A Moderne-influenced mid-century industrial building on Milwaukee’s West Side is about to get a new look and a new use.
The single-story red brick warehouse at 5151 W. State St. is being converted into a $3.25 million self-storage facility, Founders 3 Real Estate Services announced Monday.
The new storage facility is expected to open in late summer in the building, which was built for the Green Bay-based Morley-Murphy Co., which launched in 1904 as a hardware wholesaler for Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula, also selling furnaces, stoves and kitchen ranges.
The Milwaukee arm of the business was set up in 1925 with an office and shipping department at 770 N. Milwaukee St. with a team of four headed by Charles E. Willert.
Later, the company began to add sporting goods, guns and ammunition to its inventory.
In 1934, the business outgrew that space and took over several floors in the Mayer Building on the southeast corner of Water and St. Paul in the Third Ward, by which time Morley-Murphy had expanded into selling appliances, rugs and “hard surface coverings.”
Two years later, the company jumped across the river to a building it purchased at 434 N. Plankinton Ave. – which has since been razed for a freeway ramp – putting it right next to Pritzlaff Hardware, which was surely one of its biggest competitors.
In 1949, Morley-Murphy – which by then had a warehouse and office in Wausau, too – bought the land at 51st and State and hired Charles Maier & Son as general contractors to build its modern new facility.
The design work was done by architects Arthur Seidenschwartz & Son.
The elder Seidenschwartz – both father and son were named Arthur – had previously worked at Charles Maier & Son and so would’ve known the contractors well.
Arthur Louis Seidenschwartz was born in Milwaukee in 1891 but lived most of his adult life in a house on the corner of 64th and Lloyd in Wauwatosa’s Pabst Park.
Though his name doesn’t often pop up these days, he was well-known in the Milwaukee architecture world during his day. In 1935 he was named second vice president of the Milwaukee chapter of the State Association of Wisconsin Architects. Other officers included Urban Peacock, Herman Buemming and Edwin Kuenzli.
Six years later, he was named president of the entire state association. In 1948, he became vice chair of the Wisconsin Veterans Housing Authority.
His other work included the Brookfield town hall and a number of residences in the area. One South Side house design, which made the newspaper, suggests in the 1930s, Seidenschwartz was working in traditional styles.
To the general public Seidenschwartz was likely better known for his Rolls-Royce cars, which landed him in the daily papers more often than did his architectural work.
In 1957, the Journal wrote that the architect liked his first Rolls-Royce so much he bought a second one by mail order from England, having it delivered by ocean freighter at a cost of $276.
The architect’s son, Arthur William, also had a Rolls-Royce (and two Volkswagens). His father, meanwhile, kept his Ford Thunderbird in the family garage, which also housed a small machine shop and rented garage space from neighbors for the two Rolls-Royces.
Those were the newly acquired, one-of-a-kind 1933 sports coupe and a 1931 roadster purchased in 1950.
Perhaps the architect funded that purchase with the work he did on the new State Street facility for Morley-Murphy Co.
That 75,000 -square-foot building, with its long row of windows and sleek, rounded Moderne corner with a recessed entrance, was completed by the end of summer 1949 and in mid-September, the company moved in.
In addition to all that space, noted the Milwaukee Sentinel, “the new State Street property offers rail siding and customer parking facilities unobtainable downtown.”
Although Morley-Murphy still exists in Green Bay, it is no longer a hardware distributor, focusing instead on backup generators and real estate and operating a philanthropic foundation.
As for the Seidenschwartzs, young Arthur built a Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired Prairie Style house on a hilltop overlooking Bluemound Road in 1952, where he enjoyed the view out over the countryside. He could even see Holy Hill 25 miles away on a clear day.
Both father and son took their Rolls-Royces around the country for competitions and shows.
Arthur Sr. died in 1974 and Jr. passed away 24 years later.
In 1986, the State Street building – after having been used for sales of overstocks and closeouts by the likes of West Shore Sales – was sold to MGIC for record storage, though the company also has used it for data storage in more recent years.
Now, the new Wauwatosa Self Storage – developed by Steve Rolfe of Midland Commercial Development Corp, William Wirth of Luft Consulting, Inc., and Jordan Nelson of Nelson Development – is getting a new look on the outside.
Inside, 63,500 square feet of the building’s 90,316 square feet (it was expanded over the years and the western end of the building is already occupied) will be converted into 444 storage units with more than two dozen configurations. Sizes will range from 5x10 feet to 10x30 feet.
Interior demolition work began this week.
The storage facility, which has a large surface parking lot, will have an onsite manager and hi-res cameras for security.
Twenty-three of the storage units in the main drive-through aisle will be specifically laid out to accommodate automobile storage. I’m confident that would make the Seidenschwartzs smile.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
