Hawthorne Terrace Apartments sits at 7700 W Portland Avenue, Wauwatosa, in a brick building first built in 1931 as Hawthorne Junior High School, and while it started life as a school, with classrooms for elementary, middle, and junior high kids, now it serves as a senior apartment community where the old halls have turned into studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom apartments with 517 to 900 square feet, and you get either one or two bathrooms depending on the unit you end up in, so there's room for different needs. Herbst and Kuenzli Architects designed the place, and when you look at it, you'll notice the big central pavilion with Ionic columns, the tall tower with a balustrade and cupola, and a tower that looks a lot like the one from Independence Hall, which shows someone cared about keeping some history alive even after remodeling and expansion work in 1958 and 1982 when the school became apartments.
The building's on the Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory, so people respect its old bones, and though Hawthorne Terrace Apartments doesn't come with a working swimming pool anymore, there used to be one that was among Milwaukee County's first pools tied to a school, making it part of local history. There's an involvement in historic preservation and research; the collection held here is one of the largest for North American Heritage after the Library of Congress, and you'll find services for family and community history research if you're interested in local stories.
Residents have access to transportation with complimentary rides, and there's garage parking as well as resident parking, so coming and going isn't hard whether you drive or not. The apartments are pet-friendly, and accessibility is built in with wheelchair-accessible showers and tubs, giving people what they need day to day. Staff offer on-site management and are around 24 hours for help if something comes up, and you get extra features such as elevators, a fitness center, controlled access or gated entry, high-speed internet availability, laundry rooms, a community garden, and a sundeck if you like to sit outside. There's also a library, theater, "fun zone," package receiving, a pet spa, and handy on-site maintenance, all set up in a way that aims to make daily life smoother for residents and their pets. Care options get tailored to what residents need, and though there's no detailed breakdown of all the special names or exact service types, it's clear the building tries to cover a wide range of needs within its historic frame.
