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Clas of Milwaukee, one of the state’s most prominent architects, designed this imposing house with a steeply pitched roof for a coal wholesaler who owned the Reiss Steamship Company. The Jacobethan design has walls of rock-faced brownstone, a sandstone quarried along Chequamegon Bay and prized for its rich dark color. The dark walls, wall dormers, and parapets give the building a heavy look, an impression amplified by groups of windows with massive stone lintels and stone mullions. A stone porch with a spindle-balustraded roof deck shelters the entrance, and a porte-cochere extends from a side elevation. The sense of weight and solidity, combined with such elegant touches as diamond-paned leaded-glass transoms in the first-floor windows, conveys wealth and prestige.