1886 - Home Office, Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company - Milwaukee, WI
N 43° 02.260 W 087° 54.470
16T E 426049 N 4765397
The Home Office of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, also known as 611 North Broadway, was designed by architect Solon Spencer Beman and was built in 1886. It is located at 605-23 N. Broadway St. in Milwaukee, WI.
Waymark Code: WM5ERY
Location: Wisconsin, United States
Date Posted: 12/29/2008
Views: 7
The Milwaukee City Department of City Development web site has the Historic Preservation Report for the East Side Commercial District (
visit link) . The report describes the building as follows:
"The 611 North Broadway Building was built as the third corporate headquarters of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company. The nation's tenth largest insurer is now located in its fourth and present building at 720 East Wisconsin Avenue. Solon Spencer Beman of Chicago was the architect commissioned to design what is now one of Milwaukee's premier examples of the Richardsonian Romanesque style. The massive office building has a raised basement and ground story constructed of Maine granite, about which rise four stories faced with rock-faced Indiana limestone. The facades are articulated by arcaded openings divided by stone piers that terminate in clusters of colonettes with foliated stone capitals. A stone parapet crowns the entire composition. On the inside a grand open staircase with marble steps, cast-iron railings and copper trimmed newel posts rises in a four-story atrium with an arched cast iron skylight. This light court retains its original architectural features and patterned encaustic tile floor. (NRHP-3/20/73)"
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