If Cedarburg didn’t exist, it would have had to be made, by popular demand.
For visitors who enjoy a dip into the past, with occasional breaks for cappuccino and crepes, this little village, 20 miles north of Milwaukee, is practically perfect. There’s an 1864 woolen mill at one end of main street, now housing a winery and two dozen shops. There are stone, brick and clapboard cottages lining a rushing creek. There’s a five-story 1855 Greek Revival grist mill, and a handsome brick fire tower peeking over the rooftops.
There’s even a covered bridge, widely trumpeted as the last in Wisconsin. It’s not, but it’s very likely the most picturesque.
The overall effect evokes a bygone era — not of the days when 9-year-olds hunched over looms, or of stagecoaches raising clouds of dust, but a Rockwellian era of brass bands in gazebos and sleigh rides down gaslit streets.
People love it. Last year, readers of Wisconsin Trails magazine voted Cedarburg the Best Place to Spend the Day Shopping. The previous year, it won for Best-Looking Main Street.
“Oh, ja, the people come to Cedarburg,” said Irmgard Hoffmann, a native of Koblenz, Germany, who runs Gifts From the Old Country. “It’s an old-fashioned town. It’s not like a mall; people can go from shop to shop.”
The truth is, people come to Cedarburg not so much for the history as for the shopping — and the personable shopkeepers. With Hoffmann, I spent a pleasant half-hour discussing various styles of Advent calendars, and the way the price of ornaments had rocketed since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
With Thomas Wilson, hammering a fireplace shovel into shape in his cavernous forge next to the woolen mill, I discussed the long years of training blacksmiths need. At Amy’s Candy Kitchen, I sampled imported Belgian chocolates and was given the name of a shop in Chicago the proprietor thought I’d like.
Twenty-five years ago, Cedarburg was not the magnet it is today. The woolen mill had just closed, and an oil company wanted to tear it down and put up a filling station. But the mayor refused the permit. So a local couple bought the mill, started a winery and rented extra space for shops; those shops attracted more shops, and restoration along the entire main street gathered steam.
“There were about nine of us who happened to be here at the same time and had the naivete to do it,” says Liz Brown, who, with her husband, turned a stone 1853 hotel-turned-biker bar back to its original use as the Stagecoach Inn B&B. “We wanted to save the building, so we just did it.”
Down the street, the 1886 Washington House Inn also was restored, now mixing tin ceilings, exposed stone walls and antiques with whirlpools, phones and TVs. Then, Wollersheim Winery of Prairie du Sac bought Cedar Creek Winery and opened it for tours.
The winery and mill shops, now known as Cedar Creek Settlement, are where many visitors start, though some get stuck there; I heard one tired shopper mutter, “I have got to get out of this building!” I began with the $2 winery tour, where a guide named Jan summed up mill history, from its manufacture of Civil War blankets to Chicago White Sox uniforms and, finally, the doom of polyester. To explain the winemaking process, she led us into the dank basement, past huge old casks and odd-looking machines, and on to “the fun part” — the sampling of wines, from fragrant strawberry and peach blushes to a mellow red, until the room had the buzz of a cocktail party.
Then I joined the throngs of shoppers, our footsteps creaking from wooden floor to wooden floor. A $145 chinked log-cabin birdhouse caught my eye at Spool & Spindle Antiques, along with a shelf of $16 paper and pen holders at Cedar Creek Pottery and a case of rhinestone jewelry at Dime a Dance. Other shops carried Amish, Southwest and American Indian goods.
During breakfast at the Stagecoach Inn, an Iowa woman had advised me to see the folk art at Cedar Tree; the collection was awfully fancy for “folk art,” but I did like a small, $84 painted cupboard. On this end of the street, my cravings were escalating: an $175 Icelandic-design sweater at Cedar Creek Woolen Mill, next door, and a $1,500 bronze boy atop a water-spouting snail at Down to Earth, a so-called gardening store across the street.
In the evening, I went to the Cedarburg Player’s production of “Love, Sex and the IRS” in the basement of a church, munching green-and-gold Packcorn at the opening-night reception before the show, which went over well. “I laughed so much my face hurts,” I overhead a woman say on her way out.
The next day, I drove out to picturesque Covered Bridge Park to admire the 1876 bridge, with its heavy latticed planks and wooden pegs. Then I continued explorations on Washington Avenue, stopping now and then for coffee and to samples wares from the three candy stores.
I didn’t buy much. But just walking along was a treat. After all the restoration, the street is a architectural cavalcade of cornices and cupolas, parapets and pilasters.
It may evoke a bygone era. But chances are, Cedarburg never looked this good even then.
DETAILS ON CEDARBURG
Getting there: From Chicago, take Interstate Highway 94 to Milwaukee, then Interstate Highway 43 north 20 miles to the Cedarburg exit.
Accommodations: The Stagecoach Inn B&B, a restored 1853 stone inn and 1847 annex on Cedarburg’s main street, has 13 attractive rooms ($70-$130), a first-floor pub and a delightfully inexpensive candy store across the hall. Call 414-375-0208.
The Washington House Inn, a restored 1886 cream-brick inn and 1870 annex on Cedarburg’s main street, has 39 attractive rooms ($69-$189) and a sauna. Call 800-554-4717.
Event: Feb. 6-8, Cedarburg Winter Festival, with parade, contests, fireworks and art show.
Dining: Barth’s at the Bridge is renowned for its Friday-night seafood buffet ($9.50) and Sunday German night ($10-$14.25). Call 414-377-0660.
The Farmstead isn’t in the historic sector, but it’s popular among locals; entrees include steak, chicken and catfish ($10.50-$16). Call 414-375-2655.
Information: Contact the Cedarburg Visitors Center, P.O. Box 104, Cedarburg, Wis. 53012; 800-237-2874 or 414-377-9620.
