UW-Milwaukee announced Thursday that it plans to sell the 1927 Lake Drive house that it purchased for just under a million dollars in 2012.
The French Revival house, at 3435 N. Lake Dr., was designed by architect Charles Valentine for Sylvester A. Weyenberg, who was president of the F. L. Weyenberg Shoe Company, and his wife Gertrude.
The home was purchased for $955,000 by the UWM Real Estate Foundation 12 years ago and transferred to UWM.
The proposed sale, which must be approved by the UW Board of Regents, is, a university statement says, “part of UWM’s larger effort to reduce costs and divest itself of properties that are no longer serving UWM’s best interests.”
Sylvester's elder brother Frank started making shoes in 1903 after having run shoe stores in Chippewa Falls and his native Appleton. He started the F.L. Weyenberg company in 1906.
Weyenberg Shoes expanded in the late 1960s when it bought Nunn-Bush, Adler and MorganâHayes.
By 1976, when Weyenberg died at age 94, his company had 2,700 employees making shoes at facroties in Milwaukee, Beaver Dam, Portage, Edgerton and Waterloo and in overseas factories in Ireland and Italy.
Last October, UWM Chancellor Mark Mone bought a new residence in the neighborhood and has moved there.
“Selling the chancellor’s residence is the smart financial move for our university,” Mone said.
“I was glad to be able to purchase a home just a few blocks away from campus, which allows me to be in the community and on campus even more.”
If given the OK by the Board of Regents, UWM will list the six-bedroom residence for sale publicly, according to the statement.
When it purchased the 4,818-square-foot home in 2012, it was claimed the home would allow the chancellor to entertain potential donors and business and research partners.
The house was purchased with private donations and proceeds from the sale of a previous chancellor’s residence, at 4430 N. Lake Dr. in Shorewood, that was sold after then-chancellor Carlos Santiago moved out.
Other efforts made toward the cost reduction and property divestiture have included closing the Purin Hall student residence, demolishing the former Columbia Hostpital and in 2021, it sold the former Alumni House.
UWM had planned to renovate its old Chemistry Building but now says it will tear the structure down instead.
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.
