The Rhinelander Daily News - Online news and information for the Rhinelander, Wisconsin region

In the first decade of the 20th century, Rhinelander experienced unprecedented growth as the result of the profits made during the logging boom of the 1890s. What had been a utilitarian town, built to house and service the tradesmen who worked the seven mills on Boom Lake, became an American downtown, complete with monumental civic and private architecture. It was during this moment in Rhinelander’s history that the Oneida County Courthouse, the Rhinelander City Hall, the paper mill, the city’s two grand banks were built. It was also the moment that the many beautiful Victorian homes that grace the courthouse neighborhood were built by the town’s leading citizens.

As much as the courthouse, the city hall, and the banks bear witness to the city’s enduring vision of itself, forged at a time when many logging boom towns simply vanished for good, the Victorian homes in Rhinelander allow us a glimpse into the lives of the people who helped shape the city’s history.

On Saturday, Oct. 4, the Courthouse Centennial Homes Tour will showcase ten of Rhinelander’s most historic houses and local citizens will be allowed a glimpse at what life looked like a hundred years ago.

Two of the homes featured on the tour actually belonged to one man, Eugene Shepard. The architect of the Hodag myth, and one of Rhinelander’s most colorful figures, Shepard was an entrepreneur and lumberman who made a name for himself as a promoter and a prankster. He built two houses on Prospect St. in the high pine grove that had been the site of the oldest Sioux hunting camp in the area and just down the road from where John Curran had the first white settlement.

Shepard built one house, a beautiful Queen Anne style Victorian, in 1905 and then in 1911, he constructed the brick structure that would come to be known as the den house.

Today, the homes are owned by Mark and Jessica Benzakein, who moved to Rhinelander in 2002 from the San Bernardino valley of California in search of a myth.

“We were looking for a place to raise kids and we picked Wisconsin,” said Benzakein. “We had planned to move to Madison and we had a hard time getting a real estate agent to take us seriously. About that time my wife found the hodag story on the internet and we figured any town based on a practical joke can’t be that bad.”

Real estate agent Linda Moore found the Benzakeins a beautiful Victorian home on Thayer St. and they moved to town. Two years later the Shepard den house came up for sale and they bought it. Two years after that, they bought the original Shepard home from the Aylesworth family.

“Our intention here is we kind of want to restore some of the fun that Eugene Shepard brought to the place,” said Benzakein.

Benzakein is not sure why Shepard built the den house, but he thinks it may have been the site of some of his famed story-telling sessions, a kind of grown-up playroom for the man and his partners in crime. One of the den house’s notable quirks its walk-in vault.

The Benzakeins have a long-term goal of renovating the den house and creating a five-room bed and breakfast centered around the lore of Shepard and his hodag. Another remarkable tidbit of information is that the two homes and the massive barn that round out the property were apparently connected by a tunnel system.

Benzakein said that while the den house needs plenty of work, the Shepard home is in remarkably good shape.

“The Aylesworths put a lot of money and effort into it. They wanted to restore it with original materials,” he said.

While the floors in the home are original, the tin roof was added later. Benzakein said the house is full of quirks but absent of ghosts.

“It’s a very creaky house. Of the three houses we’ve lived in in Rhinelander, it’s the creakiest. There’s a board under the rug in the hallway that, every time you walk on it, it sounds like a baby crying,” he said. “We were disappointed the house wasn’t really haunted. We were hoping for some Eugene Shepard pranks but it appears his spirit is gone.”

In spite of all of the quirks of the Shepard home site, the Benzakeins believe it’s a wonderful place to raise their son, Elijah.

“We just think it’s a really cool place to live. We’re happy to share it. If anybody has any information about the house, we would love to hear it,” Benzakein said.

Another house that will be featured on the home tour is the Donaldson home on 216 E. King St. Built in 1906 by C.H. Donaldson, the home is one of the best-preserved and grandest of Rhinelander’s Victorians. Donaldson made his fortune working for the Brown Bros. Lumber Co. and he was famous for his uncompromising work ethic. The home was designed by Henry Wildhagen, the architect who designed Rhinelander’s City Hall.

After Donaldson’s premature death from a heart attack, his widow lived in the house with her sister, the widow of John Heisman. After Mrs. Heisman died, she deeded the home to St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church, and it served as the church rectory until the 1990s.

Today, Mike and Terri Hubbard own the Donaldson home. Mike Hubbard is a Vietnam veteran and former Air Force pilot who had a second career as a Methodist pastor, a calling he shares with his wife, who is also a Methodist pastor.

Terri’s parents grew up in Rhinelander, and it was her family’s roots that drew the Hubbards back to the Northwoods. The house, though, also played a role in bringing the Hubbards to town.

“Terri’s dad called us and said there was a house for sale and we should see it. I got on-line and looked at the pictures of it,” said Mike Hubbard. “That weekend we flew in from Denver and bought the house.”

As it turned out the Hubbards had another connection to the home. One of Terri’s aunts had actually worked there as a servant.

“We had her over for lunch last year and she said, ‘Oh. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to come in the front door of this house,” Hubbard said.

Most of Rhinelander’s early Victorians were equipped with servant’s quarters in the backs of the houses connected to their kitchens by steep, narrow stairways. A feature of the Donaldson house that is unique to its grand dimensions, is the coach entry. The set of wide doors opens from the side of the house roughly six feet above ground level, so that the ladies of the house could step down into coaches as they pulled into a covered driveway area.

Hubbard said the history of the house is part of its attraction.

“We had always lived in new houses. Tract houses mostly. I think it’s just the feeling of having something unique,” Hubbard said. “The history behind it was really a draw. It was also being a big draw being close to downtown.”

The Donaldson house was built on a fabulous scale and contains some of its original details, like hand-painted tiles over the fire place and beautiful crystal chandeliers.

Not all of the Victorian homes in Rhinelander were so grand. Ed Hughes, Rhinelander’s new librarian, moved into the Danfield house on Pelham St. with his wife Bobbalee. Built around 1902, the house has more modest dimensions and is a more subdued variation of the Queen Anne style of architecture.

The Hughes’ house still has some of its original fixtures, including bronze door locks that match designs in a 1902 Sears catalog and even some cloth wiring in the foyer chandelier.

“It’s got character. Look at our turret. New houses are just boxes. You get people in this neighborhood who really love their homes,” Bobbalee said.

The Hughes’ have contributed to the house’s character by appointing it with antique furniture that has been passed down through generations of Bobbalee’s family.

“Not everyone makes a shrine to their ancestors in their house. We hauled them from state to state and this is the first house they look really good in,” said Bobbalee.

Ed said the house requires a certain amount of effort to live in, but it’s worth it.

“I consider myself really lucky to be able to afford it and to have a location so close to work,” he said. “There’s constant maintenance issues. You can see the previous owners struggled with maintenance. The rooms weren’t designed for how people live these days.”

Among the various discomforts associated with century-old homes is their small bathrooms. The Hughes’ house has only one bathroom and it’s on the second floor.

The Hughes’ home will not be featured on the Courthouse Centennial Tour of Homes, but the tour includes examples of a variety of different architectural styles that together offer a panorama of what the neighborhood was like during the city’s early years.

Rhinelander’s courthouse neighborhood is a real gem, a classic example of the large-scale city planning that occurred as communities grew up out of the wilderness and became the main street communities that would come to typify the world’s image of America.

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Comments »

Sergius Hanson wrote on Sep 30, 2008 12:00 PM:

" My familly lived in the Gene Shepard house in the 40's and 50's. Our father, Walter C. Hanson bought the Gene Sheppard estate in the 40's, (like Jack French said, it was known as the "Pines")after it had been unoccuopied for a few years. Walter and our mother Ludmilla (Lydia) did a lot of work on it at that time and eventually subdivided some of the estate. I beleive my dad filled in Gene Shepard's hodag and alligator pits, since these were no longer occupied. We moved away in 1954, but my sisters, brother, sister-in-law, and I have photos from that period and my two sisters, Margaret and Mary Beth, have many memories and stories of those great years in that house and playing with the French kids.

Serge Hanson, born a hodag
Littleton, Colorado "

Jack French wrote on Sep 29, 2008 12:28 PM:

" Please tell Giles Morris that my family lived in the Gene Shepard "den house" for seven years ending in 1954. I would be happy to share my knowledge of "The Pines" as it was called then, with the current owners, the Benzakeins, who have requested this.

I can also put them in contact with others who lived in that same small section in the late 40s.

Jack French, Fairfax, VA "

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