Wisconsin’s answer to Julia Child, organic cooking pioneer and design maven Madame Liane C. Kuony, died in April of 2005. But the contents of her Fond du Lac home, the base for her Postilion Restaurant, School of Culinary Arts and Studio of Interior Design, didn’t hit the market until this summer. |
“It was hard for the family to sell her things. They’d really hoped to find someone who’d continue to run the culinary school or use the home [an 1850s Federalist structure in Fond du Lac’s historic district] as a bed and breakfast,” says Barb Vitucci-Wade, owner of Fox Point’s Legacies Ltd., which conducted two July sales of Kuony’s earthly possessions.
With no taker found in four years, Kuony’s executor – her son, John – ordered the possessions sold. (Kuony’s son and daughter live in California.) Her home was scheduled for a Sept. 12 auction.
“With a property this unique, an auction is really the only way to find a fair market price. There are no comparables,” auctioneer Dan Mahaney says of the iron-gated, 2.4-acre parcel shaded by mature oaks and dotted by gardens. The parcel includes the high-ceilinged, four-bedroom, 2.5-bath historic main house where Madame – and she insisted everyone call her that – served dinners that drew rave reviews from The New Yorker, Gourmet and Bon Appetit. There is also her basement cooking school, a separate three-bedroom, 1.5-bath guesthouse, and a one-bedroom, one-bath “chalet.”
Described by one writer as having the “touch of the tyrant,” Kuony was known for her demanding attention to detail, insistence on quality, and campaign against additives, waste and impurity. Even from beyond the grave, the opinionated, no-nonsense Madame – who died in her early 90s – ruled the day. The disposition of her belongings began – following her wishes – with a private sale for a few hundred of her closest friends, former students and associates. There, on July 8, one former student purchased Kuony’s entire collection of French copper cookware, shipping it to her own home in California. Others snapped up Kuony’s fine linens and china – Wedgewood and Spode – and scores of her beloved china bird plates.
The invite list, which Vitucci-Wade says Kuony crafted herself, included her former driver, veterinarian, gardener and kitchen prep crew, as well as chefs from prominent eateries who’d trained at her table. Hundreds came.
Many protégés made the pilgrimage to peer inside the very private world of Madame Kuony one last time, with some bringing their daughters, Vitucci-Wade says. A large contingent came from River Hills and Milwaukee’s East Side.
In Milwaukee, Kuony operated the Postilion II School of Culinary Art and a supply shop, along with the Great House Restaurant. Her Postilion line of gourmet prepared foods offered condiments and compotes. In 1998, Kuony oversaw all the furnishings and fixtures in the $7 million renovation of the Hotel Metro, giving it an Art Deco ambiance. Decades ago, she also wrote a column for this magazine.
Born in Belgium, Kuony studied interior decorating and culinary arts in Switzerland before coming to the U.S. in 1937. Lured to Milwaukee by a merchandising job, she met and married John H. Kuony Jr., but she also fell in love with Fond du Lac because it reminded her of the French countryside of her youth. The couple opened an antique shop there in 1947. John eventually became curator of the Oshkosh Public Museum. In 1949, they purchased the 1850s home of Dr. Mason Darling, “the father of Fond du Lac,” where Madame Kuony opened a French tea room and interior design studio. She was on her way to becoming a cooking and design icon while Martha Stewart was still playing with dolls.
Kuony’s personal antiques, many of them European in origin, were part of the summer sale, including her museum-quality rolltop desk, which sold for $8,000. Kuony’s white kitchen workstation – which partly inspired the Milwaukee Public Market demonstration kitchen that bears her name – sold quickly. So did the flamboyant culinary diva’s trademark hats – brimless cloches and pillboxes – adds Vitucci-Wade. Kuony believed no one was properly dressed without a hat.
At the public sale that followed in late July, locals snapped up $3 cookbooks and $2 lemon zesters. But the home (with a $449,000 asking price) went unclaimed, despite a lengthy listing by Fond du Lac Realtor Vicki Steinhardt, a broker with Adashun Jones.
She describes dealing with Kuony’s son John as extremely frustrating and likened him to his mother. “Oh my God, he’s so high-maintenance,” Steinhardt says. “He can’t decide what to do next.”
But in the end, he did decide. With the auctioning of Madame Kuony’s beloved Postilion in September, an era ended in Wisconsin.
