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Mansion Hill Inn is sold

Samara Kalk Derby  —  3/05/2008 12:41 pm

Trek Hospitality, a subsidiary of Trek Bicycle Corp. in Waterloo, bought the downtown landmark Mansion Hill Inn on Monday for an undisclosed price.

"We are very committed to restoring it and doing the work to bring the building up to the highest standards and to preserve the original design," said Mark Joslyn, who is responsible for Trek Hospitality.

Joslyn said the bicycle company brings a lot of people to the area: customers, suppliers and employees from all over the world. Owning the inn will give them a permanent place to house their visitors.

Traditionally, Mansion Hill Inn guests stay for a weekend, while Trek guests in town for company business stay during the week, Joslyn said.

Trek will honor all current reservations, and when the company is not using all of the rooms in the 9,000-square-foot inn, it will continue to accept bookings from the public, he said.

Trek plans to restore the exterior and redecorate the interior. It hopes to be open for guests by mid-July, Trek President John Burke told employees in an e-mail Monday. Rooms will also be offered to local employees as a benefit, Burke said.

Joslyn said Trek is working with the neighborhood association and historic preservationists to make sure renovations are done thoughtfully and carefully. The mansion at 424 N. Pinckney St. is Madison's only AAA-ranked four-diamond inn. It was built in 1857 and is considered a masterpiece of German Romanesque Revival Style.

Major work on the building should be completed in time for UW-Madison graduation ceremonies in May, Joslyn said.

The building was restored in 1983 by its past owner, the Alexander Co., and turned into an 11-suite inn. Ornate wrought-iron railings were restored on the exterior along with a four-story oval-shaped mahogany spiral staircase, a marble lobby and original Venetian etched stained-glass windows.

The mansion's days as a single-family residence ended at the beginning of the 20th century. It then became a fashionable boarding house where some of the city's best-known citizens lived. The building was converted into apartments in the 1930s. In the mid-1980s, the Alexander Co. purchased it and turned it into an elegant inn.

The building was listed as a Madison landmark in 1971 and added to the National Register of Historic Places a year later. Built by Alexander McDonnell, it was designed by architect August Kutzbock, who also designed the Gates of Heaven Synagogue. The McDonnell-Pierce House, as it was known, was the first residence on "Big Bug Hill," now known as Mansion Hill. The building is one of the four historic mansions still standing at the North Pinckney-East Gilman intersection, across from Lake Mendota.

When Randy Alexander put the Mansion Hill Inn up for sale last June, he was asking $2.8 million. Joslyn would not reveal the purchase price.

Trek's corporate offices are in Waterloo, about 20 miles east of Madison. The company also has two Madison retail stores and a travel agency called Trek Travel.

Samara Kalk Derby  —  3/05/2008 12:41 pm