Wall House

Name

The Wall House is also known as the Multicultural Education Center.

Namesake: Thomas Wall, an Oshkosh lumberman and banker.

Facts

Completion Date: 1900

Renovation Date:2005

Original Purpose of Building: Private Home

Current Use: Home of the Multi-Cultural Education Center (MEC)

History

The Wall House was built in 1898 for local lumberman and banker Thomas Wall. Like the Oviatt House, local architect William Williams designed the building and combined late Queen Anne and Colonial Revival styles to create the large home. Other similarities include interior artistic decorations by Gustave Behncke and carved fireplaces. Thomas Wall and his wife resided in the home for almost twenty years. The couple sold the house to their daughter, Marion and her husband, Oshkosh businessman Morgan Davies, when they moved to their country house at Windmere, a vacation community on Lake Winnebago. In 1932, Marion and Morgan Davies left the Wall House and rented it to former neighbors John Bartlett, Jr. and his wife. Bartlett grew up across the street in the so-called Albee House and his wife, Katherine Pollock, grew up next door at the Pollock House. By moving into the Wall House, they remained close to their parents, who still occupied their childhood homes. When John and Katherine Bartlett moved to a farm in 1940, Marion Wall sold the home to OSTC instructor, Frederick Caudle when her returned from naval training after WWII to serve, in part, as a counselor at the Veterans Administration Guidance Center and the advisor the campus veterans’ club which used Caudle’s home as meeting place. After his marriage to Dr. Jean Gogolewski, a professor of Education, the home was the frequent site of numerous programs that brought faculty and students together after classes.

In 1985, the house was placed the National Register of Historic Places. The fate of the Wall House looked dim by the mid-1990s and into the early part of the next century due to its deteriorating state. In 1994, the UW-Oshkosh Campus Physical Development Plan Summary Report said that although the house is of considerable historical and architectural significance, its poor condition suggested it would not last out the century. The Wisconsin Trust for Historic Preservation in 2000 named the house as one of Wisconsin’s 10 most endangered properties. When the University planned to demolish the house for parking purposes due to termite infestation and bad drinking water, the building was home the Multicultural Education Center. Students, staff and community members who protested the idea of demolition formed a group to help save the structure.

After late 2000, the future of the Wall House looked positive. Chancellor Richard H. Wells announced early in his tenure that the house would be saved through at least 2004. At the time, more than $488,000 was needed to make the house compliant with the American Disabilities Act. Electrical and exterior maintenance has since taken place.

Photos