Hotel Retlaw

Walter Schroeder was a Milwaukee hotelier who, in the early 1920s, set his sights on Fond du Lac. The hotel he built at One North Main Street opened in 1923, and he gave it his name in the most indirect way available — Retlaw is Walter spelled backwards.

The architectural firm Herbert W. Tullgren & Son of Milwaukee designed the structure: eight stories of red brick with neoclassical cornice and facade detailing, rising 265 guest rooms from the corner of a downtown city block. The exterior has remained substantially unchanged since opening. The interior, according to the hotel's own history, underwent several transformations over the following century.

Schroeder was not a one-hotel operator. He developed a chain of prominent Wisconsin properties — the Schroeder Hotel in Milwaukee (now the Hilton), Hotel Wisconsin in Milwaukee, Hotel Northland in Green Bay — as well as properties in Madison, Wausau, and Duluth, Minnesota. The Retlaw fit a clear pattern: neoclassical civic hotels anchoring mid-sized Wisconsin cities.

At some point in its history, the building was converted to use as a psychiatric facility and nursing home before returning to hotel use. The exact timing of these conversions is documented in local archives but not detailed on the hotel's current website. The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, recognizing it as one of the most historically significant hotels in the state.

The current configuration includes 121 guest rooms, suites, and residential suites — reduced from the original 265 through renovations that enlarged individual rooms and added modern amenities. The hotel operates as a boutique property under independent management, having shed the Ramada Plaza branding it carried during an earlier period.