| Additional Information: | Surveyed 2021: Situated on the west side of STH 42, from which it is setback by about forty-five feet, the most distinctive features claimed by this stone-sheathed, Colonial Revival house is its gambrel roof with flared eaves and its quarried stone sheathing. The primary entrance is at the right (north) end of the primary façade and sheltered by a small roof, to the right (north) of which is a single story garage with a pedestrian door and a single overhead door. A flat roof on the garage provides a deck with a modern railing of wood. To the left (south) of the main entrance, which is accessed by two stone steps, is a small, two-light picture window, to the left (south) of which are paired, sliding doors that access a large, modern deck that engulfs the house’s southeast corner. A small, projecting gabled entryway is centered in the house’s south endwall, its doorway accessing the deck. Flanking the gabled entryway are two, small, one-over-one-light-double-hung-sashes above which, on the second floor, are two symmetrically placed, one-over-one-double-hung sashes, above which, in the gabled peak, is semi-circular vent. In addition to the intrusion that is the modern deck, a prominent, shed roof dormer was also added to the east-facing roof plane. The sheathing of the dormer is intended to replicate that of the house, which it appears to do with modest success.
Records suggest that this house was owned by Edward Kabat, who was acknowledged in the 1900 federal census as an eleven year old living in Kewaunee County. He remained with his family in 1910 as a twenty-one year old farm laborer then living in Egg Harbor. He was a married farmer with two sons in 1920. Ten years later, as a forty-one year old, he was simply identified as a laborer who did odd jobs. And in 1940, Kabat remained in Egg Harbor working as a laborer at a golf course – quite likely that at the Alpine. He died in 1986 at the age of ninety-seven. When he may have built the house is uncertain. A review of aerial photographs suggests that the house was not extant in 1938, though it was in 1951. Given the Depression and the Second World War, it is likely the house was constructed in the years after the War, between 1945 and 1951. Lacking any evidence to the contrary, and though he was only working as a laborer at the golf course in 1940, it must be assumed that Kabat had the house built and subsequently lived there for some number of years. Mrs. Kabat did maintain, at least in 1956, an entity known as Kabat Rooms through which she rented four rooms to Egg Harbor visitors. It is possible that those rooms were in the house and helped the Kabats to afford it. |
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| Bibliographic References: | Celebrating Egg Harbor, Volume II, 211; U.S. Federal Census, 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930 & 1940; “Obituary,” Green Bay [WI] Press Gazette,
26 June 1986: 86; Wisconsin Aerial Image Finder, Image #BHQ-4-99, 27 June 1938, viewed at http://maps.sco.wisc.edu?WHAIFinder/# on
05 May 2021; Wisconsin Aerial Photography, Image BHQ-1H-101, 09 October 1951, On File at the Geography Map Library, Science Hall,
University of Wisconsin, Madison; Directory of Hotels and Tourist Rooming Houses in Wisconsin (Madison, WI: State Board of Health, Hotel
and Restaurant Division, 1956): 48. It should also be noted that the census records spell the family’s last name as “Kabat,” whereas the Tourist
Room directory spells the name as “Kabot.” The first name of “Edward” is used in both, thus is the difference simply assumed to be an error. |
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