Preserving our Past: March

The Robert B. and Ivy Asquith House

998 East Circle Drive

By Tom Fehring

Brick, single story Prairie-School style residence, designed by Russell Barr Williamson, and constructed in 1923 for Robert and Ivy Asquith.

Russell Barr Williamson (1893-1964) spent a number of years working in Frank Lloyd Wright's firm, before becoming a leading Milwaukee architect with a career spanning more than four decades. He designed several Whitefish Bay homes. Although he worked in a variety of styles, he designed Prairie style homes in the first decades of his career and was the supervising architect for two of Wright's Prairie style projects – the Bogk House and the American System Built prefab houses built by the Milwaukee developer Arthur L. Richards.

This Prairie style house features the strong horizontal lines characteristic of that style, Roman bricks set on a concrete foundation, bands of leaded glass windows, and a low-pitched tile roof with extended eaves.

According to Wright’s Milwaukee Directory, it appears that Robert Asquith was a salesman for von Huffman Inc.

The residence was identified by the Wisconsin State Historical Society in a 1980 survey.

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About "Preserving Our Past"

The Village of Whitefish Bay is a community of residential neighborhoods, punctuated with an attractive walking district of fine stores, excellent schools and vibrant houses of worship. It is filled with homes and other buildings that are architecturally rich, well-designed and maintained, and diverse in character.

Its residents have contributed much to the broad cultural, political, economic and social history of the area. And its residents are interested in maintaining their connections with an historic past.

To help maintain these connections, the Historic Preservation Commission is in the process of identifying buildings and historic sites that it believes may be architecturally significant or historic. On a weekly basis we will feature a building or site from our inventory.

• Archive: Read about the village's other historic buildings
• From the commission: About our inventory and a request for help
• More information: Historic designation application and procedures online