If you’re looking for some of the oldest restaurant sites in the area, sometimes you have to look beyond the city limits.
The Red Circle Inn, for instance, has been serving for more than 170 years, and the two Union Houses – one in Genesee Depot and the other in Cedarburg – are not too far behind, dating to 1861 and 1883, respectively.
Grand Heritage Ballroom at The Commodore.
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There are also others that have long been restaurants in buildings that haven’t always housed restaurants, like the Red Mill Inn in an 1840s building in Brookfield and the newly opened Bartolotta jam, The Commodore, 1807 Nagawicka Rd. Its building – long home to Weissgerber’s Seven Seas – is the baby of the bunch at merely 122 years old (sharing a birth year with Mader’s).
“We are excited to unveil this two-year project and bring this iconic property back to life,” said Bartolotta’s owner Paul Bartolotta when The Commodore opened this past summer.
“We view this as a long-term commitment to the Lake Country community as we are now custodians, building new legacies and memories for generations to come.”
A lake view at The Commodore.
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The earliest history of the building, so the story goes, begins in 1902 when a man named Pete Peterson built a four-story structure with a gambrel roof on the eastern shore of Nagawicka Lake.
Though unable to find a Pete Peterson in the area in census records, I did locate a Jens Peter Peterson, who was born in Denmark in July 1867 and arrived in the U.S. in 1889. By 1900, he was living in Delafield with his wife Sena (short for Jensena), who had immigrated with her family in 1879, when she was about 3 years old.
Jens was working as a farmer and a contractor – a number of sources list him as a carpenter, suggesting that was his main skill – and while it’s perhaps the case that Peterson was the owner and/or occupant of the the new structure, he may also have simply been its builder, hired by someone else. The records I found were far from clear on this.
By 1905, the building was home to Hasslinger’s Pleasant View Hotel & Resort, and Hasslinger family lore says that Charles Hasslinger won the place in a poker game.
But Hasslinger didn’t linger to crow about his winnings, having sold the place by 1906. He opened another resort – which he called Hasslinger’s Moose Lake Beach – in Nashotah in 1920.
Hasslinger, it seems, was something of a Renaissance man.
“Charles had his fingers in all kinds of businesses and farms in Hartland and Florida and Texas,” says Mary Hasslinger. “He owned a couple bars, meat market, fox ranch, he was a cattle dealer. He was buying and selling land quite frequently.”
She didn’t even mention the family orchard business, which continued until the late 1990s before everything was auctioned off in 1998, the dance hall torn down, and the barn burned by the fire department in 2000.
Meanwhile, back at Nagawicka, the place was, in 1906, operating as Messerschmidt Resort and by 1908 it was the Rice Resort.
A 1911 postcard view of Green Gables.
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In 1911, the ever-changing resort was converted into the McNary Brothers Osteopathic Sanitarium, which for a minimum of $25 a week – including room, board, general nursing and treatment – patients could take, “advantage of osteopathic treatment combined with modern sanitarium care in a restful homelike place.”
It was, a brochure noted, “to give tired business men a place for rest and repair.”
In fact, it sounds like it was meant to be more of a restful vacation retreat than an actual hospital-like facility.
“The McNary Brothers idea,” the brochure noted, “is to accept no case which is in the least objectionable – either mental or infectious. This is vouched for and universally praised by all our patients.”
A postcard view of Green Gables.
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The only extra costs one could expect to incur at the place – run by Ohio natives Drs. William D. (born in Columbus) and his younger brother J. Foster McNary (born in Dayton) – would be for exams, lab work and transportation.
The brochure that survives offers a number of interesting details about the sanitarium, which was also called Green Gables.
It was, “situated on the east shore of Nagawicka Lake. The building stands clear of dense woodland and commands from all points an unsurpassed view of the rollings hills and beautiful lakes that have made Waukesha County famous. While removed from the dust and din of the city, patients may on occasion enjoy the attractions and advantages of Milwaukee.”
In fact, it was noted, Green Gables was a mere 20-minute carriage ride to Hartland, where 23 daily trains connected to Milwaukee, Chicago, the Twin Cities and beyond. Plus, there was hourly interurban rail to Milwaukee, Waukesha, Watertown and Oconomowoc.
At Green Gables, patients would find “large and airy” bedrooms with electric lights, steam heat and running water. Plus there was a large outdoor porch, a warming fireplace in the sitting room and, for those feeling up to it, lake sports all year round.
“The sanitarium building is well adapted to its purpose. Attempts at elaborate furnishing have been avoided, but careful thought has provided everything needful to the comfort and convenience of the patient. The management has been fortunate in creating a simple and restful environment – a genial and homelike atmosphere, which is recognized as a significant feature in the equipment of an institution designed for rest and recuperation.”
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I couldn’t find a closing date for the sanitarium but in 1926, George C. Burke opened the East Beach Hotel on the site.
In a May newspaper ad that year, Burke described the place as, “an unusually moderate priced summer hotel, modern and up-to-date. An ideal place for the family vacation.”
1926 East Beach Hotel ad.
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A postcard image of the East Beach suggests it hadn’t changed all that much from the sanitarium days.
However, after just a few years, on April 1, 1929, the property was officially foreclosed and on May 31, 1930 Waukesha County held an auction to sell the site. The Milwaukee Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women President Katherine R. Williams had the winning bid.
On June 9, Williams bought all the furnishings, goods and tools on the property from previous owners and nine days later she sold the hotel to the Archdiocese of Milwaukee for use as a summer camp for girls and women.
That summer, the camp was already up and running and on July 30, the Journal wrote that, “After a week of swimming, hiking and rowing, when they got sunburned brown as berries, 23 little girls from Milwaukee who would have had no vacation outing if it were not for the good offices of kind Milwaukeeans, dressed up for a costume party Monday night at the East Beach Hotel, Lake Nagawicka.
“They were sent to Nagawicka by the Big Brothers and Big Sisters and their vacation was paid for by church groups and women’s clubs.”
When, two years later, the camp opened for the season with a mass and sermon on June 26, 1932, it had been renamed Tekakwitha Lodge, in honor of Kateri Tekakwitha, a 17th century indigenous woman who would later be canonized as a saint.
According to a June 12 article that year in the Journal, the new name was selected by the “young ladies’ section of the (Milwaukee Archdiocesan) Council (of Catholic Women).
“Tekakwitha, a Mohawk Indian, known as the ‘lily of the Mohawks’ … worked among her people with the early Catholic missionaries of Canada.”
The annual opening of the lodge would typically earn a notice in at least one of the Milwaukee daily newspapers, but the final such notice would appear in the Sentinel on the morning of May 25, 1941, announcing that the camp would open June 7 and close on Sept. 6.
With the lodge disappearing from the news at that point, it seems fair to assume that 1941 was the final season, though it is possible it did run a bit longer, as next to arrive on the scene were Wiliam and Carla Behrend, who bought the camp from the Archdiocese on April 1, 1946 and ran it as the Behrend Holiday Resort (aka Behrend Hotel Resort).
Two postcard views of Behrend’s.
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Fortunately for us, like the McNarys’ Green Gables, this iteration of the resort leaves behind a brochure – alas, undated – as a testament to its amenities.
“Behrend Hotel Resort is located on a high point reaching out into the sparkling water of the beautiful Nagawicka Lake,” it boasts, adding that the lake is the deepest in Waukesha County. “Built in the style of a French Chateau, it provides for the activities of a large family as well as for the leisure of a single person and is happily suited for generous hospitality.”
The resort had 33 rooms – steam heated – on two upper floors and a ground floor with the office, kitchen and areas, “for spacious living and enjoyment of all guests,” including a large dining room where meals were served family-style, a “lounge living room” with a large natural fireplace and an enclosed porch.
For a little wow factor, “the region’s famed rich mineral water is piped to a fountain in our large vestibule,” the brochure noted.
“All bedrooms are furnished in maple and have large closet space. Each bedroom has a double bed. Many rooms are large enough to accommodate one or two extra rollaway beds. Corner rooms with connecting doors are available to make family units.
“While most of the rooms have a lake view, the east rooms overlook the wooded country and are equally cool and comfortable. In addition to bathrooms with showers on each floor, each room has a sink with running water.”
Outside, there were boats available to guests at no extra charge to take advantage of the great fishing; a pier and float for sunbathers; a weed-free swimming area; tennis, badminton and horseshoe courts; a playground with sandbox and “outdoor gym,” and nearby were horse riding stables and “the beautiful Oconomowoc Country Club” for golf.
The brochure also mentions the regattas held by St. John’s Military Academy across the lake and a typed manuscript adds that the Behrend family was a sailing bunch.
“In the 1950s the Holiday Resort was used as a headquarters for the different regattas on the lake. Some yacht club functions were held there from 1946 to 1960 when the Behrend family owned it. Wilfred G. Behrend was the crew for Art Strike during those years. The Behrend family has always been part of the yacht club.
“Jim Behrend, who was to become commodore, went to sailing school with his brothers in the 1960s. His mother Ruth has been active for many years with the club and soon her grandchildren will grab the tiller and begin three generations of sailors on the lake.”
Jim Behrend would also later serve as mayor of the City of Delafield. But that was long after his family sold the resort in 1960.
But, first, briefly in 1959, the resort served as a temporary home for the new University Lake School which was awaiting the completion of its own school building nearby, construction of which began in late 1957.
“Forty-five boys and girls will troop into a Nagawicka Lake resort early Monday morning carrying notebooks and pencils,” the Journal wrote on Sept. 10, 1958. “They are enrolled in University Lake School, which is still on paper as far as a building is concerned. The new preparatory school has leased part of Behrend’s Resort, a capacious old summer place with shady lawns sloping down to Nagawicka Lake.”
Based on this article, the school made a number of interior changes to the building.
“Carpenters are busy partitioning the long porch into classrooms,” the paper continued. “The dining room will become a lunch room, the bar a lunch counter, and six rooms on the second floor will serve as faculty offices. By the time fluorescent lights have replaced the heavy old chandeliers and desks taken the place of lounge furniture, a suitable working atmosphere is expected.”
A library of 2,000 volumes was planned for an upper floor and down in the bar and dining room, volunteers helped owner William Behrend pack up, “old mugs and beer steins,” which, “made fine decorations in the resort dining room, but they would detract from a proper academic atmosphere.”
The school occupied the resort for just a single academic year.
“Friday will be moving day for the University Lake School, Hartland,” reported the Journal on June 8, 1959. “The school’s first academic year barely will have been completed before the temporary quarters at Behrend’s Resort hotel will be abandoned in favor of the new one-story school building on Nagawicka Lake Road, near Hartland.
“Preparations for the move are being made daily. Members of the parents’ association are cleaning windows of the new school and moving equipment. Meanwhile, several events will be held this week at the temporary quarters to mark the end of the school year.”
Though their children’s classrooms had long since moved into the new school building, the day after school started in September 1961, the parents’ association held a brunch at the temporary site of the school, which had now become a supper club called Seven Seas, which was open for more than a decade.
Initially, it was operated by Dan Moran and Lee Richards, but by 1972 it had come under the purview of George Goller, who called it Goller’s Seven Seas.
In early July 1973, however, the Delafield Common Council did not renew the liquor license at the request of the State Department of Revenue, which claimed that the restaurant owed back taxes.
By late April of the following year, Jim Raymond was advertising for staff for Heritage on the Lake, which was “about to open.” It appears Raymond was partnering with a well-known area restaurateur.
On May 10, 1974, the Sentinel reported that the restaurant was, “Dave Baldwin’s newest acquisition. … Baldwin, who also owns The Safehouse and Gatsby’s purchased the restaurant formerly known as The Seven Seas … last year and began renovations for the huge, rambling building. It’s also a showcase for some of the ideas he’s had in the back of his mind for quite a few years, things he has always wanted to see in a restaurant-nightclub atmosphere.”
The interior was described as “basic and rustic throughout” and Baldwin – who planned to have “louder rock ‘n’ roll banished to the basement, and the hug and hold dance music upstairs” – was asking neighbors for local artifacts to adorn the place.
Baldwin planned to shuttle customers out to the place using a double decker bus.
The restaurant opened on Monday, May 20, 1974 and just under a year later, on May 4, 1975, the Journal wrote, “Baldwin of the Safe House and Gatsby’s lost his golden touch when he turned the former Seven Seas Restaurant into Heritage on the Lake. After entertainment flopped, with Baldwin trying to bus customers out to Lake Nagawicka, he shut the doors.”
On the same day was an ad for its replacement, Schussler’s on the Lake, owned by George and Jane Schussler, with a kitchen helmed by master chef Helmut Schaab, who had cooked at the Western Racquet Club in Elm Grove and Merrill Hills County Club in Waukesha.
“Enjoy the peace and tranquility of luxurious country dining in the warm solitude,” the ad promised.
Exactly a week later, the same paper reported that Schussler’s on the Lake had, “a nautical theme and – for now – no entertainment.”
But the days of long-lived institutions at the site, like Behrend’s, Green Gables and Tekakwitha Lodge, appeared to be over because Schussler’s didn’t last, either.
Neither would Margo’s Pepper Tree, which replaced it in 1976-77 – still banking on the site’s earlier reputation by noting in ads that it was in “the old Seven Seas.”
That didn’t work and Robert and Kathryn Muehl were next to try their hand at the place by opening Pier 7 there in 1978. It closed in late 1981.
That’s when the Weissgerber family stepped in and purchased the property and pitched a plan to enlarge and completely renovate the place.
Though some neighbors feared an expansion, Hans Weissgerber, wrote the Journal, “said the kitchen expansion, approved by the council, would be the start of a plan to completely renovate the building. Expansion plans include cutting off the third floor of the building and expanding the seating capacity of the second-floor banquet room, ground-level party room and the main dining room.
An aerial view of Weissgerber’s Seven Seas.
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“Weissgerber said the restaurant had been unprofitable for five previous owners,” adding that, “the building had become an eyesore.”
By that August, Weissgerber’s Seven Seas was open and likely proving that Hans Weissgerber was correct that a renovation and expansion could finally make the site profitable again, the restaurant – run by Linda Weissgerber and her husband Jack (who died in 2013) – became a local favorite and would endure for decades.
In 2000, the Weissgerber’s did another remodeling project, this one lasting a year. According to late restaurant critic Dennis Getto, the work, “added a row of window seats that seem to bring the restaurant’s lovely lakeside view even closer. It also has added a second level to the rear of the dining room so those formerly less desirable seats now have a lake view, too.
“Outside the restaurant, walks that lead to the patio and down to the lake (the Seven Seas has a pier for diners who arrive by boat) have been rebuilt to make lake access easier and strolling more pleasant. In its outdoor pavilion, the restaurant serves a Wednesday fish boil.”
But after 38 years, the Weissgerber’s put the property on the market – save for a portion that included a house they’d built next to the restaurant – in 2020. Later that year, the restaurant closed.
At the time, media reported that the sale was spurred by business losses during the pandemic.
Word was that a senior living center might open there, or maybe Saz’s would open a restaurant, but in 2022, David Herro and Jay Franke of HF Hospitality Group (who had been linked to the earlier Saz’s plan and who created The George in the historic National Block in Walker’s Point) announced they would partner with Bartolotta Restaurants on a new restaurant called The Commodore.
After a massive remodeling project – when I visited this past May it looked like everything had been touched in some way – The Commodore opened in July 2024.
“Restoring this historic building and creating The Commodore – A Bartolotta Restaurant has given us the opportunity to share our hospitality with Lake Country,” Paul Bartolotta says. “We’re paying homage to the past while offering something truly special and timeless for today’s Bartolotta guests.”
The building has gotten a lot of updates, upgrades and some changes, but it had already been heavily altered over the years.
In addition to a lot of landscaping work, including gardens, gateways, patio renovations and more, the exterior has undergone a transformation that Bartolotta’s says aims to, “update the building to provide a timeless look that is grounded and informed by the history of the property.”
There’s a new entry sequence that has a tree-lined central drive that carries guests to a canopied entrance.
Once there, they’ll perhaps notice new siding and some stone work, too. The whole place got new windows that were “historically inspired,” as well as a new roof dotted with a trio of cupolas plus dormers. Though the building did not recently have dormers, historically it did.
An exposed chimney was also added, its design based on historical photos of the building.
“Lastly,” according to an email from the Bartolotta Restaurant Group, “it was important to the design to find, preserve and re-interpret many of the historic details of the interior. These are most clearly exemplified by re-using the railing design through the property and re-creating a coffered ceiling the dining space.”
Pepper’s Dining Room at The Commodore.
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Inside, there’s nary a space untouched by Bartolotta and Franke, who worked to recreate the ambience and feel of a historic lake resort restaurant with modern features and amenities.
Also inside, different areas of the facility reference the long history of the building.
The Baldwin Lounge at The Commodore.
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The Baldwin Lounge is named in honor of Dave Baldwin, whose restaurant here was but a blip in that long history; the Margo’s and Pepper’s dining rooms are a nod to the slightly longer-tenured (though not by much) Margo’s Pepper Tree; and the lower-level Club 1902 (coming soon) references the date the building was constructed.
“The Commodore is so much more than a hospitality destination – it’s a living piece of Wisconsin’s and Lake Country’s history,” Bartolotta says. “We are now the custodians of a property that has stood for more than a century and evolved through many different iterations, and we take this responsibility very seriously.
“For us, it’s about honoring the memories made here while creating new ones for the generations to come.”
You can read more on the new restaurant here.
