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Erich Gnant was born on 13 March 1920 in Munderkingen, Germany. He obtained a degree at a technical school in Reidlingen, Germany in 1937 and immigrated to the United States the next year. He eventually settled in Milwaukee and worked as a house painter. Gnant joined the Army during World War II and was stationed in New York City; the Army sent him to City College of New York in 1943 and 1944 for logistics training. After the war, Gnant returned to Milwaukee and opened Erich Gnant & Associates at 3331 W. Lisbon Avenue. In 1946, he designed for Century Homes, Inc. thirteen small-scale Ranch-style homes on N. 51st Boulevard between W. Custer and W. Villard avenues in Milwaukee. At the same time, he platted and designed homes in the Town of Wauwatosa (now Milwaukee) a World War II veterans’ subdivision located between N. 78th and N. 79th streets and W. Nash and W. Townsend streets. The busy Gnant next tackled a 120-acre development in Mequon northwest of W. Mequon Road/STH 167 and N. Port Washington Road/CTH W. His premise for the development – known as Hidden Acres Homesteads -- was seventy-five Ranch-style houses located on one-to-five acre lots. Each modest house was priced around $10,000. A key attribute of these three working- and middle-class subdivisions is that Gnant made a deliberate effort to balance the individual appearance of his house designs with the cost efficiencies of a single design.
In 1950, Gnant moved to a Ranch-style home he had designed at 1280 Milrod Street (AHI# 220458) in what is now the City of Brookfield. He purchased five acres in this area from Stenz Realty Company and platted it into a subdivision. He designed several homes within this development, including a minimal Ranch-style home at 17435 Patricia Lane (AHI #220460). In 1952, he designed an efficient, modular Ranch-style house that could be built in forty days and tailored to accept later additions. Around the same time, he started the Elm Grove Lumber Company, which he ran until around 1962. The lumber yard (no longer extant) was located next to the railroad tracks in the village business district on leased land. He was forced to abandon the endeavor when the lease expired. Gnant also designed homes while operating the lumber yard and, in the early 1950s, he designed several high-style Ranch examples. It was also at this time when he began his transition from Ranch homes to those that reflected the Contemporary style. These homes were concentrated in Wauwatosa, Elm Grove and Brookfield. According to his son Russell, Gnant carefully situated his designs to direct water away from the homes and to take advantage of the outdoor environment. While it could not be confirmed, it appears that the subject Dr. Allan & Martha Ledward Residence is one of his first Contemporary-style designs.
Around 1960, Gnant initiated the Summit Lawn Estate subdivision on Janacek Drive in the Town of Brookfield. Built on top of a hill, the centerpiece of the subdivision was a model Contemporary-style home designed by Gnant at 745 Janacek Drive (AHI #220461), which took four years to design. Completed in 1962, the home would become the Gnant family home, as well as Erich’s home office. Gnant also designed in the early 1960s at least five other Contemporary-style homes in the subdivision.
In 1976, Gnant designed the first of seven solar home designs. Located in the vicinity of 18930 Tanala Drive in the City of Brookfield, the home included a roof slope that contained solar panels and a passive solar design. The house also resulted in a patent for a specific type of ductwork. In 1978, Gnant won a national design award from the American Society of Registered Architects for a solar home he designed in Delafield. Ultimately, the solar panels of the 1970s proved unable to withstand the elements and all have since been removed from his homes constructed in this era. Other significant designs from this period include the Town Hall of Brookfield and the Brookfield East High School Nature Center. Gnant generally throughout his career designed one or two homes a year and supplemented his income during slow times by working as a draftsman for William P. Wenzler (1967-1968) and Miller & Waltz Associates (1966-1967). In 1987, he became the building inspector for the Town of Brookfield and served until his death in 1991. During his tenure in that position, he upgraded many of the town’s building codes and zoning ordinances. -- Biography prepared by Heritage Research (2012).
2024 - Contemporary. Two story house with shallow gabled roofs with aggregate tar roofing, stone chimneys, Stone, wood, and board and batten siding, sliding and fixed wood windows, large double entry doors, two car garage at lower level, large, landscaped site, and a concrete foundation. Designed by Erich Gnant and a part of the Summit Lawn Estate subdivision.
The Erich and Betty Gnant House and Office, located at 745 Janacek Drive, sits alone on a 0.7-acre lot. The site, located at a suburban corner, is large and slopes down to the southwest and the house centered on it. Landscaping features stone retaining walls, trees and plantings, and a series of concrete paths with rounded steps in curvilinear paths. The two and a half story cotemporary style house has an aggregate laid in tar roof with low pitches and extremely narrow profiles with deep eaves. There are two prominent stone chimneys and several skylights. The roof is divided into two primary sections, an upper one to the east, and a lower one to the west. The main entry is located on the east elevation. This elevation, as all are on the Gnant House, is asymmetrical with the pitch of the roof rising to the north with a wood garage door at the lower level at the north end of the elevation. Most of the exterior material is ‘lannon stone,’ a local limestone, stacked in a rough bond. Above the garage is a framed wooden band and above that wooden siding and an upper set of fixed wooden windows in a gable end under large overhanging eaves. The main entry, located at the lower southern end of the east elevation, is a pair of double wooden doors with stepped glass lights in each and full-height sidelights on either side. There is a small wooden porch and a large, fixed wooden window wrapping around the southeast corner of the building. The north elevation continues with two stories, the lower one in lannon stone and the upper one in wide wooden board siding with clerestory windows. The south elevation continues the porch at the first floor with wooden siding to a central bay of fixed wooden windows placed in a tower at the approximate center of the south elevation reflecting the placement of a stairwell on the interior. At the western end of the south façade the lower level is apparent with a lannon stone low wall and a band of wood windows extending to the southwest corner. Above, is a band of wooden siding with a series of casement wooden windows under the deep eaves of the roof. The west elevation is the most complex with three low peaks of gable ends extending into the yard at different heights. A wooden porch cantilever overhangs the first floor and shades a lannon stone low wall and a series of wooden casement windows arranged in bands that turn the southwest corner of the house. The second floor has a series of large wooden windows, some fixed and some casements, asymmetrically arranged under the gable end with a large stone chimney prominently arranged perpendicularly to the roof. At the northern end of the west elevation is a one-story wing with a shallow gable roof, containing a swimming pool, which extends into the yard with windows banded all around it.
The interior of the house, based on photography from a recent real estate listing, has 5,500 square feet of space including five bedrooms, three levels, and an indoor pool. The materials, including exposed rafters and beams, wood and polished stone flooring, built-in furniture, and limestone walls and fireplaces, are all in keeping with the style of the house and likely display a high degree of architectural integrity.
Erich Gnant was born in Munderkingen, Germany, in 1920 and after obtaining a technical degree, immigrated to the United States in 1937, eventually settling in Milwaukee and working as a house painter and married his wife, Betty, in 1941. The couple had three children. Gnant served in the Army during World War II, during which time he attended New York City College for logistics training. After returning to Milwaukee, he opened Erich Gnant and Associates, a design build firm. The small company constructed modest ‘Ranch-style’ houses in Milwaukee and its suburbs during the 1940s and early 1950s for young working- and middle-class families. Gnant then moved to Brookfield and platted several subdivisions and established the Elm Grove Lumber Company all while pioneering modular ranch house designs. In the late 1950s, his designs and company produced more high-end and larger ranch style homes, slowly transitioning to a more contemporary aesthetic that consciously borrowed from the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, Craig Ellwood, Marhsall Erdman, and other ‘organic’ and ‘contemporary’ residential American architects of the period.
In 1961, Gnant organized the Summit Lawn Estate subdivision in the Town of Brookfield, which included his family home and office, located at 745 Janacek Drive, and completed in 1962. Many of the other houses in the subdivision, and the wider western suburbs of Milwaukee and Waukesha, were designed and built by Gnant and his companies. During the 1970s, his focus shifted to passive solar home design, and he constructed several in the western suburbs, winning a national design award from the American Society of Registered Architects for his work in 1978. Other significant designs from this period include the Town Hall of Brookfield and the Brookfield East High School Nature Center. He also served as a building inspector for the Town of Brookfield and died in 1991.
The Erich and Betty Gnant House and Office is an intact example of a mid-twentieth century modern house in Waukesha County. The house was designed and constructed by local architect and builder Erich Gnant in 1962 and exemplifies the popular cotemporary style, or organic modern, architecture of the period. The house is, in many ways, a large ranch house with the high-end architectural aesthetics following the lead of Frank Lloyd Wright and others. The exterior, and likely the interior, of the house retains integrity in terms of its location, workmanship, design, feeling, setting, association, and materials. Erich Gnant is not yet deemed a master architect, so eligibility for the resource’s history or association with Gnant’s life was not considered.
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