The original 80 acre homestead was located on what was then called "Town Road 6" and now known as Donges Bay Road. The Town of Mequon listed roads by numbers starting with (#1) at the far northern township line. The road numbers increased by one number every mile south through the township. Town road #6 was re-named to Donges Bay Road at an unkown date. Naming roads by name instead of numbers was to remove confusion to outsiders coming to the area. The name "Donges" came from a landowner in the far SE corner of Mequon and NE corner of Milwaukee County (Village of Bayside) by the last name of Donges. This area is located just south of Fairy Chasm and is on old maps as Donges Bay.
Although not many pictures of the farm house exist from the earlier days, the original farm house received an addition to the front around 1915. In the pictures below; this addition is the part in the foreground where the large cedar tree is located. The addition was as big as the original structure size and doubled the structure size for this growing farm and family.
The original house was a 8 room log home, built with timber harvested from the farm. In the basement you could see the large timbers used to support the main floor. The basement masonary walls were built from stones found on the farm and stones from the shores of Lake Michigan, which was located 1/2 mile east of the farm. The framing for the walls and roof were also made from hand hewed timber. Plumbing and electric were installed around the time of the addition. Prior to that time, plumbing consisted of an wooden outdoor privie. I have the original reciepts for the 1915 addition and construction.
In 1992 the barn and other out buildings were removed from the property for expansion of the new subdivision called "The Pines". The corner stone for the barn was dated 1900 and was removed and placed into the fire place at the new home Gilbert and Jennie were building in the Town of Cedarburg, WI. The farm house was removed in 2005 and a new house was built approximately on the same foot print as the original house. There are no remaining buildings on the property or any evidence of the Guidinger homestead remaining as of 2005.
Farm homestead of Peter Guidinger Sr.
Last known picture of the barn before it was demolished.
