Sunset Hills Historic District | |
House at 3901 Plymouth Circle | |
Location | Bounded by Owen Pkwy., Regent & Larkin Sts., Hillcrest Dr., Madison, Wisconsin |
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Coordinates | 43°03′54″N89°26′41″W / 43.06500°N 89.44472°W |
NRHP reference No. | 15000356 [1] |
Added to NRHP | June 15, 2015 |
The Sunset Hills Historic District is a residential historic district encompassing the Sunset Hills subdivision on the near west side of Madison, Wisconsin. The district includes 93 houses developed between 1955 and 1978, all designed by professional architects in the Modern style. Developer Willis E. Gifford, who also developed the Pilgrim Village subdivision in 1939, planned Sunset Hills; the idea for a single-family neighborhood of professionally designed houses came after Pilgrim Village residents rejected his original plan for apartments. Madison was growing rapidly at the time, and the new subdivision catered to affluent professionals who came to the city for work, including many professors and administrators at the University of Wisconsin. The district includes several designs by Herb Fritz Jr., a Madison architect who worked under Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin, and William V. Kaeser, who worked for Frank M. Riley and was heavily influenced by Wright. It also has three houses designed by Elizabeth Mackay Ranney, the only practicing female architect in Madison in the 1960s. [2]
The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 15, 2015. [1]
James Doty's original plat of Madison in 1836 focused on the area around the capitol, and that is where most of the city's early construction occurred. [3] The west side remained mostly farmland for some years, traversed by Sauk Road and Mineral Point Road. But in 1857 Forest Hills Cemetery was started and in 1863 Calvary Cemetery. These cemeteries lie a bit east of the future Sunset Hills district. In 1892 Professor Edward Owen began privately developing the scenic prominence that would become Hoyt Park, just north and west of the district. [2]
Meanwhile, the city's population was growing to the west, adding the Wingra Park plat in 1889 and University Heights in 1893. The city's streetcar reached the cemeteries in 1897, stimulating growth of the subdivisions already mentioned. That growth was further spurred in 1903 when the city annexed those subdivisions, guaranteeing city sewers, schools, and other services. These were followed by more subdivisions before WWI: Mercer's Park, Highland Park, College Park, College Hills, Nakoma, University Park, and West Wingra in 1916. Then not much happened until 1925 when Findlay Park was platted; Westmorland Subdivision followed in 1926. The Great Depression slowed development for years. Then Pilgrim Village was platted in 1939, just south of the future Sunset Hills. [2]
Pilgrim Village was developed by Willis E. Gifford Jr. In that subdivision, he and his design review committee mandated that all houses be designed in Colonial Revival style, which was popular at the time and approved by the Federal Housing Administration. In 1941 Gifford, backed by the First Wisconsin Trust Company, went ahead with developing Sunset Hills subdivision, just to the north. [2]
Sunset Hills was platted by A.E. Ziegenhagen of Milwaukee - laid out with curvilinear streets and a cul-de-sac like Pilgrim Village - features favored by the FHA at that time. Development paused during WWII, but resumed in 1946. In constrast to the Colonial Revival requirement of Pilgrim Village, by 1953 Sunset Hills was being promoted as "Highly restricted for Residences of Contemporary and Modern Architecture," and John Randal McDonald was listed as design supervisor. Construction of the first houses began in 1954 and by 1958 twenty-six were complete. The 1950s were a boom time for Madison, with expansion of the UW, addition of the new VA hospital, the relocation of Credit Union National Association, and the office buildings near Hilldale Shopping Center. The requirement that homes in Sunset Hills be architect-designed meant that many of the owners were UW professors and administrators, doctors, dentists, and other professionals and executives. By 1978 the subdivision was nearly full, with only three houses unoccupied. [2]
All houses in the district were required to be modern styles. Here are some good examples of different types.
All houses in the subdivision were required to be designed by architects. The NRHP nomination describes them as "the finest collection of Modern Movement single family residences dating from this period to be found in the city of Madison." [2]