Take a Tour of Redner’s Rescued Cat Figurine Mewseum

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A&E Feature

Redner’s Rescued Cat Figurine Mewseum is nestled in a Menomonee Falls neighborhood right off Highway 45 and Main Street. Here can be found a private home collection of about 3,500 cat figurines owned and operated by Shawn Redner and Hilary Siegel-Redner. Via appointment the couple take folks on personalized tours of their house in which each room (including their basement, front yard and backyard) is adorned with feline memorabilia as well as their nine live cats. On a donation basis, all proceeds from the Mewseum go towards cat rescues and shelters around Wisconsin.

Everything started in 2018 when Redner was ready for a new hobby. “I had stopped drinking and needed something to do to occupy my time,” he recalls. “Going to the secondhand shop looking for cat figurines was a good distraction. We never intended for the Mewseum to happen when we first bought them, but slowly the house started filling up.”

Interestingly enough, neither Redner or Seigel-Redner grew up with cats. “I never really had pets growing up, but I found that cats shockingly are full of personality and compassion,” Redner said. “They’re their own individuals (laughs). When I first got cats, it was a dark time in my life, and the cat was there no matter what, whether I was happy or sad. They showed love and didn’t want anything else from me.”

Siegel-Redner adds her own experience, “I came across my first cat when my daughter brought home a cat when she was a senior in high school and then she left for college, so I was left with the cat.”

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Thrift Store Treasures

Redner began browsing thrift stores, antique malls and rummage sales for anything cat-related he could find. The very first cat item he purchased was a photo from 1967 of a cat named Taffy. As time went on the Redners’ collection would grow to contain all kinds of cat-themed curios including plates, music boxes, cookie jars, framed art, furniture, bedding and more in addition to the figurines, which have ranged in size from being as tall as a person to being as tiny as a thumbtack.

Recognizing that he wanted to share what he and his wife were building, Redner eventually decided in early 2020 to open up their house one day a month to the public for folks to come see their cat figurine collection. “Around that time we had a little more than a thousand pieces,” he continued. “It was definitely becoming more than an average collection and that’s when the idea came to share. This became all we started to do with our free time, and it’s been a lot of fun; it’s taken us to a lot of interesting places and we never stopped collecting even through COVID.”

Fast forward to now, Redner’s Rescued Cat Figurine Mewseum offers tours every day of the week with 24-hour notice; the third Sunday of every month is an open house where no appointment is necessary. While around 3,500 figurines are on display, the Redners estimate that about another 3,500 are in storage.

As word got out about what they were doing, the Redners started receiving massive collections of cat figurines donated by folks all over the country including from California, Oregon, Texas, New York and South Carolina. “Our first donation came in late 2020 when we were contacted by a woman named Cheryl Peters from Lawai, Hawaii,” Redner explained. “She told us that she was old and that her kids didn’t want her stuff so she asked us if we would take care of it. We said yes, and then a whole bunch of Maneki-Neko cats showed up from Hawaii.”

“We’ve found that people who collect cat stuff are pretty evenly spread; it’s a lot of older people who don’t have anyone else to give their collections to, there’s families of people who have passed away that have reached out to us, and there’s younger people who have collections but don’t want their kids breaking things. At the end of the day, everyone just wants their cat figurines taken care of and they know we’ll do that.”

Feline Support Networks

Cat rescues supported by donations from the Mewseum are Urban Cat Coalition (Milwaukee), Second Hand Purrs (Milwaukee), Happy Endings No Kill Cat Shelter (Milwaukee), Almost Home Cat Rescue (Milwaukee), Safe Haven Pet Sanctuary (Green Bay) and Pawfee Shop Cat Cafe (Appleton); they have also worked with New York-based Doodle’s Ranch and Sanctuary. “We don’t like one better than the other; they’re all good in their own ways,” Redner said. “Last year we donated around $1,950.”

As mentioned, the Redners also have nine actual cats—Snookie, Squeaky, Blue, Birdie, Trapper, Batgirl, Blackjack, Space Panda and This One - ages ranging from 2 to 19. The cats have a fenced outdoor enclosure built by the couple that they are free to explore. “We want our cats to just be cats and run and jump and climb and eat bugs,” Redner explained. “It brings us a lot of joy getting to watch our cats play out there.”

Redner’s ultimate vision for the Mewseum is to move their collection into a larger space and turn it into a cat cafe. “I want every piece that we have out on display,” he elaborates. “We want to reach as broad of an audience that we can. The coffee shop idea is a way to generate revenue because we always want to be still able to give money to the cat rescues.” 

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“I want it to be a place where people come together and be a community, like an old-style coffee shop where we have poetry and meetings and events, but where people can also pet cats. The happiness that this place brings and the joy that I get from sharing it with people makes me want to eventually have the world’s greatest cat figurine (“mew”)seum.” 

The couple make occasional appearances at community events to promote the Mewseum as well; catch them next at the Bremen Cafe Block Party on July 22.

“People come here and their jaws just drop,” Siegel-Redner concludes. “They’re always appreciative of what we do and we’re appreciative that people care.”

Visit Redner’s Rescued Cat Figurine Mewseum at rrcfmewseum.com to schedule an appointment or get in touch.