Eschweiler designed unique house used by three doctors
October 30, 2009
By Anna Passante
Historical photo reveals enclosed front porch. ~courtesy Halser family
In the early 1900s, well-known Milwaukee architect Alexander C. Eschweiler designed many of the palatial homes on Milwaukee’s affluent East Side, including the Charles Allis house at 1801 N. Prospect Ave. and the Robert Nunnemacher house at 2409 N. Wahl Ave.
But on Milwaukee’s south side, Eschweiler is known only to have designed two houses. In 1903, he designed an Arts and Crafts style house for his friend Dr. William Batchelor at 2445 S. Kinnickinnic Ave. in Bay View. In 1913, he designed an Arts and Crafts style house for Arthur Manegold at 1202 S. Layton Blvd.
The Batchelor house, however, was not just a residence. For over seven decades, the house also served as a medical office for three physicians: Dr. Batchelor, Dr. Earle X. Thompson, and Dr. Joseph Halser, Jr.
Dr. William Batchelor
Batchelor was born in Marietta, Ohio in 1856. He graduated from Marietta College in 1878 and earned his M.D. at the University of Pennsylvania in 1884. That year he married Emma Granger of Marietta, and they moved to Bay View, residing at 1339 E. Potter Ave., where he also practiced medicine.
According to a city directory, in 1888 Batchelor moved his medical practice to a home at 2445 S. Kinnickinnic Ave., and by 1891 the city directory records that the family was also residing there. The couple had two sons, Roger (b. 1890) and Henry (b. 1892).
Dr. Joseph Halser, Jr. ~photo courtesy Halser family
In addition to his private practice, Batchelor was a surgeon for Milwaukee Hospital, Emergency Hospital, Milwaukee’s Children’s Hospital, company physician for the Bay View Illinois Steel Company, and railroad surgeon for the Chicago, Lake Shore & Eastern Railway Co.
In early 1903, Batchelor decided to move his Queen Anne style home to a lot across the street to 533 E. Wilson St. (where it remains today) in order to build a larger home on his Kinnickinnic Avenue property (present-day northwest corner of KK & Wilson). Batchelor continued to live and practice medicine in his relocated home while his new house was being built.
In May 1903, Eschweiler completed the architectural plan and the Meredith Brothers of Bay View began construction of Dr. Batchelor’s new home and office. The red-brick house was 3,896 square feet and 2.5 stories, clad with cedar shake above the first floor. The architectural drawings for the house at the Wisconsin Architectural Archive essentially reflect the present layout of the house.
The first floor features a living room, dining room with stained glass windows, library with a brick fireplace, wide oak staircase, an enclosed servants staircase, and a kitchen. A butler’s pantry connects the kitchen to the dining room. Most of these rooms have oak woodwork and oak coffered ceilings.
The original architectural drawings show two rear rooms on the first floor that comprised the medical office. One room was a waiting room and the other an examination room with a small closet laboratory. Patients entered the doctor’s office through a separate entrance on E. Wilson Street.
A two-way mirror (like the kind used in police interrogation rooms) was installed in the newly constructed wall at the base of the central stairway, which allowed the doctor or his wife to peer into the waiting room, unobserved, to see if patients were waiting.
from the book Notable Men of Wisconsin, 1902
There are three bedrooms, a study with a brick fireplace, one full bath, and one half bath on the second floor. The architectural drawing identifies an additional room at the back of the second floor as a sewing room. This room was most likely also a servant’s bedroom. According to census records, 22-year-old Ida Oberst was a servant in 1900 and 21-year-old Julia (last name unclear on census record) in 1910. The walk-up third-floor attic provides capacious storage space.
In 1904, Eschweiler designed a stable and coach house, topped with a cupola, west of the house. Bay View contractor Elias Stollenwerk did the carpentry work and the Meredith Brothers of Bay View the masonry work.
After Batchelor
Batchelor died in 1920. Two years later, his widow sold the property and the medical practice to 30-year-old Dr. Earle X. Thompson, formerly of the state of Maryland. At the time he bought the Batchelor property, Thompson had a medical office and residence at 4708 S. Packard Ave. (now razed) in Cudahy. He was also the company doctor for the Patrick Cudahy Company.
Thompson expanded the doctor’s office by erecting a wall between the living room and dining room. The living room became a patient waiting room and the former waiting room became an X-ray room. A two-way mirror (like the kind used in police interrogation rooms) was installed in the newly constructed wall at the base of the central stairway, which allowed the doctor or his wife to peer into the waiting room, unobserved, to see if patients were waiting.
Dr. Joseph Halser’s business card. ~courtesy Halser family
In 1941, Dr. Joseph G. Halser, Jr. purchased the property and practice from Dr. Thompson. Halser and his wife Dorothea “Dot” lived in the house with Thompson and his wife Marion for nine months in preparation for taking over the practice. After the nine-month transition, Thompson moved back East with his wife.
Dorothea Halser worked beside her husband in the practice. She was responsible for raising the children, cooking, and cleaning, as well as performing receptionist duties and being her husband’s nurse assistant. Halser practiced medicine into the mid-1970s and died in 1984. Along with his private practice, Halser was also the company doctor for Cudahy’s Ladish Company.
When the Halsers moved into the house there were ginkgo trees on the property. The Chinese ambassador to the United States had given Dr. Batchelor three ginkgo trees, according to Dorothea Halser. The ginkgo trees became Dorothea’s passion. She is considered the person who was responsible for propagating the ginkgo tree around the Milwaukee area. There are still ginkgo trees on the Kinnickinnic Avenue property.
Fall view of ginkgo tree in yard adjacent to Wilson Street. ~photo courtesy Halser family
In 2009, Bill Doyle, a well-known Bay View house rehabber, purchased the Eschweiler house. According to Doyle, Joseph Halser III, the son of the late doctor, called him and asked if he would like to purchase the house. “The Halser family chose me over a number of people who had offered to buy the house,” said Doyle. The Halsers wanted to sell the house to someone they could trust to preserve the historic fabric of the house, Doyle said.
He acknowledged it’s an ambitious project, but Doyle said he plans to restore the house to its former glory. He’s already completed some exterior work, including a new roof and the replacement of decorative shingling on the second story. Inside the house, he removed the wall between the living room and the dining room. He said he carefully removed the two-way mirror that was housed in the wall and is preserving it.
Doyle intends to retain as much of the house’s history as possible, including the unique black roller blinds in the former X-ray room and the footed cast iron bathtub in the upstairs bathroom. Doyle credited the Halsers for their years of stewardship and said he’s committed to the house, too. He doesn’t see himself just as its owner. “I see myself as the caretaker of this house,” he said.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Laura Sisson-Thompson on Tue, 19th Jan 2010 10:10 pm
Hello to writer Anna Passante,
It was great to learn more about my father-in-law, Earl X Thompson, and the house on KK Avenue. Good detail. I am curious as to who shared the info with you regarding his working for the Patrick Cudahy Co. and so on.
Using City of Milwaukee directories, I had put together a time-line on his life. I recently discovered that he was written up in the book History of Milwaukee, Vol. 111, 1922. He was married to a Dorothy Ferber and they had a son Jack and later one named Rodger while living on KK. They evidently divorced in 1930 and their son Jack died young in 1937. He married Marion/Marian Classen and as you indicate, they moved in 1941/42 to his home area near Baltimore, Maryland, where their only son Robert S. (Steve) Thompson was born in 1944. Earl died in March 1954 and his wife, a nurse, moved back to the Bay View area where her siblings were still living. She worked for the City of Milwaukee until her death from lupus in 1970. Their son, Steve, graduated from Bay View H.S. He died from ALS in 2005 at the age of 60. He left two sons, Edward X. Thompson (Racine) and Rathe Thompson, U.S. Army.