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Lizz Wasserman wants you to get to know Milwaukee. As a creative executive who grew up in the Wisconsin hub, she doesn’t mind being its unofficial ambassador. “Milwaukee is wonderfully weird in a way that big cities just aren’t,” she says.
Wasserman met Adam Loeb, the in-house director for the New York Times T Brand, when they were college students in Madison. And she jokes that her husband Isaac Resnikoff, who runs an architectural firm in L.A. called Project Room, “married in” to this city’s love of festivals, community, and a fun bar scene that won’t blow your budget. “The three of us have been close for a long time, and during the pandemic, we fantasized about travel,” she remembers. They lamented the ways in which short-term rentals didn’t capture the spirit of their beloved Milwaukee, and so they set about creating a place that did. Enter: The Lake Effect Club.
Over the course of 10 months, the trio transformed a dilapidated 150-year-old property on Brady Street into a destination with three distinct apartments: The Hoan, The Nohl, and The Sidney. The Lake Effect Club opened last fall as a love letter to Milwaukee—a way for Wasserman to showcase the bold perspective a place can have when it’s off the beaten path. Here’s an inside look behind the scenes of the reno.
Paint for Instant Personality
As is the case with countless longstanding Midwestern buildings, this one had wood paneling in the largest unit (the Sidney). Wasserman knew that the easiest and perhaps most commonplace solution would be to revert the walls back to a blank canvas, but she didn’t want to go that route. Instead, she drenched every room from the floor to the ceiling in a bold paint color.
“It kills me when I see a charming wood detail that’s painted white,” she says. “It seems like a fix, but it doesn’t feel special.” Bonus: they got their paints on sale, thanks to a hot-tip from the neighborhood Sherwin-Williams down the street.
Each suite and their respective enclaves creates a kaleidoscope of personality, from the Hoan’s yellow living room with a green sofa (“a slight nod to the Green Bay Packers,” Wasserman says), to the Nohl’s vibrantly blue bathroom. The colors are daring yet playful, enveloping yet approachable—and totally in tune with Milwaukee’s cool Midwestern light.
“We thought that the best way to have an impact would be to make the rooms tell a story,” Wasserman says. “Color-drenching does that without breaking the bank.”
Source from the Past and Present
Short-term rentals often have a reputation of being devoid of character. Wasserman aimed to avoid this trap through their furniture choices. While they did source items from big-box stores, including a sofa from Anthropologie and new mattresses from Wayfair, Resnikoff mixed in vintage pieces that he meticulously sourced around Milwaukee, Chicago, and sites like Craigslist.
“Isaac has an incredible eye and understanding of important designer vintage pieces,” Wasserman says. “We did this all on nights, weekends, vacations, and school breaks.”
When it was time to add flourishes to the walls, they kept their hunt local, too. “We have a lot of beautiful vintage posters and prints from around Milwaukee, like ’70s Summerfest posters and a cover of the Bugle American, an alternative newspaper,” Wasserman says. She also included personal artwork, including a painting she completed of a beloved building that no longer stands.
Make the Details Matter
As part of their goal to make the stays feel elevated, they focused on quality details. All of the countertops were made from custom-cut granite salvaged from remnants, and they hung the curtains (which cleverly match the wall paint) from the ceiling to provide height and drama. “Doing that always seemed more romantic to me,” Wasserman notes.
While they planned on keeping the existing checkerboard floor in the Sidney’s kitchen, spilled paint put a damper on that plan. “The original black-and-white floor was a big reason why we fell in love with the building,” Wasserman says. “But the new terracotta color coordinates so well.”
They splurged on induction cooktops in two of the units to get rid of the dated alternatives, and went for the colorful refrigerators because “it was a fun thing to do,” she says. “We wanted to bring some of the eclectic joy we see in the city into the spaces.” Milwaukee just made it on everyone’s 2026 travel bucket list.
Shop The Lake Effect Club’s Paint Palette
Eight dynamic Sherwin-Williams paint colors are behind the three rental units, including two hues not pictured above: Mauve Finery and a dreamy blue called Cosmos.
