A NEW MOLD

Idyllic Beach Drive is also home to the notorious “mold house,” a multi-million-dollar mansion that’s severely infested with black mold. According to former owner Andy Gronik, a Democratic businessman now running for governor, the house at 7736 N. Beach Dr. had, at some point before he bought it, sustained serious flooding, sewage backups and window leakages – damages the prior owner had neglected to disclose. Gronik bought the house in

2009, moved out in 2010 after his whole family got sick, and later sold the property to developer Tan Lo, co-owner of Barrett Lo Visionary Development (the firm behind The Couture skyscraper project) for about the same price he paid for it – $3.55 million.

Lo plans to raze the house and construct a French-style, limestone mansion with 12-foot ceilings and a mansard roof for an estimated $2 million, says the architect, William T. Baker of Atlanta. The plans also call for an indoor basketball court for Lo’s young sons plus another sports room (for dad, presumably) with golf turf flooring, and a theater.

In early July, Lo declined to comment because he had not yet gotten building permits and wasn’t certain it would go forward. On June 9, the Fox Point Building Board gave preliminary approval to the project, subject to the village also approving its grading and drainage plans, along with other conditions.

“This may be the nicest house built in Milwaukee since the 1920s,” Baker boasts, the Fox Point address notwithstanding. “It’s a symbol of the positive movement forward of the city.”