The 3-story building built in 1848 received little public attention

By DAN BENSON
of the Journal Sentinel staff

Last Updated: March 23, 2002

Port Washington - Now that it's gone, almost everyone involved is lamenting the loss of a historic mill in downtown Port Washington that attracted little public attention before it was demolished last year.

What remains is a parking lot at the end of Milwaukee Ave., next to Sauk Creek.

Until last September, a three-story Cream City brick building stood on the sight. Commonly known as the Stelling mill, the building was built in 1848 and was the oldest industrial building in Port Washington.

Of the more than 1,500 working Wisconsin mills in 1880, the Stelling grist mill was one of only 146 powered by steam, according to census figures.

It continued to operate until the mid-1930s.

Don Dimmer, owner of Advanced Restoration in Port Washington, said he was "very disappointed that the building had to come down. In Milwaukee, they would have saved it or got some people to put it back together again. . . . It was irreplaceable."

The last owner of the building, David Schmutzler, said he, too, was sorry the building could not be saved. He took umbrage at a comment in a March 10 Journal Sentinel story in which a historical society official said Schmutzler didn't show much interest in saving the building.

Damon Anderson, former president of the Port Washington historical society, and Randy Tetzlaff, the city's economic development director, said efforts were made to buy or restore the property but to no avail.

Schmutzler said the mill had been vacant for more than 40 years and fallen into disrepair when he bought the property in the 1970s and moved his company, Jadair Inc., into the building next door.

Over time, interior floors had collapsed, the roof was leaking, and there was standing water in it, posing a safety hazard, according to the police and fire departments, city officials said.

Schmutzler re-roofed the building in 1988 and improved one room for use as storage, he said.

But it wasn't enough.

Last year, the city condemned it and Schmutzler was forced to tear it down.

Three groups were curious about buying the building in the late '90s, but no adequate offer materialized, Schmutzler said. The only offer he received to buy the site, Schmutzler said, was for less than its value as bare land.

Schmutzler said he had at one time hoped to restore the building to use as offices for his company, but he couldn't justify the expense.

In October 2000, Schmutzler invited Haag Muller Inc. architects in Grafton to look at the building.

"I'd love to see it in good use," he wrote the architects.

But the architects wrote back that they were too busy "to give proper and serious consideration to the mill building (ad)venture," according to a letter written by Ted R. Haag.

Haag said in a telephone interview that his firm was interested in buying the property but became involved in other projects.

"We didn't get far enough into it to study the economics of it, but I think it was tipping the scales toward the more expensive side," Haag said.

Schmutzler asked other architects and engineers to look at the building, but nothing ever came of those inquiries due to its dilapidated state, he said.

Dimmer said he offered to restore it, but it would have cost at least $150,000 just to make the building structurally sound, let alone to make it usable for offices or other uses.

"I think I had expended all reasonable possibilities for restoration," Schmutzler said.

Schmutzler got official word that the building was condemned last April in a letter from the city giving him 30 days to either restore or demolish the building.

In June, Schmutzler contracted with a Sheboygan company to demolish the building, which occurred in September.

Dimmer, whose company specializes in restoring historic structures and has worked on "pretty much every doggone building in downtown Port Washington," laments the loss of the building but says it will live on in at least one way.

Some of its yellow Cream City brick will be used to help restore the Interurban Depot train depot in downtown Cedarburg.