Take a Cruise to the Victorian Summer Retreat of a Chicago Beer Baron
Black Point Estate was built for Chicago Beer Baron, Conrad Seipp, in 1888 as a retreat, and in that spirit the home remains a place to relax, refresh, and explore. Just like the Victorian VIPs who established the estate, you’ll arrive in style and enjoy stunning Geneva Lake views on your cruise to this magnificent summer home, considered one of the finest examples of period architecture and furniture in the Midwest, and one of the oldest homes in Lake Geneva.
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Black Point Estate and Gardens
Step into Gilded Age elegance at the 1888 Summer home of Chicago beer baron, Conrad Seipp. Guests enjoy a narrated boat ride to the property via the Lake Geneva Cruise Line, a guided tour of the mansion, & time to relax and sip Seipp beer on the veranda.
2026 is the 250th anniversary of the United States of America. Over the next 250 days we will be highlighting historic people, places or things from around Walworth County.
Up next is Pishcotauqua Resort
Pishcotaqua can be translated to “Sparkling Waters.”
Built seven years earlier than the (similar and more famous and still existing) Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island in upper Michigan, this resort in Williams Bay had a dining room that seated 300 and 1/3 of a mile of verandas on a 16 acre campus with a bowling alley, shooting galleries, playgrounds, and mineral springs.
Opened as a Temperance hotel in 1880, it was not very successful (surprised?) After four different owners were unsuccessful, it was purchased in 1890 by John Cooke, a beer brewer from Chicago, he improved the hotel and renamed it the Cooke’s Park Villa Hotel but was set back by a fire.
Undeterred, he rebuilt and reopened in 1891 only to experience another fire on Christmas, 1892. He turned the billiard hall into his private residence (still standing) and became a gentleman farmer.
His property is now Chapel on the Hill (Highway 50 west of Lake Geneva), Knollwood and Ara Glen subdivisions.
Walworth@250 #84
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I’m searching for any history/photographs of this part of the lake. I love/have this photo. Would love others to decorate my house.
2026 is the 250th anniversary of the United States of America. Over the next 250 days we will be highlighting historic people, places or things from around Walworth County.
Up next is the Delavan School for the Deaf.
Ebenezer Chesebro moved his family to Delavan in 1839 with a deaf daughter, Ariadna, who had been attending a deaf school in New York. The Chesebros hired Wealthy Hawes to teach their daughter and a neighbor boy who was also deaf.
Hawes, who lived nearby, was hard of hearing, and a graduate of the New York Institute.
In 1851 John A Milles, also an NYI graduate replaced Hawes. The school had grown to 8 children.
In 1852 they petitioned the Wisconsin legislature to establish a school for the deaf. Franklin K. Phoenix, a neighbor and close friend of the Chesebros offered to donate land for the school.
The school has operated continuously since its founding in 1852, and since 1939 as a bureau of the state Department of Public Instruction.
Enrollment at the school averages about 130 students per year.
Walworth@250 #83
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My great grandparents moved to Delavan so that my great aunt could go to school there. They had a farm that was north of the Dells. My grandma graduated high school in Delavan in 1911. After my great aunt Veda graduated from school at the WI School for the Deaf, my great grandparents and Aunt Veda moved back up to the farm, but my grandma had married and started a family in Delavan. My dad, Wally Plewe, and my grandma started a restaurant in Delavan called Eat’n Time.
My mother graduated from the deaf school 1950 something. She grew up in the city of Walworth. My grandpa lived almost right downtown but in his backyard he raised fighting Cox and that’s how he made a living.
Joe and I worked at the school in the early 70's. He was a houseparent and I was a teacher's aide for multiply-handicapped kids. It was a great experience. We have always loved knowing sign language.
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