Royal Hotel Bar

The Royal Hotel was Milwaukee's longest-operating queer space of the 20th century -- operating in plain sight with a lavender reputation two generations before Stonewall.

Ernest T. Nixdorf built the Royal Hotel as the first in a national chain of grand hotels that never happened. He built an elaborate eight-room penthouse and garden on the Royal roof, where he planned to live 100 feet above Michigan Street. Only three years after opening the Nixdorf Hotel, he was bankrupt, his wife had committed suicide, his daughter had disowned him, and rumors of his homosexuality went public.

After the St. Charles Hotel closed in1931, manager Joseph Budar, staff, residents, and a reputation for relaxed morals moved to the Royal. Gays and lesbians began to gather at the hotel bar in the 1930s -- and they never left.

After World War II, the Royal Hotel became the place for questioning small-town tourists to have queer experiences. In 1950, the Milwaukee Police began aggressive sting operations, but manager Mabel Myers Leviash would defend her residents and guests.

In 1966, a local attorney pleaded with Judge Christ T. Seraphim to close down the Royal Hotel, declaring it a “hangout for perverts.” Milwaukee County acquired the hotel andplanned to convert it into a jail. The county’s plans collapsed. Desperate to make the hotel more mainstream, newowners renamed it the Buckskin Inn. The rebranding failed miserably, and the hotel was sold at sheriff’s auction in 1971. Western Bank narrowly outbid the Balistrieri family, who had never been directly involved with gay nightlife, but long envied its profit margin.

Gay liberation arrived in September 1971, when The Stud opened in the hotel bar, replaced by Michelle's Club 546 in 1972.

In 1971, negotiations began with Blue Cross Blue Shield, and they agreed to build a two-block headquarters. The Royal closed on April 1, 1973, when all contents were sold at sheriff’s auc-tion. Michelle’s survived until September 23, 1973. At the closing party, guests received keys to their most memorable hotel rooms. The hotel was flattened in 1974.

When the Royal Hotel closed forever on September 23, 1973, GPU News reported "oldtimers tell us that 40 years ago, the Royal Hotel Bar was already a gathering place for gay people."

“So there goes the shabby old Royal Hotel,and good riddance,” noted the Milwaukee Journal.