Frederick C. Bogk House
historic house in Wisconsin, United States

The Frederick C. Bogk House is a single-family residential project in Milwaukee, Wisconsin designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Bogk was an alderman and secretary-treasurer of the Ricketson Paint Works. This house embodies Wright's prairie style elements into a solid-looking structure that appears impregnable.
History
The house was built in 1917 at a cost of $15,000. In the mid-1910s, developer Arthur Richards was readying to promote Wright's short-lived American System-Built Homes (ASBH), which were standardized home designs for moderate income housing. During this time, Wright designed several projects for Richards and his clients including the prototype ASBH Burnham Block, the Munkwitz Apartments (Milwaukee, 1916), and this residence for Frederick C. Bogk. Wright assigned Russell Williamson (Russell Barr Williamson), whom he had hired in 1914 as a draftsperson, to supervise the Munkwitz and Bogk projects. During this time, Wright's popularity was in decline, mostly due to personal troubles. The house was designed shortly after the murder of his mistress, Mamah Borthwick, and destruction of the residential wing at his home, Taliesin, and during the same period as his Imperial Hotel in Tokyo.
Robert and Barbara Elsner paid $36,000 for the house in 1955, owning it for the next seven decades.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Frederick C. Bogk House” as historic house in Wisconsin, United States. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as historic house in Wisconsin, United States. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5497461. Authority coordinates are 43.062, -87.877. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1917, 1916, 1914 and 1955.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Frederick C. Bogk House”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Frederick C. Bogk House primary sources, Frederick C. Bogk House archive and Frederick research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Frederick C. Bogk House”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Frederick C. Bogk House” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.