Prof. Andrew Whitson House Restoration
Madison, Wisconsin, USA

Careful Historic Remodeling

This home in the historic University Heights neighborhood exhibits an early Madison version of pre-Prairie School architecture by Claude & Starck, circa 1905.

Above: Completed restoration in 2007.

This home was built for University of Wisconsin professor of soils Andrew Whitson and his wife in 1905. This and several other nearby homes designed by Claude & Starck are historically significant in that they illustrate the design evolution of the firm as it was developing it's version of the prairie style, for which it is best known. Louis Claude developed his early skills as a designer, along with Frank Lloyd Wright, in the employ of the Chicago architectural firm of Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan prior to the turn of the century.

Our efforts to preserve the integrity of the original Claude & Starck design while adapting it to the owner's needs included replacing an ungainly 1920's sleeping porch addition with a new second-floor sitting porch above the original pantry. No photos of the house prior to the sleeping porch addition were available so other similar Claude and Starck designed homes in Madison were studied to create a design that we hope is as near as possible to the original. See the photo above.

Above: A "before" photo of the house with it's sleeping porch.

Award: 2005 Madison Trust For Historic Preservation award.