Two bedrooms, two baths, a bow and a lighthouse
Quirky boat house hits the market
Milwaukee’s “boat house” needs a new captain.
The distinctive east side home at 3138 N. Cambridge Ave. went up for sale late last week. Home buyers can purchase the property — which comes with its own lighthouse — for just under $400,000.
As a child, current owner William Kortsch lived a few doors from the house and said the home’s nautical design has always captured his attention. His grandfather even poured concrete in the basement and installed terrazzo flooring.
“There was never anything built like it in the whole world nor will there ever be,” he said. “It represents America — the United States in its boom years.”
The single-family home sits near the banks of the Milwaukee River and is formally known as the Edmund B. Gustorf House. Gustorf, who built the house in the 1920s, was a traveling salesman and described the home as a “yacht bungalow” on the building permit.
The wood for the hull and deck cabin of the house is supposedly from a Green Bay boatyard, and Gustorf lived in the house with his wife, Lotta, until 1939. Samuel Burns owned the house from 1950 until it was sold in 1985 to Kortsch.
Kortsch, 90, and his wife, who died earlier this year, lived next door for decades and rented out the home, which is built in the style of a gasoline-powered luxury boat.
Kortsch recently decided that it was time to part ways with the roughly 550square-foot space. But when the house went up for sale in the ’80s, Kortsch jumped at the chance to buy because he didn’t want the local landmark and his childhood memory to be razed for condos or apartments.
“Hardly anybody from Milwaukee — born and raised here — doesn’t know about it,” he said.
The home’s historic preservation study report describes it as “a unique expression of early 20th-century fantasy architecture.”
Kortsch, who now lives in Fox Point, said he’d like to see the house used as a public meeting space since people have always been eager to take a peek inside the home.
Kortsch bought the house for about $40,000 three decades ago, but he said he put just as much money toward refurbishing the house when he purchased it.
The home is close to the Oak Leaf Trail and has two bedrooms and two full bathrooms. It also has a deck and a gas fireplace and a detached garage. Property taxes are listed as $3,834.
Carole Wehner with Milwaukee Executive Realty said she’s sold her fair share of special houses, but nothing quite tops the boat house.
“This is obviously the most unique one to date,” she said.