The Richards Hill Residential Historic District is a national historic district in

Watertown, Wisconsin Watertown is a city in Dodge and Jefferson counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Most of the city's population is in Jefferson County. Division Street, several blocks north of downtown, marks the county line. The population of Watertown was 22, ...

. The district includes 62 buildings, nearly all of which are houses, of which 51 are considered

contributing building In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distric ...

s to the district's historic character.

History

The land which makes up the neighborhood was originally the estate of John Richards, who built the

Octagon House Octagon houses were a unique house style briefly popular in the 1850s in the United States and Canada. They are characterised by an octagonal (eight-sided) plan, and often feature a flat roof and a veranda all round. Their unusual shape and app ...

on his property in the 1850s. Richards gradually subdivided his land over the late nineteenth century, and by the early twentieth century he had completely split the property into residential lots. The land was near Northwestern College, and many professors at the college bought lots in the neighborhood for their homes. The houses in the district represent the popular architectural styles of the early twentieth century, including Queen Anne,

Bungalow A bungalow is a small house or cottage that is either single-story or has a second story built into a sloping roof (usually with dormer windows), and may be surrounded by wide verandas. The first house in England that was classified as a b ...

, and period revival styles such as Tudor and

Dutch Colonial Dutch Colonial is a style of domestic architecture, primarily characterized by gambrel roofs having curved eaves along the length of the house. Modern versions built in the early 20th century are more accurately referred to as "Dutch Colonial Re ...

. Architect

George Fred Keck George Frederick Keck (1895-1980) was an American modernist architect based in Chicago, Illinois. He was later assisted in his practice by his brother William Keck to form the firm of Keck & Keck. Biography Keck was born in Watertown, Wisconsin, ...

, who later became well-known for his

Modernist Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...

work, designed the Tudor Revival Hans David & Helen Gaebler House in 1926. The district was added to the State Register of Historic Places in 2012 and to 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 v ...

the following year. Two properties in the district, the Octagon House and the

First Kindergarten The First Kindergarten in Watertown, Wisconsin, is the building that housed the first kindergarten in the United States, opened in 1856. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 for its significance to the history of educati ...

, are listed individually on the National Register; the latter was moved onto the Octagon House property in 1957 by the Watertown Historical Society.

References

{{reflist Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Wisconsin National Register of Historic Places in Jefferson County, Wisconsin