Villa Terrace

This mansion was built in 1924 for the Lloyd R. Smith family. It's an Italian Renaissance-style home, built on a bluff above Lake Michigan. The family called it Sopra Mare--"above the sea", & wanted the house & gardens to make them feel as if they were in Italy, having fallen in love with Italy when they'd traveled there. In this view, taken from Lake Drive (Lake Michigan is behind me) you can see both the water stairway (water cascades down the center, between the set of stairs) & the Neptune Gate,  designed and executed by Cyril Colnik, one of the most outstanding iron workers of the early 1900's. The formal garden contains a mosaic of black and light gray pebbles that were gathered from the beach along the Lake by school children.  Lloyd died in 1944-- his wife Agnes continued to live there until 1966, at which time she donated the house and gardens to Milwaukee County for use as a museum, and it became Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum. It's definitely worth a stop to go through it if you ever find yourself in this area. :))