I am obsessed with Ten Chimneys!!…read more The backstory is fascinating. This wonderful, glamorous Broadway couple found their way to the sweet little mid-west town of Genesee Depot is intriguing on it's own. Their summer home is lovely. I can feel the parties and good times that surely took place in years gone by. Everything has been lovingly preserved by those in charge and offer a wonderful glimpse into this adored couple's lives. The grounds are the perfect backdrop to the home. The entire estate gives off a quiet and relaxing vibe. It makes me understand why, on their time off, they would long to come home to Ten Chimneys. There were 2 tour times offered. Everyone takes a small bus from the starting point. A talented docent brings you on a detailed journey back in time and into the private world of Alfred Lunt and his wife Lynn Fontanne. Of course, there is a gift shop to visit after your tour. Be sure to check out the customer restrooms. The ladies room is glamorous with ladies finery and there is a huge King's throne in the mens room! Don't miss the walking tails if you want to take in a bit more nature!

As a classic film and theater nerd, Ten Chimneys holds a special place in my heart. The former home…read moreof Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, the home and grounds are impeccable and just they was as they Lunts left them. Thanks to some love from investors, their stories are preserved and memorialized through the maintenance of Ten Chimneys and the many individuals from all over the world who come to this tiny Wisconsin town to remember them and Hollywood's days gone by. Cross the same threshold that the likes of Vivien Leigh, Helen Hayes, Lawrence Olivier, Katharine Hepburn, Noel Coward, Alexander Woolcott, and so many others crossed, as you become part of the storied list of visitors. Tours must be arranged in advance.

It's a very nice museum for young kids to play. I would recommend this for kids from 12 months to 6…read moreyears old. We took our daughter at 14 months. She had a ball at the treehouse. Plenty of things to do for different ages.

Very well done tour! So much restoration ongoing... tour ahead and behind us were pretty full as…read morewell so always great to see! The details are impressive throughout. Very modern for the 1800's

Went to the Pabst Mansion on a trip to Milwaukee. Had the best docent Karen guiding us on a tour as…read morewe stepped back into the Guilded Age. This massive mansion was built in 1892 and is 20,000sf with 37 rooms and 12 bathrooms. Incredible! I recommend taking the time to view this amazing property. The tour is about 1-1/2 hours and you go through 3 floors. Everything on the first floor is original,, which is amazing when you think about it. It's so wonderful that group of women spearheaded to save this mansion. It's a gem.

It is always a great time at the Milwaukee Public Museum!! We visit a couple times a year and there…read moreis always something new. Some of my favorites are the butterfly display, the Native American section and the Streets of Old Milwaukee. We were able to get a guided tour of the Streets of Old Milwaukee. We had a knowledgeable guide who pointed out many historic tidbits which added to our experience. There is also a nice cafeteria and souvenir shop on the main floor. I can't wait for the new museum to open next year and see the displays.

Look, if you don't understand the magic of the Milwaukee Public Museum I can't help you. This place…read moreis nostalgia overload with immersive displays, incredible dioramas (which, BTW, have an entire style named after them called "Milwaukee-style") and three floors of fun to explore. Hot tip: Start from top to bottom to avoid getting burnt out on the larger exhibits on the first floor.

I was lucky to be able to join the tour even though tickets were sold out online. I am so grateful…read morethey squeezed me in. I wouldn't recommend wandering around too much, certain parts did not feel safe to me. The tour, especially for students, is extremely cheap. They should charge more, especially since they are in need of funds! The tour was great. I learned a lot about the history of the block of houses. Each one has a different story and history. There is no AC in the houses. So plan accordingly if you have a hot summer day.

We toured these houses on a beautiful Saturday afternoon and it was a lot more interesting than I…read morewould have expected. I knew little about Frank Lloyd Wright and took the tour with my Dad who is an architect. It was a great experience for the both of us. Our guide was very knowledgeable and did a fabulous job. She really immersed us in the vision Wright had for these houses. We were lucky and got to tour the house that they just acquired and will be restoring soon. It isn't officially part of the standard tour just yet, but we happened to be before a special private tour so they let us check it out too. I would recommend this to anyone who is even mildly interested. The gift shop closes at 3, so be sure to grab any goodies before the tour if you are taking the 2pm.

Let's start with a couple of housekeeping items that you need to know about. This is NOT the…read moreprehistoric Native American community of Aztalan. That state park is about a mile and a half south on County Highway Q. This museum is on the site of what is called Pioneer Aztalan, located on the southeast corner formed by County Highways B and Q. At one time, these roads were major routes, CTH B was the Milwaukee-Mineral Point territorial road. About 1918, it became Wisconsin 30 which was eventually replaced by I-94. CTH Q was the Fond du Lac-Janesville road that was eventually replaced by Wisconsin 26. (See Christopher Bessert's excellent "Wisconsin Highways" website for more about these roads. http://www.wisconsinhighways.org/index.html) Being on this important crossroads, by 1850, Aztalan had grown to become one of the most important towns in Jefferson County. It was the site of the first post office in the county, two blacksmiths, a shoe shop, two stores, a quarry, a sawmill, and a church. When the railroads came through and bypassed Aztalan, it became mostly a ghost town. The church is the only original Pioneer Aztalan building extant. In 1941, the Lake Mills Aztalan Historical Society was formed to preserve the heritage of the Pioneer Aztalan property, that borders the prehistoric Aztalan Native American state park. The restored church is the society's museum with an amazing collection of artifacts from 19th Century Wisconsin life. The society located other historic structures in the area and moved them to the site, including a Moravian church, the one-room John Petty Family log cabin (donated by a descendant of the Petty family) the Zickert log home (moved during the construction of I-94) and a granary that models a 19th Century wood wright's shop. (A house on the property is not considered a historic structure.) The society later purchased the one-room schoolhouse across the road - don't miss it! The school was built in 1917 to replace one that burned down, and it appears as it would have in the 1940s. It was used as a school until the 1950s. The Pioneer Aztalan site became a Wisconsin landmark in 1969 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. The Princess Mound on the grounds is a Native American burial mound, circa 1200. It is one of the thousands of mounds cataloged by Dr. Increase Lapham. The princess is not there, she was exhumed and moved to Milwaukee for preservation, research and security. The mound is considerably lower than its original six foot height, the soil was probably used for fill in the 19th Century. This is a can't-miss visit to see what life was really like around the time Wisconsin became the 30th state on May 29, 1848. Of all the small, volunteer operated museums in Wisconsin, this is one of the outstanding ones, with an amazing collection, and well worth your time to visit. It's open from Mid-May to the end of September every year, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays Noon to 4 PM. Cash only, no plastic money accepted for a nominal admission fee. It's easily reached from Johnson Creek on the east and Lake Mills on the west. Just follow the signs on CTH B. Don't miss this one.

Small museum funded and operated by a private society with exhibits pertaining to the Aztalan State…read morePark Native American mound building society just to the south of the museum, and to life in the now-defunct pioneer village of Aztalan, which existed from around 1840 to the 1900s but has now completely disappeared except for a couple of old buildings maintained by the museum. Some nice exhibits of Native American artifacts, and some nice period pieces from the pioneer village. Some nice rebuilt actual log cabins of the time, old small log cabin Moravian Church built by the German settlers in 1861, old one room schoolhouse. Admission is $5, open Thursday-Sunday 12noon-4pm starting about the middle of May through September. If you are planning a visit in late September, be sure to call ahead, as their last day this year was 9/28/2014. They don't take credit cards, so have cash on hand for the admission fee. If you are interested in Native American mound building culture, they have some copies for sale of "Aztalan: Mysteries of an Ancient Indian Town" by Robert Birmingham and Lynne Goldstein, which does a nice job of describing the site and relating it to the Cahokia site near East St. Louis. A visit here nicely compliments a visit to the Aztalan State Park just to south of the museum. Website: www.orgsites.com/wi/aztalan/index.html

We took the stairs up to the light station. There is a great view from the top. We took a quick…read morelook around and found a nice neighborhood surrounding it. I didn't know there was a museum until reading reviews. I assume the museum was closed when we went.

There's a certain romance to a lighthouse that attracts people. This is a unique light station,…read moreit's more than a lighthouse. In most cases, there is a separate lighthouse and a lighthouse keeper's quarters. Here, the light tower was built on the top of the lighthouse keeper's quarters, making it just that much more convenient. Of course, being a lighthouse keeper was far from convenient. It was usually a lonely job, perfect for a solitary soul who liked isolation. It was a necessary job, warning ships away from dangerous shorelines, shoals, reefs and rocks, or welcoming ships into a safe harbor. Before the days of radar and later, GPS, the lighthouse was the only way to let mariners know they were nearing land. Many had foghorns to perform the same function when the light could not be seen. Lake Michigan was lined with lighthouses. Many remain, but most have long ago been decommissioned and extinguished. In fact, this lighthouse was decommissioned in 1903, after a pierhead light had been installed. The light tower was removed in 1934. No one knows whatever happened to that light and the 4th order Fresnel lens that guided ships into, or past, Port Washington. In 2000, the Port Washington Historical Society was presented with the light station. An ambitious project began to restore the light station to its former glory. When the Duchy of Luxembourg heard that the people of Port Washington were beginning the restoration, the Duchy offered to help. The people of Luxembourg were appreciative of the many descendents of Luxembourg emigrants who still lived in Ozaukee County, and grateful for the American army liberating Luxembourg in World War II. The Duchy built a duplicate of the old light tower and shipped it to Port Washington. The tower went up in 2002 as the restoration was nearing completion. The committee raised funds to have a reproduction of the 4th Order Beehive Fresnel Lens made, identical to the one that had originally been in the tower. It was installed in 2007. You will see all this when you take the tour! Volunteer guides will tell you the entire story of the Port Washington Light Station and invite you to climb the ladders to the light room. It's a spectacular view of Port Washington and Lake Michigan. Children under six are not allowed to climb to the light tower, and it is not for the faint of heart. The ladders are steep, and appropriate clothing and footwear is required. No flip-flops or mules are allowed and skirts are not recommended. No kilts, guys. The light station is open on weekends, May through October. Group tours can be arranged.

Beautiful museum…read more The beautiful building is free to access from the outside, and inside (just the lobby area, where it is the most beautiful). The museum exhibits are inside the square building with an entrance past the lobby. Any art lover will be wowed by the beautiful exhibition. There are special exhibits at different times throughout the year, and these are great times to visit. The cafe/restaurant downstairs is also beautiful, with a gorgeous view of the lake. Food and coffee is actually quite lovely as well! It's a small, and overlooked part of the experience. The store also has lots of cool stuff, though as a local Milwaukeean, I'm thinking a bit overpriced to get anything personally.

IG: diamante.lara.milwaukee…read more the art is wack but it's a great place to take photos. Everything in there has zero value.

We became seasonal members because it's so amazing. Would definitely recommend going there and…read morethey've done a lot of construction and you can have lunch there now in the old building and the food is top-notch.

We came all the way from the top of Wisconsin for a trip to Lake Geneva. This was one of the stops…read morewe had on our list. We weren't allowed to tour it because it was open only to homeschool families. I mean I was homeschooled as a kid. Two people I don't think would have hurt letting us learn about it too!

We stopped here on our way on our vacation. It was a little out of the way but nice to explore…read moresomething else besides madison children museum and Betty Brin children museum in Milwaukee. We were pleasantly surprised how large inside and how clean and well maintained. Admission is $16 which is for kid with 2 adults. It is a little expensive but it's better than our play cafe little village which charges $12-14. My son loved the pirate ship with slide. My daughter loved the market stand. Upstairs has vending machine with reasonable price treats and drinks.

Very fun neat place to take the kiddos!! It was a lot bigger inside than I was expecting. There…read morewere so many different little areas set up to explore! My daughter ran from area to area for about an hour just checking everything out to see what was all there. The art craft area is very cool - set up perfectly for the kiddos to hop in and paint quickly, or do the other crafts/coloring/art. My daughter loved the stage - she loves to perform! We will absolutely be back lots. It's a perfect place to go in long WI winters.