Enchanted Estate: Broadway's Time Capsule in Rural Wisconsin
Jennifer Evans

As the sunny days of summer grew short in a the small southeastern Wisconsin town of Genesee Depot in late August 1983, George Bugbee lowered the window shades in each room of the estate of former Broadway legends Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. Moving from window to window, Bugbee, Alfred’s brother-in-law, forced the sunlight from the rooms once filled with the voices and laughter of well-known 20th century actors and actresses; rooms where theatrical lines and everyday dialogue merged as one; rooms once filled with a smoky haze from chain-smoking actors and a fireplace that burned year round. When Bugbee finished, he locked the door behind him and retreated up the hill to an old Swedish cottage on the Lunts’ estate, where he would stay until his death some 12 years later.

Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne ruled the American stage from the early-1920s through the 1960s, earning recognition as “the greatest acting team in the history of the English speaking theater.” Before meeting offstage in 1919, Lunt, a native from Milwaukee and Fontanne, born and raised in Essex, England, had each spent years painstakingly climbing the ranks of American theater. Within months of each other, both Lunt and Fontanne began acting in the roles that would ultimately launch them into stardom. After falling in love, marrying and spending years acting in separate plays, Lunt and Fontanne took a significant pay cut in signing with The Theater Guild. However, this was in exchange for two requests: the couple would only perform together (earning the nicknames such as “the Fabulous Lunts” and “the Lustrous Lunts”) and they would spend every summer away from the theater, retreating with family and friends to the home they created in Genesee Depot.

What began with Alfred’s original purchase of a small farmhouse on several acres of land for his mother and sisters in 1914 expanded over the years to encompass an estate of more than 100 acres. The estate grew to include a main house and cottage, studio, barn, chicken coop, creamery, cutting garden and acres of wheat and corn fields. With each estate addition and general maintenance needed, Lunt and Fontanne employed locals from Genesee Depot, offering much-needed work for members of the community during the Great Depression.

During the couple’s early years in Wisconsin, Lunt and Fontanne worked to create the perfect summer retreat. Although withdrawing from the theater for only a few months of the year, the Lunts never truly left the stage. Instead, during long summer days, they crafted a home that reflected their passion for theater and their strong attention to detail. Each room of the estate became their very own stage. The Lunts used theatrical lighting techniques to create a desired ambiance; thematic designs repeatedly layered throughout the house, and paintings, stage props, antiques and gifts from friends to create a meticulously crafted scene.

As with their acting, the Lunts sought perfection in the design of Ten Chimneys. Lunts commissioned theater-set designer Claggett Wilson to hand-paint murals rich with symbolism throughout the house, employed locals to cut out and paint pieces of wallpaper to add depth to walls of the house and collected furniture and decorations as they traveled the world. To ensure a look and style most pleasing, Alfred carried a small notebook with him on all the couple’s travels, with the complete dimensions of the estate, so that he could be sure each purchase had its place.

With the amount of detail that Fontanne and Lunt poured into their estate, they enthusiastically welcomed well-known actors and actresses, writers, theater critics and more to Ten Chimneys. Many established and up-and-coming-artists of the 20th century made visits, as did the lesser-known members of the Genesee Depot community.

Celebrities such as Katherine Hepburn, Carol Channing, Lawrence Olivier and Nöel Coward could be seen playfully splashing in the pool or gathering around the Lunts' dining room table in formal evening wear.

When imagining the Lunts’ dinner guests, enthusiasm radiated from Martin Dable, former paperboy of the Lunts and volunteer docent at Ten Chimneys.

“Remember, these were theater people, so dinner probably started at 8 or 10 and it probably went on to 3 or 4 in the morning,” Dable said. “So, that dining room is a very special place. It’s a really busy place, but if you think about what kind of conversations probably took place [there], it’s just sensational and amazing. Think about what changes possibly came about because of the conversations in that dining room.”

Although Dable fondly remembers the generous tips and delectable desserts offered to him when he went to collect paper money from the Lunts, he admits that, as a child, he always considered the Lunts just another part of the Genesee Depot community.

“From being the toasts of Broadway, Alfred was a farmer out here and he’s working in the fields and he’s getting his hands dirty and he’s milking cows…and he’s wearing overalls,” explained Laurette Greenhalgh, a volunteer docent at Ten Chimneys. “Lynn is sewing with her friends and she’s relaxing with tea in the garden. They kept busy, but it was all activities that gave them relaxation…things that they loved.”

After each summer of relaxation and time spent with family and friends, the Lunts would return to the stage rejuvenated and ready to work.

On stage, the Lunts shattered the historical mold that suggested actors were to deliver to an audience by shouting lines in their direction in stiff, posed positions. Lunt and Fontanne believed acting should appear more natural and sought realism in the delivery of their lines. Together, they became the first pair to master overlapping dialogue, express physicality on the stage and turn their backs to the audience during a performance.

“I think they were always rehearsing,” Dable said. “People like Alfred and Lynn made theater easy for us to watch and listen to.”

Twentieth century audiences applauded the revolutionary acting style of the Lunts. They offered a conservative American audience their very first look at a physical stage fight, theatrical infidelity and ménage à trois. The more critics gasped in response to the Lunts, the louder audiences roared. And after each show they starred in had its run on Broadway, the Lunts took their performances on the road. The pair recognized theater did not only belong on the stage in New York or other major cities, but also in the barns and church basements of small towns across the country.

“The Lunts believed in bringing theater to the masses… and taking their plays out into the hinterland, out into places like Omaha, Nebraska and Milwaukee, Wisconsin,” said Dan Cummings, a retired theater manager and Ten Chimneys docent.

Although the Lunts welcomed reaching people across the country by taking their performances on the road, they did not solidify their spot in history with a long list of films. In fact, the Lunts only made one film in 1931 titled, “The Guardsman,” a popular play previously performed on stage by the couple. When the Lunts were later offered hundreds of thousands of dollars to film additional movies, they declined. The Lunts loved the stage and the presence of an audience, not the shouts and demands of a director.

“[The Lunts] found something they were both passionate about doing in the theater, and they weren’t lured away by something like the movies where they could have made in the millions of dollars over the length of their careers,” Greenhalgh said. “That wasn’t what they wanted and they were willing to stick with what they were passionate about, which was live theater.”

Although the Lunts performed in front of people across the country and throughout the world for more than 40 years, the inability to experience their performances through old films causes their memory to be largely lost on the theatergoers and performers of today. In 1960, the Lunts retired to Ten Chimneys, where they lived out the end of their lives, indulging in the less public passions they had sought on their estate over summer vacations.

Alfred died in August 1977, and Lynne died nearly six years later, in July 1983. When George Bugbee pulled the shades closed at Ten Chimneys and locked the door in the late summer of 1983, he created what Greenhalgh calls a “time capsule.”

“Thanks to George Bugbee, the house was closed up, all the stuff was there and there it stayed,” Greenhalgh said.

For more than 12 years, the time capsule that contained memories of the life and livelihood of Fontanne and Lunt remained sealed within the walls of Ten Chimneys, with Bugbee only living in several rooms in the estate’s cottage. Gradually, however, the dormancy of Ten Chimneys became too much for the old estate to bear. Behind locked doors and shaded windows, Ten Chimneys slowly began to deteriorate.

However, when the successful Wisconsin businessman and film historian Joe Garton stepped into the Ten Chimneys estate with Bugbee for the first time in 1994, neither drooping wallpaper nor rotting curtains could discourage him from taking in the sights of the home he had long heard about as a young boy in Sheboygan. Looking beyond the estate’s peeling paint and leaky roof, Garton fell in love with Ten Chimneys.

“When they opened the house, they had drawers full of clothes...stockings and slips and scarves still labeled by Alfred where everything should be,” Greenhalgh said. "Lynn and Alfred’s correspondence was still there…their briefcases. Play scripts with their handwritten notes were there….”

“There was a letter, just sitting out on the table, signed by Charles Chaplin,” said Ten Chimneys’ docent Becky Whaley. “There was stuff from Katherine Hepburn. There were photos of Nöel Coward and Lawrence Olivier and, of course, Alfred and Lynn, just sitting out, laying around in different rooms. And it really was like they had just gotten up and walked off.”

After Joe’s first visit to Ten Chimneys, he was blown away.

"He couldn’t get Ten Chimneys out of his mind…it was so evocative,” said Sean Malone, president of the Ten Chimneys Foundation. “He wanted to see it again.”

After numerous failed attempts to contact Bugbee to schedule another visit to Ten Chimneys, Garton discovered Bugbee had died and his heirs had agreed to sell the estate to developers, who planned to level Ten Chimneys and replace it with condominiums.

The destruction of Ten Chimneys was more than Garton, a man who had never met the Lunts or watched the couple in a live performance, could bear. Acting quickly, Garton used his personal assets as collateral to take out a million-dollar loan, and fought to ensure the memory of Fontanne and Lunt would remain forever embedded in the history and culture of Wisconsin and the nation. Only through what Malone describes as a “series of fortunate twists of fate”—the developers narrowly missed closing on the property and Garton quickly stepped in—did Ten Chimneys survive.

“I think it’s a great story, and I think the Lunts would truly appreciate all of the drama involved in saving this place,” said Cait Dallas, Ten Chimneys curator of collections.

“Joe saw a real gift in all of this,” Malone said. “He saw [its] potential and had the faith in his ability to convey the story of Ten Chimneys to others.”

Through years of hard work, Garton, his staff, a team of restoration experts from around the world and hundreds of volunteers pieced back together and breathed new life into Ten Chimneys estate, awakening the stories of Lunt and Fontanne.

Bonnie Roth, from Wales, Wisconsin, was one of many volunteers who helped with the early restoration process of Ten Chimneys.

As one of her early assignments, Roth patiently spent 20 hours cleaning hundreds of blown glass flowers framing Fontanne’s makeup window. Running a q-tip dipped in ammonia solution over each colorful glass lily and tulip, Roth revived the window from which Fontanne would anxiously prepare and wait for guests of Ten Chimneys to arrive. Now, years later, Roth continues to perform periodic touch-ups of the flowers throughout the year.

“As I’m in there by myself, I feel real connected. I feel the spirit of Lynn,” Roth said. “To me, coming over to Ten Chimneys [early on] was like a therapy session. You’d come over here and you’d come into a different world.”

It is a world Garton opened to the public in May 2003 less than two months before cancer would claim his life.

“Joe had the extraordinary passion for making things happen. He was very Quixote-like,” Malone said. “If you look at Ten Chimneys from a business perspective, it shouldn’t have succeeded, but Joe recognized its importance and believed that if we told the story of Ten Chimneys to enough people, we’d make it happen. He was a Renaissance man.”

Today, two-hour tours guide patrons through the 18-room main house, studio, 5-room cottage and along the edges of the Lynn’s flower garden and Alfred’s creamery, several barns, and the in-ground pool and pool house, offering patrons a short glimpse into what it felt like to be a guest at Ten Chimneys. By using the belongings stored for years in Ten Chimneys and the historical records of photographs and old correspondence between the Lunts and others, the estate largely stands just as it was when the Lunts were alive. Ten Chimneys is one of only ten national historical landmarks dedicated to the arts.

“Ten Chimneys has such an incredibly rich history,” said Patricia Boyette, UW-Madison professor of theater and drama. “It is especially special to be here in Wisconsin, because the Lunts really were top international stars.”

According to Dallas, what visitors see at Ten Chimneys are “things chosen by the Lunts' own hands.”

“You can see by the placement of things what they were interested in having about them,” Dallas said. “You can see their eclectic selection of furniture. Their ideas of color and design are right out there for you to see. [We] aren’t guessing what [these items] were and, better yet, [these items] aren’t influenced by our modern sensibilities of design.”

“Ten Chimneys is genuine,” Dable said. “When you walk through Ten Chimneys you get what was here when Alfred and Lynn were still alive.”

At Ten Chimneys, guests are welcomed with Claggett Wilson murals at the front door, a china tea set sits patiently on the small table in the garden room, a game of solitaire appears temporarily interrupted in the drawing room of the main house, a bathrobe lies neatly on a guest bed, a simple, worn arm chair once known only as “Alfred’s chair” rests in the corner of the library and Meissen china and Stuben crystal place-settings decorate the Lunts’ dining room table. There are no ropes to hold patrons back. And, even though guests cannot touch, the unscripted stories told by the docents allow visitors the opportunity to experience the vision of Lunt and Fontanne and to examine what Ten Chimneys once was and what it now is. These stories, like the storytellers and the guests themselves are always changing and create an experience of newly discovered whimsy and enchantment for guests upon each visit.

“Ten Chimneys is not about history, but far more values driven. The values themes serve as a guide,” Malone said. “Themes of whimsy, style, grace, friendship, pursuit of perfection and a work ethic to do the best you can surround you at Ten Chimneys. The Lunts integrated all of it, creating a design for living.”

“No matter who you are, you are looking for balance; how to design [your] life,” Malone said. If for only two hours, the rich stories of Ten Chimneys will help this balance of life appear within reach.