The Carrie Pierce House is an elegant house built about 1857 in

Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the county seat of Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin by population, after Milwaukee, and the 80th-lar ...

for Alexander McDonnell, one of the builders of the third Wisconsin state capitol. In 1972 the house was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

History

Alexander McDonnell was a building contractor in early Madison. In 1857, less than ten years after Wisconsin became a state, McDonnell's firm began work building the east wing of the third state capitol. That same year McDonnell bought a wooded lot on a hill a quarter mile northwest of the capitol and hired the firm of August Kutzboch and Samuel Donnell (who had also designed the capitol) to design for him, "the best house money could buy." Donnell designed the house with the exterior much as it looks today. It stands two stories, clad in

Prairie du Chien Prairie du Chien () is a city in and the county seat of Crawford County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 5,506 at the 2020 census. Its ZIP Code is 53821. Often referred to as Wisconsin's second oldest city, Prairie du Chien was esta ...

sandstone. The east-facing façade has an unusual profile for a residence - symmetric around the front door, with a bay on each side rising to a low-pitched gable taller than the center section. Each outer bay has a stone

bay window A bay window is a window space projecting outward from the main walls of a building and forming a bay in a room. Types Bay window is a generic term for all protruding window constructions, regardless of whether they are curved or angular, or ...

on the first floor with a balcony above in front of large windows. Many of the windows have round-arched frames within larger arches. At the top of the second story are ranks of fine

dentils A dentil (from Lat. ''dens'', a tooth) is a small block used as a repeating ornament in the bedmould of a cornice. Dentils are found in ancient Greek and Roman architecture, and also in later styles such as Neoclassical, Federal, Georgian Rev ...

. Above the center flat bay is a

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, fro ...

. With . The whole composition suggests some kind of Christian institution more than a residence. The third capitol building, built at the same time, was clad in the same Prairie du Chien sandstone, and the exterior stonework on this house resembles that of the third capitol. Some of the decoration inside the house is said to resemble Donnell and Kutzboch's designs from that capitol, so perhaps this house preserves some glimpses of the capitol that was destroyed in the fire of 1904. Some architecture analysts have classified the house's style as Romanesque Revival. Others have judged it

Rundbogenstil (round-arch style) is a nineteenth-century historic revival style of architecture popular in the German-speaking lands and the German diaspora. It combines elements of Byzantine, Romanesque, and Renaissance architecture with particula ...

, which means "round arch-style" and is a German variation of Romanesque Revival. Some elements are Gothic Revival style, like the pointed arches in some window panes and the quatrefoil windows high in the side gables. The cupola is

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian ...

. The house was completed in 1858. After Alexander and Francie McDonnell, the house was occupied by J.H. and Rebecca Garnhart, who owned the Garnhart Reaper Works. After J.H. died, Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice

Orsamus Cole Orsamus R. Cole (August 23, 1819May 5, 1903) was an American lawyer and judge. He served as the 6th Chief Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and, until 2013, was the longest-serving justice in the Court's history, with nearly 37 years on th ...

married his widow and lived in the house. Sarah Fairchild Dean Conover also lived there. From 1906 to 1938, George (a power company executive) and Carrie Pierce lived there and ran a high-class boarding house in the mansion. In 1985 the Alexander Company remodeled the house into a luxury hotel, and in 2008 Trek Bicycle and Hospitality bought the hotel and further renovated the inside. In 1971, the house was designated a landmark by the Madison Landmarks Commission. In 1972 it was added to the

, because it is "one of the very best" and the most unique architecturally of the remaining historic houses built in Madison in the decade after statehood. It is also associated with the designers and builder of the third state capitol. One reviewer suggests that the house "may well be the finest domestic example of the German Romanesque revival remaining in the United States."

References

External links

* * The Wisconsin Historical Society ha
more photos of the Pierce house
including an interior view from 1888, the spiral staircase, and various fireplaces. {{DEFAULTSORT:Pierce, Carrie, House Houses in Madison, Wisconsin Houses completed in 1857 Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Wisconsin National Register of Historic Places in Madison, Wisconsin 1857 establishments in Wisconsin

History

See also

References

External links