Running to beat the storm at Kohler, Wisconsin

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More than 130 years ago, 29-year-old John Michael Kohler took a cast-iron water trough, added feet and enameled it, creating a bathtub. According to Kohler Co. lore, he sold it to a local farmer for one cow and 14 chickens.

This seemingly simple innovation launched the KOHLER brand as a household name – for kitchen & bath, power, interiors and golf & resort destinations.

Yet it’s a series of thoughtful decisions nearly a century ago that truly set the stage for Destination Kohler.

When Kohler Co. began building its new factory in the area now known as the Village of Kohler, Wisconsin, immigrants from Austria, Holland, Germany, Russia, and other locations arrived looking for work. The challenge, it soon realized, was helping those workers find housing in what had previously been 21 acres of farmland.

Believing "A worker deserves not only wages, but roses as well,” Walter J. Kohler – son of John Michael Kohler and second president of Kohler Co. – undertook an ambitious project to house immigrants for just $27.50 a month, including a private room, laundry service and three meals per day. The project, a Tudor-style building he named The American Club, opened its doors to single immigrant workers in 1918. Along with a pub, bowling alley and barbershop, The American Club offered lessons in American citizenship and the English language.

Surrounding The American Club, the newly incorporated Village of Kohler was part of a 50-year master plan created with the Olmsted Brothers, designers of New York’s Central Park. One of the first planned communities in America, it brought community members together with everything from bowling leagues to picnics at Ravine Park and concerts by John Phillip Sousa.

As time passed and the Kohler Co. grew, so did the needs of workers, many of whom now had families and their own homes – often built by the company and sold to workers at cost. Eventually, The American Club outlived its original purpose and was in need of major repairs. Herbert V. Kohler Jr., current president of Kohler Co., conceived the idea of an elegant village inn. He hired three consultants, all of whom said the idea would never work. Undeterred, he trusted his instinct and launched a renovation. When The American Club was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, there was no turning back.