| Additional Information: | IT IS BELIEVED THAT THIS NOW-ALTERED CREAM BRICK-CLAD ITALIANATE STYLE FARMHOUSE WAS BUILT AS THE HOME OF A. E. PERKINS, WHOSE SILVER SPRINGS STOCK FARM WAS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT IN THIS AREA DURING HIS LIFETIME. PERKINS WAS THE FIRST TO RAISE SHEEP FOR WOOL IN THIS SECTION, AN ACTIVITY FOR WHICH THIS PART OF WAUKESHA AND RACINE COUNTIES LATER BECAME WELL KNOWN. PERKINs'S SUCCESS ENABLED HIM TO BUILD THIS HOUSE AT A COST OF $6,000 AT SOME TIME PRIOR TO 1880. THE SURVIVING FARMSTEAD THAT SURROUNDS IT IS STILL LARGELY INTACT AS WELL AND FEATURES TWO GABLE-ROOFED MAIN BARNS, TWO POURED CONCRETE SILOS, AND AT LEAST FIVE ADDITONAL SMALLER GABLE-ROOFED OUTBUILDINGS.
Resources for the A. E. Perkins Farmstead include the house (138858), gable basement barn (226134), gambrel basement barn (226135), agricultural outbuilding (225136), agricultural outbuilding (226137), silo (226138), and machine shed (226139).
2022 - The Italianate farmhouse (AHI 138858) was constructed c. 1873. It was constructed of cream brick, with an unknown foundation material and a hipped, asphalt-shingled roof. The house’s main mass is a two-story square with a primary elevation that faces east; a gable-roofed one-and a half-story cream brick mass is located to the rear. The main mass features elaborate scrolled wooden brackets, located in pairs at the wide cornice. Window openings are topped by projecting rectangular hood molds with scrolled in-lays. The front door to the residence is located at the northeastern corner of the primary elevation beneath the porch, topped with a round fanlight. The flat-roofed front porch spans the width of the first story, supported by wooden and concrete piers atop a concrete half wall clad in random-course fieldstone. A doorway leading to the porch roof has replaced one of the second story windows above. The one-and a half-story mass at the rear features soldier brick lintels, gable-roofed dormers and an enclosed porch on the north side. Windows are a mix of one-over-one double hung replacements, though several multi-paned double hung windows are located on the primary elevation and the northern elevation of the one-story mass. The porch, which once wrapped around the southern elevation of the building, has been completely reconstructed, and a cupola atop the hipped roof is no longer extant. While the rear portion of the house appears to be original to the structure, it has been significantly altered as well, with new windows, and vinyl cladding on the dormers, and addition of an enclosed porch on the north side.
2012- "The 2-story Italianate house (AHI #138858) was constructed c. 1873. The principal mass of the house is square in plan with an asphalt shingle, hipped roof and cream brick walls. An end-gabled addition is adjoined to the rear of the house with an asphalt shingle roof, gabled roof dormers on centered in both roof planes and brick walls. Widely-overhanging eave and wide band trim are continuous along the principal mass of the house and supported by pairs of decorative brackets-four pairs on each elevation. The majority ofthe windows are topped by lintel, decorative crowns. The front fa9ade faces northeast and is symmetrical in plan with three evenly spaced bays-the southern two bays contain windows at the first and second level and the northernmost bay contains doorways that open up to first story and second story porches. The front porch is full-width with a fieldstone half-wall and cream brick pillars supporting the second story porch above."
- "STH 83, Mukwanago and Waterford 7.5 Quads", WisDOT ID #1300-09-71, Prepared by GLARC, Inc (Megan Daniels) (2012).
2005- "The Italianate style farmhouse of this historic farmstead has a two-story-tall square plan main block that has a stone foundation,
walls clad in cream brick, and a shallow-pitched hip roof whose boxed eaves are supported by paired wooden brackets. The main
facade of this block faces east onto STH 83 and it is three-bays-wide and its first story is now sheltered by a later flat-roofed, full-width
front porch. Attached to the rear of this block is a one-and-one-half-story-tall gable-roofed rear ell whose original north-facing
elevation has now been covered over with a later addition and whose original south-facing side elevation has now been
substantially altered with later window openings and a later facing of varicolored brick. In addition many of the house's original
multi-light windows have also now been replaced with one-over-one-light double hung examples.
Besides the farmhouse, this farmstead also includes a very well preserved grouping of at least eight historic farm outbuildings, many
of which have fieldstone foundations and all of which are clad in vertical wooden boards. These buildings include two nearly
identical gambrel-roofed animal barns and two smaller gable-roofed animal barns, all four of which have exposed first stories made
of fieldstone and haylofts above (the two larger gambrel-roofed barns also each have a poured concrete silo attached to them), and
the farmstead also includes four other one-story-tall gable-roofed barns and sheds.
Historic maps of Waukesha County show that this farmstead was owned by Abram E. Perkins from at least 1858 until at least 1887.
A biographical article on Perkins published in 1880 noted that he first settled 146 acres of this land in 1847. This article also noted
that Perkins' subsequent success at raising sheep for wool enabled him to build up what by 1880 was a 1200-acre establishment
known as the Silver Spring Stock Farm and that it further noted that it was primarily through his pioneering efforts that the
surrounding area had by then become known as an important wool-producing area. Never-the-less, while Perkins may well have
been an historically significant figure, the $6000 farmhouse that he built for himself has now been substantially altered and it is not
believed that it retains sufficient integrity to justify listing in the NRHP. In addition, it is believed that only a few of the extant farm
outbuildings are likely to have direct associations with Perkins' period of ownership, which ended with his death in 1892."
- "Mukwanago and Waterford 7.5 Quads", WisDOT ID #1300-09-00, Prepared by Timothy F Heggland (MAP) (2005).
|
|---|
| Bibliographic References: | HISTORY OF WAUKESHA COUNTY. CHICAGO: WESTERN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 1880, P. 972.
MAP OF THE COUNTY OF WAUKESHA. NEW YORK: M. H. TYLER, 1859.
ATLAS OF WAUKESHA COUNTY, WISCONSIN. MADISON: HARRISON & WARNER. 1873.
“Architecture and History Survey: STH 83” WHS project number 14-0296/VA. November 2012. Prepared by Megan Daniels for GLARC Inc.
Illustration of the farm is included in the 1878 Atlas of Wisconsin and shows a cupola on the top of the house, along with four chimneys, as well as a porch that wrapped around the house from the front to one side. |
|---|
