A "Milwaukee in Stone and Clay" Companion, Part 6: Top-Drawer Tudorranean | George N. Wiswell House (1896)
(Updated on May 14, 2024)
This series complements my recently published guidebook, Milwaukee in Stone and Clay: A Guide to the Cream City's Architectural Geology. Henceforth I'll just call it MSC.
The MSC section and page references for the building featured here: 8.21; pp. 211-212.
In the Northpoint neighborhood.
One of my favorite dissonances in American residential architecture is what I call the Tudorranean style. In Milwaukee, the Wiswell House is its exemplar.
Wonderfully gloomy Lake Superior Brownstone and half-timbered Tudor gables have been set against jarringly cheerful Mediterranean terra-cotta roof tiles. It may seem the design equivalent of adding tabasco sauce to chocolate mousse, but it works. And architects Ferry & Clas knew it.
Geologically speaking, the maroon ashlar is Chequamegon Sandstone quarried on the Lake Superior littoral at the Prentice Quarry in North Washburn, Wisconsin. It belongs to the great sequence of clastic sedimentary strata that overlie the lava flows of the Midcontinent Rift.
For decades, the Chequamegon's age was "poorly constrained," which means it was difficult to pin down. Because it lacks index fossils and other traditionally sought-after clues, estimates of its antiquity ranged from the latest Mesoproterozoic to the Cambrian—a span of over half a billion years.
Fortunately, one newer technique, detrital-zircon analysis, has now established the Chequamegon's maximum depositional age as 1.039 Ga. This means that it is either very late Mesoproterozoic or early Neoproterozoic.
The roof tiles are unsourced, but probably were manufactured by either Ludowici or Celadon. At the time the Wiswell House was constructed, these were the two leading Midwestern producers.
This site and many others in Milwaukee County are discussed at greater length in Milwaukee in Stone and Clay (NIU Imprint of Cornell University Press).
The other photos and discussions in this series can be found in my "Milwaukee in Stone and Clay" Companion album. Also, while you're at it, check out my Architectural Geology of Milwaukee album, too. It contains quite a few photos and descriptions of Cream City sites highlighted in other series of mine.
A "Milwaukee in Stone and Clay" Companion, Part 6: Top-Drawer Tudorranean | George N. Wiswell House (1896)
(Updated on May 14, 2024)
This series complements my recently published guidebook, Milwaukee in Stone and Clay: A Guide to the Cream City's Architectural Geology. Henceforth I'll just call it MSC.
The MSC section and page references for the building featured here: 8.21; pp. 211-212.
In the Northpoint neighborhood.
One of my favorite dissonances in American residential architecture is what I call the Tudorranean style. In Milwaukee, the Wiswell House is its exemplar.
Wonderfully gloomy Lake Superior Brownstone and half-timbered Tudor gables have been set against jarringly cheerful Mediterranean terra-cotta roof tiles. It may seem the design equivalent of adding tabasco sauce to chocolate mousse, but it works. And architects Ferry & Clas knew it.
Geologically speaking, the maroon ashlar is Chequamegon Sandstone quarried on the Lake Superior littoral at the Prentice Quarry in North Washburn, Wisconsin. It belongs to the great sequence of clastic sedimentary strata that overlie the lava flows of the Midcontinent Rift.
For decades, the Chequamegon's age was "poorly constrained," which means it was difficult to pin down. Because it lacks index fossils and other traditionally sought-after clues, estimates of its antiquity ranged from the latest Mesoproterozoic to the Cambrian—a span of over half a billion years.
Fortunately, one newer technique, detrital-zircon analysis, has now established the Chequamegon's maximum depositional age as 1.039 Ga. This means that it is either very late Mesoproterozoic or early Neoproterozoic.
The roof tiles are unsourced, but probably were manufactured by either Ludowici or Celadon. At the time the Wiswell House was constructed, these were the two leading Midwestern producers.
This site and many others in Milwaukee County are discussed at greater length in Milwaukee in Stone and Clay (NIU Imprint of Cornell University Press).
The other photos and discussions in this series can be found in my "Milwaukee in Stone and Clay" Companion album. Also, while you're at it, check out my Architectural Geology of Milwaukee album, too. It contains quite a few photos and descriptions of Cream City sites highlighted in other series of mine.