin Historical Society][1]) Beyond meatpacking, he was active in banking and transportation enterprises, and he became known for major real-estate projects (including the Plankinton House Hotel) as well as civic philanthropy that supported local charities and public institutions.

John’s first wife was Elizabeth Brachein Plankinton. Before her own death in 1872 at age 56, she had already endured the loss of three of their five children at young ages during her lifetime, highlighted in red below. Their daughter Hannah died at 20, just two years before Elizabeth’s own death.

William Plankinton (1844–1905; died at age 61)
George Plankinton (1847–1849; died before the age of 3)
Hannah Plankinton (1850–1870; died before the age of 21)
Elizabeth Ann “Lizzie” Plankinton (1853–1923; died at age 70)
Emma Plankinton (1856–1857; died before the age of 2)

Anna “Annie” Bradford became John Plankinton’s second wife in 1875 and remained a steady presence in his household—and in the lives of his surviving children—through the height of the family’s years on Grand Avenue. She stayed closely connected to the Plankinton family until her death in October 1900, at age 74. While her story is often told more quietly than the family’s public legacy, archival records suggest she was a recognized figure in Milwaukee civic life—memorialized in formal speeches preserved in Wisconsin collections—and early biographical accounts place her within the estate’s post-1891 trust arrangements.

This was the family’s original home. From here, they would move into the residence we’re exploring today.

John Plankinton’s “Old Homestead” stood at the southwest corner of N. 4th and W. Michigan Streets. Built in 1855 for Plankinton, it served as his residence until 1864. The building later housed the Milwaukee Thermo Water Cure, operated by M. P. Hanson, M.D., and later [sic] was converted into a hotel.

Illustration I:
Persistent research can sometimes lead to interesting discoveries, even when people insist that nothing exists. This is the first illustration I was able to find of the home prior to the major renovation. It comes from the Bird’s-Eye View of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (1872) and shows the house set within its large plot of land. This view captures the property before his son built his own palatial home next door in 1876. In this earlier scene, you can see it was already a substantial residence, complete with outbuildings.

Illustration II:
This second illustration was discovered by accident while looking for images of his son William’s home, built right next door. If you look closely enough, it also captures John Plankinton’s house before the palatial 1880s remodel. It likely reflects how the home appeared when it was built by James H. Rogers in 1856. This two-story brick residence—what we would call Italianate today—would have been described in the 19th century as an Italian Villa, and it originally featured a central front tower. Let’s zoom in a little closer at John Plankinton’s home in the distance.

A closer look at the etching shows that this was a two-story building, with a tower rising above the front door. A similar roofline would later be echoed after the remodel.

The original homeowner, James H. Rogers, was a New York–born land speculator and early Milwaukee entrepreneur who helped open up the west side in the 1840s by financing a bridge that finally linked Spring Street to East Wisconsin Avenue across the Milwaukee River. With profits from brick and real-estate ventures, he built a substantial brick mansion on Spring Street in 1856, set amid several acres of ground. In 1864, meat-packing magnate John Plankinton purchased the property and, after an extravagant remodel, the former Rogers house became one of Milwaukee’s best-known Grand Avenue landmarks.

UPDATE!
Thanks to JimH for finding an early photo of the home and posting it in the comments section below! This actual photo of the home is fantastic. Now we can see what the house looked like prior to the remodeling.

UPDATE!
Thanks to JimH for finding an early drawing of Rogers home on the early Map of Milwaukee.

In 1884, The Saint Paul Globe noted that the work of remodling [sic] John Plankinton’s residence, on Grand avenue, is approaching completion. The renovation will cost upwards of $125,000. The interior decorations will eclipse anything of the kind in Wisconsin. In Milwaukee Under the Charter, 1886, it states that the home underwent two remodelings, though I have not found much documentation on that as of yet. It further says the remodelings obliterated all trace of its original external form… though some of the roofline still follows closely to the etching we saw earlier. To read this book click here.

This major campaign dramatically reshaped the house. The original third-story tower was demolished and a full third level was added. An open observatory was built at the left corner, along with additional bays, a porte cochère, and other then-modern amenities.

This Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from 1894 gives us a view of the home, its outbuildings, and the overall scale of the property. Here we can see that the estate included a brick-veneered carriage house with an attached greenhouse. John’s residence appears at the bottom right of the map, while the top right shows the home of his son William, built in the 1870s. Off the map, on the opposite corner across Grand Avenue, John also built a home for his daughter Elizabeth.

This view shows the house soon after the remodel, photographed in the winter months, with the fully transformed property on display. The Saint Paul Globe reported that the family of John Plankinton… moved back into the old Plankinton mansion to-day [sic]. But “The old home ain’t what it used to be,” it now holds a place among the palatial residences of the northwest. The article goes on to say that the family had vacated the old homestead several years earlier during its claimed $200,000 renovation.

The same view of the home during the summer months. Here, the fountain is in full spray, and you get a clear sense of just how dominating the structure was—how grand and palatial it stood. The architecture also shows an intriguing mix of styles. It seems to hold on to its Italian villa bones while adding the rounded corner massing of European castles and classical column details. It was typical of this era to blend styles and give a house its own voice, even if that approach was—and still can be—criticized as being “too much.”

This close-up view of the second and third floors shows a strikingly simple metal railing set above the bay window. The carved detail between the windows is crisp, bold, and sharply defined.

The new tower created an open-air observatory, which must have been a fantastic place to sit and take in views of the city. Here, you can also see in the lower left-hand corner how the round turret truncates the conical roof, tucking neatly into the tower.

In the earlier etching of the house, prior to the remodel, you can see a fountain drawn into the scene. It isn’t clear whether the fountain was rebuilt or made more elaborate during the major renovation, but it remained a dramatic feature and still appears in photos from the 1920s. This is a winter view of the fountain, with no water spraying.

In this summer view, you can see that the fountain didn’t only spray water from the top of the tiered central feature, but also produced a dramatic display from the sides, arcing inward toward the center.

This is a fantastic perspective view that gives us another angle of the property. Here, you can see the circular driveway. I’m assuming this photo was taken from the balcony or tower of a nearby residence.

A close-up view of the fountain and flower bedding. “Carpet bedding,” laid out in clean, striped lines along the curve, was a popular gardening technique during this era. A view of the fountain basin when it was turned off gives us a better sense of how large it actually was.

It’s always curious to see how one could enter these types of towers, and in this view it appears that the entry point was a simple door on the right.

This fascinating detail from the north, first-story bay of the home remains an enigma. To date, I haven’t found any documentation explaining the design, and it’s still unclear whether anything is carved into the plaque beneath the lion’s head at the top. One thing is certain: no expense was spared in creating this residence, and every inch reflects Plankinton’s artistic vision. Perhaps new information will come to light.

While this series will only be diving into John Plankinton’s home, it is important to also mention the two other homes he built for his children. The first was the palatial residence he built for his son William—often called the William Plankinton House—in 1876 as a wedding gift when William married Mary Ella Woods. Said to have been designed by Edward Townsend Mix, the home stood right next to his father’s on the same long plot of land. In many ways, it may have appeared to be the more dominant house at the time, since John did not fully transform his own residence until the 1880s.

This 1894 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map shows the house highlighted in red, indicating it was “veneered.” In other words, while the home appears to be solid stone in photos, it was not. Veneering was a popular approach at the time: it reduced cost and labor while giving a house the visual effect of a different—and often more expensive-looking—material.

Elizabeth Plankinton’s planned residence was the massive stone Elizabeth Plankinton House, built for her by her father, John Plankinton, as a wedding gift and designed by Edward Townsend Mix in a Richardsonian Romanesque mode. This home at 1432 Grand Avenue was intended for Elizabeth; however, it is said that she never actually lived there, as her fiancé ended the engagement and married another woman.

The home for Elizabeth was a solid stone residence. Both the house and the carriage house were constructed of stone, as you can see on the Sanborn map—solid blue indicates stone (yellow indicates wood).

There are many interior photographs of this house, and it could easily warrant its own photo study.

In the 1886 book Pioneer History of Milwaukee, it proudly stated that Hon. John Plankinton, …is never easy unless erecting something to beautify as well as add to the wealth of the city, which offers insight into the type of man who took his wealth to new heights—and didn’t use it only for his own pleasures. This is how we should remember him. While unsurprisingly but sadly, all of the homes in this article have been demolished, it should remind even more why it is important to keep images like this alive. For those interested in the outcome of the homes, we’ll discuss this in more detail in the last chapter.

Next article we'll travel inside!

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