Works on the tour by architect Frank Riley include 69 Cambridge Road.
Lifestyles of the area rich and famous will be on display during guided tours of Maple Bluff, the first-ever of the village offered by the Madison Trust for Historic Preservation.
The July 16 docent-led walking tours will focus on 10 homes on Cambridge Road, and shed light on the lives of prominent civic and business leaders.
Some of the first year-round homes in Maple Bluff were built on Cambridge Road. Because wealthy landowners hired Madison’s best architects, the street reflects a variety of architectural styles, according to Teri Venker, who researched and developed the special fundraising tour for the Madison Trust.
Development came relatively late to the area. “People in the latter part of the 19th century bought land there and put in little cottages,” says Venker. “Some of the big names in Madison owned large pieces of land along Lake Mendota.” But back then, it was considered rural and isolated from Madison, notes Venker: “Before the turn of the 20th century, when there weren’t bridges over the Yahara River, it was hard to get to.”
The current home at 57 Cambridge Road.
It wasn’t until the early part of the 20th century that the Lakewood Land Company assembled 123 acres and created lots from the Maple Bluff Country Club to Burrows Park.
The Johnson family, of Fuller and Johnson Manufacturing (builders of agricultural equipment and gasoline engines and employers to much of the east side starting in the late 19th century) also speculated in development. Their Lakewood Land Company hired noted visionary landscape architect John Nolen (1869-1937) to lay out the community that became Maple Bluff. The village incorporated in 1931.
Throughout, the tour, emphasis will be placed on the dramatic lives of the homes’ original owners. It will include the official home of governors, the Wisconsin Executive Residence. Originally it was the mansion of the Johnson family, which eventually offered it to the state, deeply discounted.
The governor's mansion.
“However — and this is a story that I love — some of the state legislators were opposed,” says Venker. “One was Rep. Ruth Doyle. Her son James later became governor and lived in that house for eight years. And another state representative opposed to it was Pat Lucey, who went on to live there too, as the governor,” from 1971 to 1977. Ruth Doyle was concerned about what would happen to the then current executive mansion and others worried about the cost, according to the Wisconsin Historical Society.
The governor’s mansion was designed by noted Madison architect Frank Riley (who also designed the Madison Club, East High School and the former Yost’s Department Store, whose façade now serves as entrance to the Overture Center for the Arts). More Riley works on the tour are a Mediterranean style home at 69 Cambridge Road and a Tudor Revival at 50 Cambridge Road. A photo of another RIley work, the home of paint magnate Bernard Mautz at 57 Cambridge Road, will be all that our participants can see, as the original was torn down several years ago.
The tour will also highlight the work of architect Alvan Small, a native of Sun Prairie. He built the Prairie style home at 82 Cambridge Road for Winifred and William Curtis, the son of a Michigan lumber baron. (Small designed many homes on Madison’s near west side, as well as Randall Elementary School, Lowell Elementary School and the Grimm Book Bindery building, 454 W. Gilman St., a city historic landmark.) Small and Frank Lloyd Wright both apprenticed with Madison architectural firm Conover & Porter, and in Chicago with Louis Sullivan.
Tour times and details
The 75-minute tours are offered July 16, departing every half hour from the intersection of Lakewood Boulevard and Cambridge Road, from 10 a.m.to 2 p.m. Reserved tickets are available at madisonpreservation.org or 608-441-8864; $30/$20 for students with ID/$25 for Trust members. A limited number of tickets may be available on-site. Parking is free. The non-profit Madison Trust for Historic Preservation worked with the city of Madison Landmarks Commission, Historic Madison Inc., the Wisconsin Historical Society and the National Trust for Historic Preservation to put on the tours. Isthmus is an in-kind sponsor of the event.
Editor's note: The text has been edited to reflect the fact that the Mautz home at 57 Cambridge Road is no longer the original.