For experienced business owners Deanna Singh and Justin Ponder, establishing a hub for entrepreneurs in the city they love was inevitable.
That’s why the husband-and-wife duo opened Uplifting Mansion in the near West Side – to break down cultural barriers and leverage opportunities for the community’s future leaders.
“We like to create a spirit of comfort with a slight orchestration to help people connect in ways that everybody wants to, but maybe doesn’t know how to,” Ponder says.
It’s time to pick your Milwaukee favorites for the year!
Each floor has its own function: a 2,000-square-foot short-term rental that sleeps up to six people; an event space with a ballroom, library and study; a coworking floor of dedicated workstations; and a floor for professionals of color, like lawyers and marketing specialists, to grow their businesses and share their resources with the mansion’s other entrepreneurs.
“I just met so many people who were very smart, very ambitious,” says Ponder. “The things that helped them maximize their potential was having the network, having the space, having the information, so we wanted to think about ways in which the building could provide all those things.”
Singh and Ponder are used to spending time training, building and connecting with other entrepreneurs and businesses, locally and worldwide. They manage multiple businesses under their umbrella company, Flying Elephant.
The couple purchased the property at 3121 W. Wisconsin Ave. for $364,000 last April. Prior to this, the property itself was part of a heated City Hall debate over historic designation that involved the F-bomb being dropped in a March meeting, a death wish to Ald. Robert Bauman – who was in favor of the designation – and the abrupt sale by then owners Eric Sobush and Mark Roeker, who used the building as an office for their real estate investment business.
By the time Ponder and Singh bought the property, it had switched districts, meaning it was no longer under the historic designation. Uplifting Mansion opened for business in August with a grand opening in November.
The event space already hosts a steady flow of celebrations, memorials, forums and more, and the coworking space and rental floor are filling up. Singh credits the success to their network. “There is this sense that this is way bigger than us,” she says.
The couple’s goal is for people using the space to feel uplifted and, Ponder says, “feel inspired to uplift others.”
