Nina Linn Dousman

TALES OF A CITY PRAIRIE DU CHIEN'S VILLA LOUIS HAS AN INTRIGUING PAST, by Helen J. Anderson Originally Published: July 25, 1999: Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin - Villa Louis, a 20-room mansion set atop an Indian burial mound here, whispers a century-old tale of two rivers, two men and two ambitious women who knew what they wanted -- and got it. The place where the Wisconsin River meets the mighty Mississippi once was a rendezvous for water-traveling trappers and traders involved in a thriving fur industry that fueled fortunes. Here, Jane Fisher, daughter of the area's first American settler, met and married Joseph Rolette, manager of the American Fur Company's trading post, a man who lived so well the Indians called him "King." But the King's crown began to crumble when fur company owner John Jacob Astor sent young Hercules L. Dousman to join Rolette in 1826. During the next 10 years, Dousman parlayed fur trading money into steamship, railroad, land and timber interests, while Rolette's fortunes faded. He lost his job to Dousman, and Jane left him, moving into a stone dwelling he provided as part of their separation agreement. After Rolette's death, Jane found better digs in the red brick mansion Dousman built and brought her to as his bride. The wealthy couple welcomed artists, traders, lawmakers, soldiers and financiers to their home, which quickly became the region's political and commercial center. After Dousman died in 1868, Jane and their 20-year-old son, Hercules Louis Dousman II, had the mansion torn down and replaced with one in the most popular architectural style of the day, a cream-colored brick Italianate villa designed by prominent Milwaukee architect E. Townsend Mix. If Hercules Dousman's mission in life was to amass a fortune, it was his son Louis' aim to spend it, a pursuit in which he was ably aided by his socially ambitious wife, Nina, a woman who had grown up with few personal possessions at a succession of military posts. The young Dousmans acquired jewelry, decorative items and home furnishings while honeymooning in the East, then settled down to life in St. Louis. After his mother's death in 1882, the couple and their five children moved to the villa, where Louis established his Artesian Stock Farm to breed trotting horses and Nina re-did her late mother-in-law's house to suit herself. The extensive remodeling and redecorating project was almost finished when Louis died of a ruptured appendix at 38. Nina sold his horses, but continued her lavish lifestyle, ignoring advice to curb her spending. She and Dakota Territory newspaper editor Robert McBride wed in late 1888 and lived in Chicago, then New York, until their marriage collapsed in 1893. She returned to the villa with her children, bringing along furnishings and accessories she had bought for her New York City apartments, one of which was in the fashionable Nevada building. Husbandless once again, she hired John J. McGrath Co. of Chicago, an agent of British Arts and Crafts designer William Morris, to provide wall, floor and window treatments for Villa Louis, and embarked on the mansion's "glory years," throwing elegant parties that wound down to a family wedding and reception in 1904, "the last effort," according to some. By 1910 Nina Dousman's mismanaged fortune was gone; three years later she left her inherited, objects-crammed country estate for good, to live alternately with siblings and children until her death in 1930. Villa Louis served as a boys boarding school until 1917, when it became a boarding house. Later, heirs sold the property under contract; when buyers defaulted, it came back to haunt them until they donated it to Prairie du Chien in 1934. Finding it too costly to maintain, the city deeded it to the State Historical Society of Wisconsin in 1952. Nina's acquisitive nature filtered down to family members, who in pack-rat fashion hung on to villa-related memorabilia, a penchant now applauded by people who preserve patterns of the past. During the 1930s two of her daughters returned many of the original furnishings to the mansion, and in 1989 a bequest of furnishings, manuscripts, letters, bills, receipts and photographs from granddaughter Mary Blake Young Janes helped pave the way to return Villa Louis to the luster of its heyday. White knight Tom Jeffris, a member of the State Historical Society's board of curators and head of the Janesville, Wis.-based Jeffris Family Foundation, has provided foundation grants of more than $765,000 for the project; $340,000 has come from the state of Wisconsin and other sources. Under the direction of Villa Louis site director Michael Douglass, a host of skilled artisans, historians and manufacturers are carrying the work forward for the enjoyment of all who visit Wisconsin's frontier showplace, a National Historic Landmark. Villa Louis Historic Site is open daily May 1 through Oct. 31 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (last orientation program at 3:45 p.m., last guided tour at 4 p.m.). Time: 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours. Admission: $7.75, $7 seniors 65 and over, $3.50 ages 5-12. Accessibility: The lower level of the house is handicap accessible. Miles from downtown Chicago: 239. Address: 521 N. Villa Louis Road, Prairie du Chien. Phone: 608-326-2721. NOTE: Prices, dates and other time-sensitive material may have changed since the original publication date. 

Ref: Chicago Tribune