MILWAUKEE — One of the most iconic homes in Wisconsin is finally back up to 'shipshape'. With the reconstruction of its lighthouse, the Milwaukee Boat House is once again looking like it did back in 1922.
The Milwaukee Boat House was built in 1922 by Edmund Gustorf with the help of a Green Bay shipwright. It's modeled after a 1910 gasoline motor launch boat. It’s 72 feet long and 18 feet wide. As a home, it has 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, and about 550 square feet.
The home has had four owners. Most recently, Steven Tilton, who has lived in the Cambridge Woods neighborhood for roughly 40 years, bought it in 2018 from his neighbor.
“We knew the owner. He was our dentist. The kids would go to parties here. Some of the tenants had wonderful memories, and it’s an important part of the neighborhood. We wanted to keep it up," Tilton said.
Since its construction in 1922, it has been a primary residence, rented out, and more recently used as an Airbnb. Tilton said he’ll continue using it as an Airbnb.
The front yard is where you will find the lighthouse. It needed to be completely rebuilt since it was literally falling over. It took about a year to rebuild, and it was finished in the summer of 2026.
“And this is not a normal project. You can’t just look up miniature lighthouse carpenter," Claire Hitchcock Tilton, the architectural designer and daughter of Steven Tilton, said.
She actually just graduated from UW-Milwaukee with an architecture degree. Building a lighthouse was her first professional project. Initially, she struggled to find someone who could build the lighthouse exactly as it looked in the early 20th century. Eventually, she turned to her neighbor, Pete Brands.
“So while an individual was paying for it and funding it, it really felt like an investment in the community," he said about the project.
The lighthouse has a ladder you can climb up; however, it's a tight squeeze. Not everyone will fit. The light at the top does work.
“I believe the boathouse and the lighthouse is a monument to imagination and whimsy. It lets people know there’s more to life than going to work and doing your daily tasks," Steven Tilton said.
So here’s to the weird and whimsical, reminding us to just have some fun.
This is the origin story of the home, according to the Wisconsin Historical Society: When traveling salesman Edmund Gustorf needed a new house, he did what many Americans of the 1920s did: he indulged in a bit of exotic architectural fantasy. But instead of mimicking a period style, he had his house built in the shape of a boat. Seventy-two feet long, fitted with portholes, life preservers, and running lights, the house resembles a vintage motor yacht. The “hull” is aluminum siding and the “cabin” is wood paneling. Gustorf had a Green Bay boatyard precut pieces of the house, then assembled the parts on site, atop a concrete basement. He christened his new house the “Landlubber.” To complete the nautical theme, he built a miniature lighthouse, complete with rotating beacon, on the front lawn.
Watch the story on the Boat House and lighthouse to see more of what it looks like...
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