Locksmith in Pewaukee, WI

Locksmith in Pewaukee, in the city or the village

A locksmith in Pewaukee first has to ask a local question: the city or the village? There are two Pewaukees, side by side, and we cover both. The village sits at the east end of Pewaukee Lake, and the city surrounds it almost completely. We come to the house, the beach lot, or the apartment as a mobile locksmith. Opening a car or a door usually takes a few minutes once we arrive, and a rekey, a keypad lock, or a new car key takes 15 to 60 minutes. Pewaukee is about 18 miles west of downtown Milwaukee, in Waukesha County.

Why there are two Pewaukees

The Town of Pewaukee was organized in 1840. In 1876, the settlement on the lake split off and incorporated as the Village of Pewaukee. The rest stayed a town for more than a century. When neighbors began annexing its land, town residents tried to incorporate again and again, and on the eleventh try, in 1999, they voted 1,963 to 143 to become the City of Pewaukee. The village and the city still share some services, including fire and emergency medical service and a school district. In 2020 the city had 15,914 residents and the village had 8,238. The city calls itself the City in the Country, and much of it still fits that name.

Pewaukee Lake, the beach, and summer lockouts

Pewaukee Lake is the largest lake in Lake Country, about 5 miles long and about a mile wide at its widest. The public beach sits in the village on Wisconsin Avenue, across from the Old Main Street building, which opened in 2002 and was built to look like a storefront block from the late 1800s. On a summer weekend, the beach, the boat launches, and the lakeside restaurants fill every parking space nearby.

Busy lake days in Pewaukee bring familiar problems: keys locked in the car with the towels, a fob forgotten in a beach bag, or a key ring lost in the sand. Tell us where you parked, and we open the car; a car lockout starts at $69 (car lockout). When the key is gone, we cut and program a new one at the car, from $119 when no key is left and from $159 for a push-to-start smart key (smart keys).

Ice, springs, and lake houses

The village started with a hotel, a sawmill, and a church built around 1837 by Asa Clark, a settler from Vermont. In the 1800s and early 1900s, Pewaukee Lake was a resort, and visitors stayed at hotels such as Oakton Springs. In winter the lake had a second life: ice was cut from it and shipped out to keep food cold, and ice harvesting was the main winter industry.

Today the shore is lined with houses, many of them used by extended families and friends through the year. For a lake house with a lot of visitors, a keypad lock lets each person have a code that can be deleted later, and nobody has to hide a key outside. Installation starts at $99 (smart locks), with a key backup in case the batteries run down.

Apartments in the village, houses in the city

The two Pewaukees house people differently. In the village, about 42 percent of occupied homes are rented, according to the 2020 census. In the city, about 82 percent are owner-occupied. Landlords in the village rekey between tenants, and new owners in the city rekey after closing. In both cases, a rekey changes the inside of the lock so the old keys stop working, from $59 for the first lock and $20 for each additional lock (rekeying). A house lockout starts at $69.

Waukesha County Technical College has its main campus in Pewaukee, and its students and staff park in large lots every day. A car locked with the keys inside in a campus lot is handled like any other lockout: tell us the lot and the row, and we come to the car. A key that broke off in a car door lock is removed from $99.

Driving to Pewaukee

Pewaukee borders Waukesha on the south and Brookfield on the east. Menomonee Falls is to the northeast, and New Berlin is to the southeast. We also cover Hartland, Sussex, and the rest of Lake Country, at the same prices.