The George A. Lougee House is a historic house located at 620 South Ingersoll Street in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. The house was built in 1907 for hotel proprietor George A. Lougee. Architects

Claude and Starck Claude and Starck was an architectural firm in Madison, Wisconsin, at the turn of the twentieth century. The firm was a partnership of Louis W. Claude (1868-1951) and Edward F. Starck (1868-1947). Established in 1896, the firm dissolved in 1928. The ...

, a prominent local firm with ties to Frank Lloyd Wright, designed the

Prairie School Prairie School is a late 19th- and early 20th-century architectural style, most common in the Midwestern United States. The style is usually marked by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad overhanging eaves, windows grouped in ...

home. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

History and architecture

George A. Lougee was born in New Hampshire in 1850. By 1875, he had entered the hospitality business, operating the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...

's first dining car. Lougee ran Madison's Park Hotel from 1891 until 1911; while his house was built in 1907, relatively late in his tenure at the hotel, he lived in Madison until his death in 1932. Lougee also managed the Palmer House in Chicago, the New Kimball Hotel in Atlanta, and the University Club in Madison. . Lougee hired the prominent Madison architectural firm of Louis W. Claude and Edward F. Starck to design his home. The two architects were partners from 1896 until 1929 and designed both residences and public buildings across Wisconsin and its neighboring states. Claude was a friend of Frank Lloyd Wright, and Wright's Prairie School designs influenced the firm's residential work. The Lougee House, which is similar to Wright's B. Harley Bradley House in

Kankakee, Illinois Kankakee is a city in and the county seat of Kankakee County, Illinois, United States. As of 2020, the city's population was 24,052. Kankakee is a principal city of the Kankakee-Bourbonnais-Bradley Metropolitan Statistical Area. It serves as an ...

, is one of the firm's most highly regarded home designs. The two-story house has a

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...

exterior, as was common for Prairie School homes, and a

gable roof A gable roof is a roof consisting of two sections whose upper horizontal edges meet to form its ridge. The most common roof shape in cold or temperate climates, it is constructed of rafters, roof trusses or purlins. The pitch of a gable roof ca ...

. A cross gable extends forward from the east side of the house, and an attached porch extends along the home's south side. The entrance, located next to the cross gable, features floral-patterned leaded glass windows. Horizontal wooden bands above and below the windows on both floors and a terrace wall along the east side give the house a horizontal emphasis, a key element of Prairie School architecture. The house was designated a landmark by the Madison Landmarks Commission in 1977. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 7, 1978. Additionally, it is located within the

Orton Park Historic District The Orton Park Historic District is a residential historic district on the near east side of Madison, Wisconsin. The district is centered on Orton Park, the first public park in Madison, and includes 56 houses facing or near to the park. The fir ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lougee, George A., House Houses in Madison, Wisconsin Houses completed in 1907 Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Wisconsin Prairie School architecture in Wisconsin National Register of Historic Places in Madison, Wisconsin