Developers to restore historical A.W. Pettibone house

Home of the city’s most famous lumber baron
could be turned into bed and breakfast

A renovation of great historical significance is now underway in La Crosse. 

The A.W. Pettibone house, at Eighth and King streets, had been turned into apartments decades ago and then faced many years of deterioration until being basically abandoned. 

Now, developers plan to turn the house of one of La Crosse’s most famous original lumber baron clans back into a single-family home or possibly a bed and breakfast. 

A plan that’s very important to the neighborhood and the city says La Crosse senior planner Tim Acklin. 

“It’s going to take some resources, but it’s savable and I have a lot of confidence in the people who’ve bought it,” Acklin said.

The house was the last home of A.W Pettibone, who donated the land to the city, which is now Pettibone Park.

The house was also home in the late 19th century to George Poage, America’s first black Olympic medalist, for whom a park has just been rededicated on the city’s southside.