Jim Stingl

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

When our widowed mother finally sold the family house near Capitol Court, my siblings and I joined her for one final meal together there. We called it the last supper.

The O'Neill family had a wilder plan in mind for their grand old home in Milwaukee's Washington Heights neighborhood.

One last kegger. Saturday night.

It's a fittingly raucous goodbye for this red brick house on elegant Hi Mount Boulevard. It was the scene of dozens of barely legal blowout beer parties in the 1980s.

You know the stereotype of kids inviting all their friends over when dad and mom are away. Yeah, it was like that on Hi Mount. If that upsets you, remember that I'm just the storyteller. Plus the times were different.

"Let's just say that for many weekends my junior and senior years of high school, the kids were left in charge," Matt O'Neill, now 52 and a lawyer, recalls.

"There was a family that moved in across the street around that time, and they literally for six months thought it was a frat house, that it was owned by a bunch of college students."

The owner actually was Bruce O'Neill, also a lawyer, who divorced and started dating a woman named Peppy O'Neil, but with one L. They got engaged and Bruce spent a lot of time at her place, which left Hi Mount unguarded.

Matt's older brother, Mike, also a lawyer, takes credit for the largest party ever at the house, somewhere north of 300 high school kids. Wisconsin's legal drinking age then was 18.

"At least twice during college, I was introduced to people I did not know who said they went to a great party at my house," Mike said.

The trick was to clean up after each bash so dad wouldn't get suspicious, but you know a hundred or more kids drinking beer and smoking cigarettes and who knows what else are going to leave clues. Dad may have known more than he seemed to know.

A stairway carpet runner was torn in half and fixed hastily with safety pins, a bookcase was broken, and, OK, there was that time when a chair may have started on fire in the third-floor pool room. "But nobody got injured, nobody got arrested, nobody called the police and everybody had a good time," Mike said.

After Bruce married Peppy in 1984 and moved her and her three children into the house, the parties stopped. Except for one final rager on New Year's Eve that year, put on by Matt and his sister, Jen, with permission from their parents for a change.

The house, as always, filled up with kids mostly from Marquette, Pius and Divine Savior Holy Angels high schools, or those who had recently graduated from those schools. As the party began, 100 bottles of champagne stood ready for popping. It snowed quite a bit that night, assuring that it would become even more memorable.

"It was known as the place to be," said Tom Werner, who attended many parties, dinners and Sheepshead sleepovers on Hi Mount.

"If you were lucky enough to be in our group or on the fringes and be invited to one of these parties, then you were pretty cool," he laughed.

"It's going to be sad to see the place go."

Bruce died of ALS in 2016. Peppy, who remained in the home, died of cancer this past November.

So after 48 years in the O'Neill family, the house will be sold. It's mostly empty now after friends, family and neighbors were invited to take what they wanted.

"I said we gotta have one last party, and everyone agreed," Matt said.

But not a stodgy gathering. More of a reunion, a way to turn back the clock to the last time the house truly rocked in 1984. A half-barrel of beer on each floor. A smoker's lounge in the garage. The return of the pinball machine that beeped and dinged at all the parties. And live music from guitar wizard Greg Koch and his band. He knew the O'Neills and used to play at the house back in the day.

"The O'Neill home," Greg recalls, "was an epic domicile that was conducive to convivial high school soirees."

Invited guests will be handed a cup at the door and asked to make a donation to the ALS Association of Wisconsin.

Of course, the party hosts will be older and let's say more sensible now. "We're actually thinking of coning off a space in front of the house for an Uber drop off zone," Matt said.

The grown-up O'Neill kids wondered aloud what their father would think of this final bash at the house. Mike came up with the answer that sounded right.

"Dad wouldn't know about it."

Contact Jim Stingl at (414) 224-2017 or jstingl@jrn.com. Connect with my public page at Facebook.com/Journalist.Jim.Stingl