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Photograph of Ten Chimneys
Photograph by James Steakley, CC BY-SA 3.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Ten Chimneys

A National Historic Landmark. Built in 1915. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.

From the record

“Ten Chimneys was the summer home and gentleman's farm of Broadway actors Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt, and a social center for American theater. The property is located in Genesee Depot in the Town of Genesee in Waukesha County, Wisconsin, United States.”

Wikipedia article Ten Chimneys, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 153 National Register listings published here for Waukesha County · listed in 2003 · category: Building · built in 1915 · a National Historic Landmark.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What happened here

An account from the chapter on Genesee town. The inset identifies its exact source book and publication year.

From The History of Waukesha County, Wisconsin. Containing an Account of Its Settlement, Growth, Development and Resources; an Extensive and Minute Sketch of Its Cities, Towns and Villages--their Improvements, Industries, Manufactories, Churches, Schools and Societies; Its War Record, Biographical Sketches, Portraits of Prominent Men and Early Settlers; the Whole Preceded by a History of Wisconsin, Statistics of the State, and an Abstract of Its Laws and Constitution and of the Constitution of the United States, published 1880 - Genesee Town

Town Of Mukwonaco

WILiIilAM ADDENBROORE, farmer. Sec. 9; P. 0. North Prairie; born 1832, in Staffordshire, Eng. ; is a son of Hy. and Harriett (Johnson) Addenbrook, who are now residents of Liverpool, Eng. ; Mr. A. studied in the schools of his native land, taking a medical course at the Birmingham Hospital; he practiced medicine on the ocean packet-ships, and in the American and English seaports, until 1852, when he came to Wisconsin and bought his present farm of 120 acres; was for nine years in the grain and mercantile business at North Prairie, selling his store and elevator, in 1875 ; has since devoted himself to his farm and apiary ; his first swarm was captured in the woods about twenty years ago ; was for a time in partnership with George Grimm, whose father, Adam G., of Jefferson, Wis., was the most successful apiarian on the continent, and first introduced the Italian bees ; the partnership was dissolved in 1879, Mr.

Read the rest of this passage

The ground it stands on

50,052 words

This property stands in Genesee Town. The History of Waukesha County, Wisconsin. Containing an Account of Its Settlement, Growth, Development and Resources; an Extensive and Minute Sketch of Its Cities, Towns and Villages--their Improvements, Industries, Manufactories, Churches, Schools and Societies; Its War Record, Biographical Sketches, Portraits of Prominent Men and Early Settlers; the Whole Preceded by a History of Wisconsin, Statistics of the State, and an Abstract of Its Laws and Constitution and of the Constitution of the United States, published 1880 gives that township a chapter of its own.

The chapter covers the township.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Genesee Town - 50,052 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.

Fires near this property

12 since 2008

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 12 fires within 5 miles of Ten Chimneys between 2008 and 2020, burning about 42 acres in total. None started naturally. 3 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined8
Arson/incendiarism3
Debris and open burning1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
25 September 2018Arson/incendiarismunder an acreWisconsin Department of Natural Resources518
27 June 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreWisconsin Department of Natural Resources2002498
7 May 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreWisconsin Department of Natural Resources129
30 May 2019Arson/incendiarism1.0 acresWisconsin Department of Natural Resources19128
29 April 2018Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreWisconsin Department of Natural Resources150
27 April 2020Debris and open burning1.0 acresWisconsin Department of Natural Resources202
23 April 2008Arson/incendiarism38 acresWisconsin Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
19 April 2020Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresWisconsin Department of Natural Resources192

Every fire recorded in Waukesha County

Mines and quarries near this property

8 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 8 workings within 5 miles of Ten Chimneys: 4 producers, 3 past producers, 1 unknown. 4 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Stone, Dimension. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Genesee QuarryStone, DimensionPast Producer
Perrens QuarryStoneUnknown
Bishop PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Dousman PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Evans Sand and Gravel PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Genesee Pit & MillSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Pit Wolf Constr.Sand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Vulcan Dousman Pit 422Sand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer

Every working recorded in Waukesha County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Photograph PropertyDistance Listed
Ten Chimneysunder 500 feet1998
Genesee Town Hall0.2 miles1981
Owen and Margaret Oliver House0.5 miles2011
Genesee Woolen Mill Site0.6 miles2017
J. C. Booth House2.6 miles1973
William Johnston Lime Kiln2.8 miles1982

Sources for this property

National Archives recordThe nomination case file for reference 03001042 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia articleCommunity-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Waukesha CountyAll 153 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

  • Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
  • Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
  • How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
  • Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
  • Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.