05/28/2025
The History of the Neon Sign!
When we were doing research for redoing the Stamm House 12 years ago, the old pics with the neon sign intrigued us. How cool was that sign!
In the long history of the Stamm House, the neon sign was old but obviously not as old as the building. Our oldest pic of SH is 1925 and it isn’t there. But by 1947, it is. And by the 1970’s it disappears.
It actually may have been the original neon sign that proclaimed the building as the Stamm House, as SH has not always been called by this name. Heine and Marie Fuller probably were the first to put up the original neon sign and probably named the building Stamm House, after the German word “stammtisch”, which means “regular’s table”. Heine was a German WW I aircraft mechanic and immigrated here after the war. There was a large German immigrant community in Pheasant Branch at the time.
We petitioned the city to allow us to recreate it and they let us. We then had to find someone to do it for us. We found Neon Lab in Madison and they got a kick out of doing it. They made the whole metal cabinet by hand and hand-painted it . They also bent all the glass by hand. It was all made old-school.
Interestingly, Neon Lab could tell the actual colors of the neon from the black and white photos based on the date and what colors were available then. It was red and white.
Installation day was super fun and we were really excited to see how it looked at night. I remember Jim and I came out on the patio after turning it on for the first time as were really worrried. Had we recreated the “Kenny Roger’s Chicken” episode from Seinfeld?! (Check it out on YouTube if you haven’t seen it!) The sign sure seemed bright and it reflected off the new shiny patio and fresh spring snow. Were we in trouble?!
The light level ended up being fine and we now celebrate 10 years of the new neon sign. To me, the neon sign has been a wonderful memorial to the one of the distinct, different histories of the Stamm House. In a building like this, we are just caretakers for our time. I’m sure SH meant just as much to all the previous generations of owners and patrons as it does to all of us.
So next time you are here, maybe toast the sign and thank Heine and Marie. They helped preserve our history -