Harwood Avenue Bungalow Evolved with Changing Times

In the dozen years before it was a photo studio, the building was the headquarters for several service clubs, when such organizations were at their zenith. The Wisconsin Telephone Co. built the bungalow in 1920 for its Bluemound exchange in Wauwatosa. The address at that time was 274 Main St.

Technology advanced, and the phone company moved out around 1930. Dial phones had replaced “hello girls” at the exchange in 1928. In a detailed account of how the new phones would work, the Wauwatosa News reported: “While the system will eventually mean the employment of fewer girls, there always will be a need for girls for toll lines, information and similar services.”

Hello girls? Help for toll lines? Always?

By the 1930s, the phone company’s Bluemound and Greenfield exchanges were consolidated and operated out of an office in West Allis. The building reflected the Great Depression; it was closed for business during most of the 1930s, records show. The Bungalow Pharmacy occupied the main floor by 1939.

In the basement, the unexpectedly bright Bungalow Grill served patrons at tables and at stools installed at a marble-topped soda fountain. The restaurant had three street-level exits.

The pharmacy closed by the early 1950s, but the Grill stayed open a bit longer. Both levels were vacant by 1955, and the building remained empty until 1957, when it was rechristened Underwood Court and used for lunch meetings of the Rotary Club, the Kiwanis Club, and the Izaak Walton League, a conservation organization.

The service clubs gave up the luxury of a dedicated home about 1968; life seemed busier then, and service clubs competed for time with jobs, family activities and other organizations.

At some point, front and rear additions created room for a foyer and a kitchen. The original part of the building is one room with a gleaming terrazzo floor and space to seat more than 100 people. 

By the early 1960s, the Izaak Walton League had moved on, and the Kiwanis and Rotary Clubs briefly shared the quarters with the Lions Club.

The Rotary and Kiwanis Clubs have been assembling in recent decades at hotel banquet halls or a basement meeting room at Mayfair Mall. The sale of Underwood Court was advertised in 1968 with a description of a dining room that was ideal “for parties, weddings, catering clubs and civic clubs.”

The Lions moved their meetings to the then-new Bowlero bowling alley in 1959, but in 1968 purchased the former Knights of Pythias Hall at 7336 St. James St.

After Rotary and Kiwanis vacated Underwood Court, the Breitlow studio moved in. The Breitlow family had been in the portrait photography business since the early years of the Great Depression. Clarence and Leta Breitlow initially established the business in Milwaukee without a studio. Leta would cut out newspaper birth announcements and follow up months later with a phone call to the parents, offering the convenience of in-home portrait sittings.

Clarence died in 1956, but Leta and her son Warren continued the business, finally locating in Wauwatosa. Leta died in 1996, and Warren continued with the business until about 2013, when, in his mid-80s, he finally sold the building to ANEW Health Care Services. Breitlow said about 10 years ago that he was frequently approached with offers to buy the building, but wanted to continue using it for his business for as long as he could.

ANEW Home Health Care Services bought the bungalow in 2012. ANEW had already purchased a building next door and another across the street. Sally Sprenger, ANEW founder, said she bought the building at 7425 Harwood Ave. when the owners of the Borgwardt Funeral Home retired in 1989. She later purchased the building at 7400 Harwood Avenue, which had previously housed Harwood Medical Associates.

Breitlow sold the bungalow as is, with all its contents, Sprenger said. That included photography equipment and supplies, about 3,000 picture frames and a baby grand piano.

She donated some camera equipment to the Wauwatosa Historical Society, plus stacks of mostly unidentified photo prints that at the time of this article were still being sorted.

“I was giving away three and four frames apiece to our employees as they were going home,” Sprenger said. Even after she donated other items, Sprenger said, workers filled 17 30-foot-long mobile garbage bins with debris, much of it from a remodeling project that eliminated wall partitions and restored the original main hall. Steps at the front entrance have been rebuilt, all of the windows replaced, and the exterior landscaped.

Sprenger loves a story about the piano, although she readily admits she has no idea whether it’s true: Flamboyant showman Liberace once performed at the bungalow.