Timm, Herman C., House

About this property

The Herman C. Timm House is a house listed on the National Register of Historic Places in New Holstein, Wisconsin. The house is a significant example of Stick style architecture, a rather rare predecessor of Queen Anne style architecture in the United States. The house was the home of an original settler and prominent citizen, Herman C. Timm. Timm came to New Holstein in 1848 from Marne, Germany, at age 14. He made his money operating a feed mill called Calumet Feeds at the north end of the block the house is on. He started a bank and was the first president of the village. The home was built in 1873 in a Greek Revival style by Kiel contractor August F. Neumann. It consisted of a current upstairs bedroom and first floor kitchen / dining room. The original home became the rear of the home during an addition in 1891. The addition was done in what was later called "stick style" architecture. The stick style was an 1860-1890 trend where carpentry and woodworking technology allowed for much trim detail. Timm's unmarried children took over the home after his death. They turned the upstairs into a rental unit, and in 1954 upstairs and downstairs were both rented out. The home was donated by H. C. Timm II to the New Holstein Historic Society in 1974. Local volunteers worked on restoring the house. The house's Grand Opening occurred on May 31, 1976, as part of the United States Bicentennial celebration. The New Holstein Historical Museum featured an "Early Photos of New Holstein" exhibit as part of the celebration. The home was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. The society operated the home as a house museum. The house had a major roof leak that forced an end to the house tours in 1998. An architectural assessment was performed on the house and the cost to reconstruct the house was estimated between $116,020 and $126,220. Before the roof was repaired, there was a broken pipe in the dining room. The break happened in January 1999. It dumped 500,000 gallons of water through the first floor and into the basement. The rising basement waters extinguished the furnace, causing the water in the pipes and the radiators to freeze, then burst. City water meters knew there was a problem somewhere in the city, but no one could find the source of the leak. A volunteer at the house discovered the leak. The volunteer arranged for a heating repairman to stop the flooding. When the repairman left, he slammed the door closed. The door frame was so swollen that the volunteer was stuck inside. She had to go upstairs and call for help through a front window. Only two interior photographs from 1896 exist. The New Holstein Historical Society raised $1.2 million (U.S.D.) for restoration of the Timm House. The Jeffris Foundation of Janesville, Wisconsin, gave the Society a $562,875 grant towards the restoration.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

More in Calumet County

Historic places, battles, and census history across Calumet County.

More historic places in Wisconsin

Browse all historic places in Wisconsin.

Conflict records

Explore 19,000+ military engagements across American history.

Wisconsin history

Colonial settlement, territorial period, and statehood narrative.