Zuelke Building

Irving Zuelke built Appleton's first skyscraper twice after fires destroyed the original, using fireproof steel, stone, and marble. Cleaning crews hear his piano music from the upper floors at night, and his full figure has been spotted in the neo-gothic tower near Houdini Plaza.

Late at night, cleaning crews in the Zuelke Building hear piano music drifting from upper floors. Nobody is up there. According to Emily Rock, curator of The History Museum at the Castle in Appleton, people claim to see Irving Zuelke and hear him playing well after the building has emptied.

Zuelke was a music shop owner who bought the building in 1926 and moved his store in. The building burned down in 1928 (the second fire on the site; the original Masonic Temple burned in 1874). Zuelke, determined not to lose a third building to fire, rebuilt it entirely from steel, stone, marble, and brass. The seven-story fireproof structure was completed in 1931. He expanded it to twelve stories in 1951, making it Appleton's first skyscraper at 168 feet. The marble lining the lobby and mezzanine was sourced from Eastern Tennessee, near Knoxville, originally destined for an Appleton church that couldn't pay for it.

The neo-gothic tower sits at 103 West College Avenue, near Houdini Plaza (Harry Houdini grew up in Appleton). It joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 as part of the College Avenue Historic District. Today, the building operates as a mixed-use development blending apartments and commercial space.

The ghost story is straightforward. Irving Zuelke's full figure has been seen in the building. A separate, less explained phenomenon involves what visitors have described as the torso of a man floating through the corridors, cut off at the waist. And the piano music: reported by multiple cleaning crews over the years, always at night, always from the upper floors where Zuelke's music store once operated.

The accounts are thin on specific dates and witness names. No paranormal team has published a formal investigation. What exists is a building with a deep personal attachment to the man who built it twice, a music store that defined the space for decades, and cleaning crews who hear instruments playing in rooms where no instruments remain. Zuelke survived two fires to build this tower. Leaving it seems to have been harder.