East side Milwaukee house is worth showing off

By Jan Uebelherr

There were just a handful of houses that Andy Nunemaker liked better than his east side home, but they just weren’t coming onto the market. Then one day, one of them did.

But Nunemaker – an entrepreneur known for hosting community events in his home – didn’t pounce at the chance to own the old Vogel home, with its wrought-iron work and intricate plasterwork by local master craftsman.

Built in 1905 by Boston architects Parker and Thomas, the home had been occupied by the Vogel family for decades – first by Guido Vogel, beginning in 1911.

The grand old home and others in the Water Tower neighborhood were familiar to Nunemaker, even though he grew up in what he calls a modest colonial at N. 81st St. and W. Lisbon Ave. He and his father often ended up on the east side, camera in hand, after taking pictures of trains in the Menomonee Valley.

“We drove around to look at the old houses on the east side. I knew all of these streets when I was 10 years old,” says Nunemaker, who worked for GE Healthcare, transferred to Sydney, Australia, for a time and in 2004 founded EMSystems, a software firm, which he sold in 2010. Recently, he founded Dynamis, a firm that makes software for health insurance brokers.

Nunemaker knew when the price was right for that house, which was just two doors down from the home he’d bought in 2002. He made his move and bought the four-bedroom, 3 ½-bath, 11,000-square-foot home, which included a three-bedroom coach house, in September 2011.

It didn’t take long before one of Milwaukee’s best-known fundraising events came knocking.

to be continued

from jsonline.com