It was an old, two-story, stone store in which fur used to be traded--that was cool. But it was completely empty! There were like a few signs on the wall, a few pelts to pet, and that was about it. Self guided, ha! Yup, because there was nothing for a tour guide to say. We were a smidge disappointed. I was also freaking out about the money we'd just dropped on the house tour (which allowed access to the fur museum). As we saw their representation of the fur industry and as we wandered the grounds (discovering almost every outbuilding was filled with boxes for storage purposes), I began to wonder if we'd been duped!
Seeing the War of 1812 battle site on the grounds was neat-ish. There was the (sort of) outline of the old forts that stood on the lawn (but got washed away due to Mississippi flooding). Eighty percent of the buildings said, "closed to public access" on my handy-dandy map. My hopes were not high when the tour started, but it turned out to be a pretty interesting experience! I'll let Caelan take it from here :)
Hi! This is Caelan. One of the cool things we saw on our trip was The Villa Louis. The Villa was built by Hercules Louis Dousman (the first millionaire of Wisconsin) . He was called Louis by his friends and family. He got married to Nina Sturgis in 1872 and had five children: Violet, Virginia, Nina, Louis and Judith. Louis used the land surrounding his house to raise horses and even had a racetrack in front of the house. He said that his horses were the best because they were raised on Artesian water. Artesian water came from a well that was dug super deep, so the family believed that it contended minerals that were good for people and animals.
We went on a tour (led by a girl dressed up in 1800 clothing) through the office building and the villa. The office building had a billiard room and the entire second floor was guest rooms.
The actual Villa had a large screened porch where the family spent much of their free time. The porch was the first place in the entire house to get electricity, so that the family could show it off [to the neighbors or anyone else who might be passing by--talk about pretentious!].
When you were visiting the family you would hand the servant your calling card. Nina would decide if she was going to allow visitors that day and then let you in [often by observing the waiting guest in a mirror that allowed her to see the grand entryway without being seen at the top of the second floor landing]. Nina would wait until you had had enough time to admire all of her belongings and then come and greet you. She would always greet you by name whether she knew you or not [because she had the servant prop up the guest's calling card on a silver platter turned toward the grand staircase where she majestically descended]. She would then invite you to the parlor.Nina liked giving dinner parties as well. She would signal to the servants by moving her fork in a certain position and they would bring the next course right on time. Her guests of course did not know she was signaling so it seemed to happen by magic.
If you were a guest, Nina would weigh you before and after you came to make sure she had fed you enough. [Mom addendum: I think we should bring back this alarming social practice. Except now guests would be grateful if they left lighter as a result of their vacation, rather than heavier--water and salad greens; that's all you get at our house! Thanks for coming. Ha!]
In the tour we went into the kitchen and saw how big it was. The cook would have to make six meals a day, three for the family and three for the servants. They had a separate kitchen for all the canning and the preserving that had to be done.Outside and Dad and the boys tried the Artesian water they didn't think it tasted very good!
The house was beautiful and had a lot of red carpet. You can see the front porch in the picture below. [Mom addendum: it had A LOT of EVERYTHING--conflicting colors, patterns, textures, art pieces, hunting motifs, it was almost suffocating! But also very interesting because 90 percent is exactly how it was when owned by this fancy, pantsy family. Not often do you get to tour a place that is maintained to that degree of intactness :) Also, it was built on top of a Native American ceremonial mound--which prevented it from getting flooded by the very nearby Mississippi, but also gave it a kind of weird *vibe*. Buck found the story of the original owner's business partner suddenly passing away, leaving everything to the surviving fellow--who soon married the departed's widow a bit--fishy. Fishy, I do agree.]
And as a random additional mom addendum, we shopped at a Piggly Wiggly supermarket. It was the friendliest grocery store on the planet! The lady at our check-out counter recognized we were not frequent shoppers and hunted down the store's discount card, so we could get all the special local deals. She also asked Buck if he wanted "pick-up." He said, "What is that?" and she started laughing :) I was familiar with the odd practice of leaving your recently purchased groceries in the hands of a stranger, who you then trust to push those groceries to meet you at a designated drive-through lane somewhere outside in order to load them into your car. I guess folks in Wisconsin are still more trusting, because it has been YEARS since I've seen that service offered around here!
And even though it tastes the same--Piggly Wiggly chai is way more fun to drink than regular chai, so I had to take a picture ;)
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