A 10-acre Monona estate with a storied past awaits new future

Now, exactly what to do with this unique property — serene and secluded, despite its location on the heavily traveled border of Monona and Madison — is up for debate.

One thing has been decided: Unlike much of the neighboring waterfront real estate, it won’t become apartments or condos. San Damiano has been purchased by the city of Monona and declared “open to enjoy” by new signage and inviting Adirondack chairs strategically arranged to maximize the sweeping views of Capitol sunsets.

“I’m overjoyed,” says Monona alder Nancy Moore, who has championed local efforts to preserve the site for public use. “It represents a huge leap for us as a community.”

What San Damiano will become — and whether that will include its faintly visible but deeply intriguing mystery manor — hinges on visioning, planning and fundraising efforts now underway.

When Allis-Chalmers manufacturing heir Frank Allis built the Dutch Colonial Revival house for his 600-acre farm in 1893 — replete with seven fireplaces and a third-floor ballroom — it was among the first permanent dwellings on the lake outside of Madison.

The aristocratic Allises — Frank and his wife, Lillian — were regulars on the newspaper society pages. As a “gentleman farmer,” the closest Frank came to getting his boots dirty may have been during the “dress like a farmer” costume soiree the couple once hosted. Lillian was active in the Women's Club of Madison and its statewide federation. After Frank’s death in 1915, his widow donated two acres on Buckeye Road for what she stipulated be known in perpetuity as “Frank Allis School.”

Adolf Kayser, a former mayor of Madison whose son went into the car business — yes, that Kayser — owned the estate briefly before selling it to Dr. Herman Gilbert, chief of staff at St. Mary’s Hospital. When Gilbert put the house on the market, his real estate agent touted its porches, “where poor tired old Dad can take his ease with the water lapping the shores almost at his very feet.”

But “tired old Dad” didn’t buy the house — the Mahoney sisters did. Josephine and Margaret Mahoney, generous donors to Catholic charities, then “sold” it — for $1 — to the Norbertine religious order, which founded St. Norbert College in De Pere, as a novitiate for newly ordained priests.

Where the Allises had played, the novices prayed. Cloistered on the property as part of their religious training, they rose at 5 a.m. each day for worship, study, recreation and reflection. The novitiate became a “house of prayer” for young visiting priests to attend classes at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

From 1975 to 2015, the Norbertines leased the property to the Capuchin Order of Franciscans, which found the lakeside setting an ideal place for its friars to “take a break from the routine of daily ministry … to slow down and pray, reflect and draw near to God,” says Tim Hinkle, director of public relations for the Capuchin Franciscan Province of St. Joseph. A separate, nonsecular mental health facility providing grief counseling was also located on the grounds.

The last friar moved out in 2015 when the Capuchins moved San Damiano’s functions elsewhere. After St. Norbert Abbey officials sought permission to demolish the house and speculation grew about what might happen next, the Monona City Council voted unanimously in 2020 to buy the estate for $8.6 million so the city could control its destiny and purpose more broadly.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Mayor Mary O’Connor said at the time.

Inhabited by ancestors of the Ho-Chunk Nation thousands of years ago, the land San Damiano occupies is near a Native American burial mound site mapped in 1850. An archaeological study last year concluded that, while a raised area on the grounds was probably the result of landscape grading, “it is highly likely that archaeological materials are present on the property which may include human remains.”

“Even though the soil has been destroyed and those visual aspects of it — those earthen mounds — are long gone, it doesn’t [erase] the fact that our ancestors are buried in and amongst these areas,” says Ho-Chunk Nation Tribal Historic Preservation Officer Bill Quackenbush.

By law, if evidence of burials (such as grave markers or skeletal remains) is unearthed during any excavation on the property, work would have to immediately stop until the findings could be investigated and the human remains preserved on-site or reinterred elsewhere.

Monona officials are working with the nonprofit Friends of San Damiano to raise money for current operations and future improvements. President Andy Kitslaar says the group is appealing to donors with a vision to “create a sustainable and serene, natural lakeside destination offering recreational, cultural and educational opportunities for people of all ages and abilities.” More than $2 million of the city’s investment has already been recouped in the form of state and county government grants.  

After seeking input through focus groups, public meetings and a community survey, consultants proposed three concepts with interchangeable variations of facilities, trails, access points, gathering spaces, natural features, parking and other details.

One of the concepts calls for saving the Frank Allis house; the others do not. Currently closed except during special events and badly in need of maintenance and repairs, it nevertheless remains “in generally good to fair condition,” according to an architectural firm specializing in historic restoration, and “retains a high degree of original character-defining elements” including an oak central staircase, dormers and glazed tile fireplace surrounds.

Alder Moore, who was initially attracted to San Damiano by its vistas, tranquility and biodiversity, says her appreciation of the Frank Allis house and its potential have grown. “It could be a differentiating feature of this property that no other property would have.”

While San Damiano may be in Monona, its boosters tout it as a regional treasure with significance well beyond the small city’s borders.

“As the last undeveloped property of this size” along Lake Monona’s shores, says Friends President Kitslaar, “we believe it can be a year-round, one-of-a-kind public asset.”

Bill Graf is a freelance writer, managing editor emeritus in University Communications at UW–Madison, a longtime Monona resident and a former WISC-TV political reporter.

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