Black Point (estate)
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Black Point is an estate on the south shore of Geneva Lake in Wisconsin, built in 1888 as a summer home by Conrad Seipp, a beer tycoon from Chicago.
The Queen Anne style mansion features a nautical-themed, four-story, "crow's nest" observation tower and post-civil war-era furniture. It is included in the National Register of Historic Places. The wooded, six-acre estate has 600 feet of shoreline.
William Petersen, a descendant of Seipp, owned the property in the 1990s and began negotiations with state officials to turn the house into a museum. Negotiations became notorious following allegations that then-Wisconsin State Senate Majority Leader Chuck Chvala extorted political donations from both supporters and opponents of the deal, a charge Chvala vehemently denied.[1] Extortion charges were later dropped as part of a plea deal on unrelated charges.[2]
Eventually a leaseback arrangement was agreed to, whereby the property was transferred to the State of Wisconsin with a long-term lease to the Black Point Historic Preserve, a nonprofit conservation organization which is renovating, managing and readying the property for public tours, slated to begin in spring 2007.
[edit] References
- ^ "Chvala charged with extortion", Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Oct. 18, 2002. Retrieved on March 28, 2007.
- ^ "Chvala Pleads Guilty", WISN-TV, December 15, 2005. Retrieved on March 28, 2007.
[edit] External links
- [1] New York Times
- Chvala charged with extortion - Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
- Black Point museum deal near; foes concede - Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
- Black Point estate transferred to State of Wisconsin - Geneva Lake Conservancy news release
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