A House with a Garden
This first-person account first appeared in the February 2026 issue of the Regent Neighborhood Association newsletter.
The Bunting House in 1928 [1]
When we moved back to Madison (having graduated from UW many years ago), we knew we wanted to live near campus and downtown attractions. We initially moved to a downtown condo but, realizing we missed having a yard and garden, decided to look for a house. We focused on the Near West Side. When we noticed an Arts and Crafts house on Chadbourne Avenue had an available adjoining lot, we knew we had to check it out. The stucco house had the general layout we were looking for and the additional lot sealed the deal. While we have remodeled some part of all our previous homes—such as adding a sunroom or updating bathrooms—we had never undertaken a full-house remodel. Now, after over two years of design and construction (and re-design and re-construction!) we are thrilled with our “new old” home.
As we were developing our remodeling plans, we looked into the history of the house. It was built in 1914 by Dr. Charles H. and Carlotta M. Bunting. He was head of the pathology department at the University of Wisconsin from 1908 to 1945. [a] We are just the fourth owners of the house over its 111-year history. We found a picture from the Wisconsin Historical Society that showed the house originally did not have shutters, so we removed them in a nod to the past.
The street façade is the south side of house and the main entry faces west.
Going into the remodel, we had two main goals—we wanted to bring in features we enjoyed in our former homes while also re-creating the relative ease of living in a condo. This led us to adding an elevator for easy access to all floors, a driveway snowmelt system to reduce winter shoveling and the use of salt, and raised beds for our vegetable garden. We also created separate spaces for an office and a library, and added a craft room and an exercise space in the basement.
We had done a bit of remodeling in an old house we previously owned and learned then that you can find unexpected surprises when you open the walls. In our previous house, we found horsehair insulation (which wasn’t all that effective an insulator) while here we found vermiculite (ditto). There we found floor studs that had been cut to run new wiring; here we found roof joists that were laid the wrong way and a porch without a foundation under an exterior door. Throughout the process, we found that being flexible and working with a remodeling firm with creative ideas and broad experience makes all the difference.
The main entry’s round arch is an American Arts & Crafts touch.
Given we are in a historic district, [b] we also needed to find the sweet spot that complies with Landmarks Commission requirements and Madison building codes while realizing the design we had for the house. The good news is we were able to do this with some modifications. For example, we wanted to replace the slate roof tiles with a composite tile to lighten the load. While we already planned to reinforce the roof joists, we felt a lighter roofing material would also help prevent sagging. We provided a sample of the composite tile and the Landmarks Commission approved the change. And we had originally designed an interior library without windows, only to learn the building code requires natural light for all interior rooms. Our solution was to replace a section of bookshelves with a floor-to-ceiling window, resulting in a little less room for books but also an approved design.
We were able to move into the house in late spring, 2025, in time to plant our vegetable garden. Since moving in, we’ve loved getting to know our neighbors and the neighborhood while also enjoying our new house and the bounty of our garden!
Notes
[a] The Buntings lived at 2020 Chadbourne until his retirement in 1945, when he became a lecturer in pathology at the Yale Medical School until 1955. Carlotta died in 1949 and Charles died in 1961.
[b] The Bunting House is within the City of Madison’s University Heights Historic District, which makes the house subject to the city’s Historic Preservation Ordinance.
Image Credits
[1] Bunting House, 2020 Chadbourne Ave., in 1928. Wisconsin Historical Society. Image ID 21842. Used with permission.
All other photographs by Michael Bridgeman.