The Paine Art Center: A Tudor Mansion the Depression Left Unfinished

Nathan Paine was president of the Paine Lumber Company in the nineteen twenties, a company covering sixty acres along the Fox River in Oshkosh and employing over two thousand workers. In nineteen twenty-five he commissioned a Tudor Revival country estate from architect Bryant Fleming of Ithaca, New York. Construction began in nineteen twenty-seven.

Then the Depression hit, and work halted. The house sat unfinished until the Paines resumed the project in nineteen forty-six, and Nathan Paine died in nineteen forty-seven. His wife opened the property to the public one year later.

It became an art museum and botanical garden, filled with French Barbizon landscapes, English silver, Persian rugs, and about three acres of formal gardens. It is, improbably, one of the finest small art centers in the Midwest.