New to the National and State Registers

By Michael Bridgeman

I have written regularly about new listings to the National Register of Historic Places since 2022. [a] According to the National Park Service, which oversees the National Register (NR), it is “the official list of the Nation's historic places worthy of preservation” because they are historically significant. “Historic significance is the importance of a property to the history, architecture, archeology, engineering, or culture of a community, State, or the nation.” [b]

This update describes NR entries in Madison from 2024 and 2025. The new listings that follow — three buildings and one site — are significant in a variety of ways.

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Mackenzie House

The Alan and Janet Mackenzie House at 2525 Marshall Parkway is significant for its architecture: “a fine example of a single-family residence of the Modern Movement of the mid-twentieth century.” The youngest of the four new Madison listings, the house was completed in 1966, which is also its period of significance, a date that establishes the historic context for understanding a property as a product of its time and place. Place is another important context, and the Mackenzie house is significant at the local level. Other NR properties may be listed at the state level (e.g. Camp Randall, Robert Lamp House) or the national level (e.g. Joseph J. Stoner House, Forest Hill Cemetery Mound Group).

The one-story Mackenzie house is in the Forest Park subdivision within the University of Wisconsin Arboretum, an area sometimes dubbed the “Lost City.” The house was designed by Bowen & Kanazawa, a Madison partnership of Ronald Bowen and Henry Kanazawa. In this instance, their colleague Rolland Williamson may have been the principal designer, since the original 1966 house is similar to one Williamson designed for himself in 1961.

From the street, the Mackenzie House present three rectilinear volumes, with each section (from left to right) stepping back from the adjacent block. The middle section contains large panes of fixed glass plus the main entrance, which has louvered vents on each side. The section to the left, over a two-car garage, has narrow bedroom windows paired with louvered vents. The section to the right, which was added in 1985, has one small window and two louvered vents on the street façade. Here the primary bedroom overlooks the wooded rear yard through floor-to-ceiling windows flanked by louvered vents, an arrangement extended across rear of the living room, kitchen, and dining room in the middle section.

Italian Workmen’s Club

The Italian Workmen’s Club at 914 Regent Street is significant “for its rich association with the social history and ethnic heritage of the Italian American community in Madison.” The period of significance spans from 1922, the date the original building was erected, to 1974, which falls within the guideline that NR properties be at least 50 years old. It is listed at the local level of significance.

In 1912, a group of Italian immigrants, many from Sicily, established the Club Lavoratori Italiani Sicilia di Mutuo Sucorso e Beneficenza, a mutual benefit society known as the Italian Workmen’s Club. By 1922, club membership had grown and the members themselves built a one-story brick building in the Greenbush neighborhood. In 1936, the clubhouse was expanded to the front and rear with a new façade designed Law, Law & Potter, then the city’s most prominent architectural firm. Once again, the builders were members of the club. The building still serves as a social hub for the Italian-American community, now dispersed across the city and beyond.

Nominations to the NR devote considerable attention to describing the eligible property. This is the case even when a building, such as this, is not nominated for architectural significance. A detailed description confirms that the Italian Workmen’s Club retains historic integrity, which “enables a property to illustrate significant aspects of its past [and is] a further qualification for NR listing.” [c] Over time, the Regent Street clubhouse has been modified inside and out. “These changes notwithstanding,” the nomination asserts, “the clubhouse today would be immediately recognizable to anyone who was a member in 1936.”

Gay Building

Gay Building [3]

The Gay Building is significant at the local level in the area of Community Planning and Development for its “design influence with the development of downtown Madison in the early twentieth century.” The building was completed in 1915 by Leonard W. Gay, a prominent Madison real estate developer. [d] Located at 14-16 North Carroll Street on the Capitol Square, the Gay Building is the city’s earliest “skyscraper” at nine stories tall. It was designed by architects James R. Law and Edward J. Law and was their first important commission. Though Edward did not formally join his brother’s practice until 1917, he was responsible for the design of the Gay Building.

The building’s period of significance extends from 1915, when the building was completed, through 1924, when public debate about tall buildings in central Madison essentially came to a close. On one side were proponents of the City Beautiful Movement who believed tall buildings detracted from beautiful public spaces and the civic virtues they stimulated. On another side were businessmen and civic boosters who wanted Madison to become a modern metropolis. The state legislature passed a law in 1921 that limited building heights to 90 feet in the vicinity of the new capitol. That law and a similar city ordinance were struck down by the Wisconsin Supreme Court two years later which gave an opening for construction of the 12-story Belmont Hotel at 101 East Mifflin Street. The Belmont spurred a second state law in 1923 limiting buildings to 100 feet that was upheld by the court.

 

Capitol Square circa 1943 [4]

 

An aerial view from around 1943 shows five “tall buildings” that rose on the Capitol Square between 1915 and 1930: (A) The Gay Building, now Churchill (1915), nine stories; (B) Belmont Hotel, now YWCA (1924), twelve stories; (C) First National Bank, demolished (1922), eight stories; (D) Tenney Building (1930), ten stories; and (E) Bank of Wisconsin, now BMO Bank (1917), seven stories. In 1966 the city passed a Capitol View Preservation Ordinance that limits buildings within a mile of the capitol to the base of the columns beneath the dome or about 180 feet. Building heights are further restricted east of the square by Federal Aviation Administration rules that limit structures to roughly 160 feet within three miles of the boundaries of the Dane County Regional Airport.

 

Willow Drive site [5]

 

Willow Drive Mounds and Habitation Site

The Willow Drive Mounds and Habitation site is located on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus along the southern shore of Lake Mendota. The complex, which consists of four burial mounds within a habitation area, is significant for “archaeological components that reveal important facets of the evolving lifeways of people in the Four Lakes Area for the period 5000 BC to AD 1200.”

The site was occupied for thousands of years before the arrival of Euro-Americans. Today, the most obvious features are the mounds, three of which have been restored to the condition recorded in 1909 by archaeologist Charles E. Brown. While this site was previously listed on the State Register of Historic Places, it was added to the NR in 2025.

An Important Note

The Wisconsin Historical Society reminds us that most National and State Register properties are private and not open to the public. While there’s nothing better than seeing significant places in person, it is important to respect the owners' privacy and not trespass on private property.

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Notes

Principal sources for the three buildings are the National Register of Historic Places Registration Forms for each property. Uncited quotations are from these documents. The primary source for the Willow Drive site is the web link in the text above.

[a] See earlier posts from 2024, 2022, and 2020.

[b] National Register Bulletin, “How to Complete the National Register Registration Form.” U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Cultural Resources, Washington, D.C. 1997. p.3.

[c] National Register Bulletin, “How to Complete ...” p.4. The Bulletin further states: “Not only must a property resemble its historic appearance, but it must also retain physical materials, design features, and aspects of construction dating from the period when it attained significance.”

[d] The Matthew Gay Building at 302 State St. (1899), which is part of the Madison Trust’s State Street tour, was the tailor shop of Leonard’s father. See wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Property/HI88377

Image Credits

[1] Wisconsin Historical Society Architecture & History Index. AHI #247350.

[2] Wisconsin Historical Society Architecture & History Index. AHI #111710.

[3] Wisconsin Historical Society Architecture & History Index. AHI #95294.

[4] Airview, Madison, Wis. Postcard by Kropp, Milwaukee; published by A. Fagan Co., Madison. Postmarked 1943.

[5] Wisconsin Historical Society Architecture & History Index.

Madison Trust