Bob Berg / Lake Superior Magazine
A Home with a History: Couple Finds Their Perfect Place in Washburn
In early spring, the Katzmareks’ 101-year-old historic home stands ready for plantings in the garden they created near the entry.
When Martin and JoAnne Katzmarek went on a bike ride during a visit to Washburn, Wisconsin, in 2007, they weren’t looking to buy a home. But a “for sale” sign in the yard of a charming arts-and-crafts bungalow just off the city’s main thoroughfare caught their eye and suddenly a vague notion of retiring there came into sharp focus.
The couple was living in Stevens Point, where JoAnne taught aspiring educators as a professor of reading and language arts at the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point. Martin had retired from his job as hazardous materials coordinator for Dane County Emergency Management. They’d fallen in love with Washburn while visiting friends, and the idea to make the Lake Superior community their retirement home became reality when they chanced upon the stone-pillared bungalow.
Bob Berg / Lake Superior Magazine
A Home with a History: Couple Finds Their Perfect Place in Washburn
Martin and JoAnne have kept the original stone pillars intact while trying to keep the drooping concrete porch in good shape.
“It was love at first sight,” JoAnne says. “We bought the house on that visit.”
Only blocks from downtown, the home was a perfect fit for the lifestyle they envisioned. “We’re walkers,” explains JoAnne. “From here, we walk everywhere. We walk to the grocery store, to StageNorth and down to the lakeshore trail.”
There was a lot to love about their new home, built in 1915 by lumber baron Milton A. Sprague as a nuptial gift for his daughter, Alice, for her marriage to local pharmacist Bernard Wiechmann. Milton, who founded the Sprague mill and helped organize Northern State Bank, gave his daughter and son-in-law a functional home with flair. Typical of craftsman style popular at the time, the home has elongated windows, kick-outs and sloping stone columns.
To the delight of the new owners, much of the original birch woodwork inside the home remained intact, including a magnificent wall-sized arts-and-crafts wood cabinet with glass doors between the kitchen and dining room. Wood pillars separate the dining and living rooms. A craftsman-style stone fireplace with a unique asymmetry is the focal point of the living area. Floor-to-ceiling windows in the dining room let in sun and many of the windows still have the original glass.
Many beautiful original features remained, but the Katzmareks found there had been changes over the years. The biggest came from a 1940s remodel that created a separate upstairs apartment, complete with a kitchen. To provide a private entrance for it, an enclosed stairwell had been tacked onto the back of the bungalow. “It was really ugly,” JoAnne says.
In addition, the huge exterior entryway was creating drainage problems around the house.
The couple reclaimed the upstairs and updated the plumbing and downstairs kitchen while retaining the home’s unique character.
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Bob Berg / Lake Superior Magazine
A Home with a History: Couple Finds Their Perfect Place in Washburn
The craftsman-style stone fireplace remains a centerpiece for the living room, which retains its beautiful maple wood flooring. The cabinet with the lace door panels nicely disguises a modern television set and keeps the integrity of the 101-year-old home.
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Bob Berg / Lake Superior Magazine
A Home with a History: Couple Finds Their Perfect Place in Washburn
The original built-in China cabinet still separates the kitchen from the dining room, but the Katzmareks removed the mirror panels from the kitchen side and replaced them with clear glass in increase the light in both rooms.
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Bob Berg / Lake Superior Magazine
A Home with a History: Couple Finds Their Perfect Place in Washburn
JoAnne and Martin enjoyed searching out the elements for their interior décor, like this ceramic pot.
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Bob Berg / Lake Superior Magazine
A Home with a History: Couple Finds Their Perfect Place in Washburn
The upstairs master suite features an open bedroom.
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Bob Berg / Lake Superior Magazine
A Home with a History: Couple Finds Their Perfect Place in Washburn
The master suite also has a work space with bookcases made by Martin where an apartment kitchen once was.
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Claire Duquette
A Home with a History: Couple Finds Their Perfect Place in Washburn
The guest room is on the main floor.
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Bob Berg / Lake Superior Magazine
A Home with a History: Couple Finds Their Perfect Place in Washburn
Ample floor-to-ceiling windows brighten the dining and living rooms.
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Bob Berg / Lake Superior Magazine
A Home with a History: Couple Finds Their Perfect Place in Washburn
Repainting the original cabinets and white beadboard makes the galley kitchen shipshape.
To connect the unattached garage to the house, they hired Washburn architect Jill Lorenz of Su Casa Design, and begin a remodeling project that lasted from their 2007 purchase of the home to 2012 when they became full-time Washburn residents.
To successfully reintegrate the upstairs and downstairs while preserving the architectural integrity of the home meant the clunky back entryway had to go. “Integrating the garage with the house in a way that wasn’t jarring was a challenge – and a privilege,” says Jill.
The architect designed a breezeway that connects the home and garage, provides a sunny mudroom and gives the couple access to a beautiful backyard patio deck. The former upstairs apartment was transformed into an airy master bedroom suite that includes a spacious master bath and a connected mini office space where Martin built custom inset bookcases.
“My books mean a lot to me,” says JoAnne, who taught high school English in the Madison area before going to UW-Stevens Point.
For construction they couldn’t do themselves, they hired local contractors. “A wonderful consequence of using local talent is that many of them became our friends,” Martin says. In fact, they now count Jill Lorenz as one of their closest Washburn friends.
Lake Effect Builders of Washburn tore off the old back staircase and built the new breezeway. Dave Anderson of Dave Anderson Electric rewired the house, and Adrian Cady of Cady Plumbing helped create the new bathroom. Vanderploeg Hardwood Floors of Cable lovingly buffed the original maple flooring back to its former beauty.
The couple liked the compact original kitchen. They kept the white beadboards, white wood cabinetry and dark laminate countertops, but updated with new appliances.
In addition to building a deck in their backyard, they created a flower garden in the front. “We took out a bunch of stone that had been placed in the front,” Martin says “And we were delighted when (former owner) Edna Lippert’s rosebushes came up again.”
Jill believes that where we live shapes who we are, and that the beauty and livability of the Katzmareks’ home reflects their character.
For their part, the Katzmareks couldn’t be happier about their move to Washburn to create a living space they enjoy each day.
“At different times of the day the wood just glows in the sunlight,” JoAnne says. “Sometimes in the winter, I sit in my reading chair and the sunrise is reflected in the ice crystals that form on the windows. It’s just like being in church.”
Or like being home.
Like the Katzmareks, freelance writer Claire Duquette enjoys living in Washburn.