137 North Prospect Avenue
Madison, WI, USA

Edward C. Elliott House

The Edward C. Elliott House is a Prairie Style home designed by George W. Maher and built in 1910 in Madison, Wisconsin. In 1978 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.


History

Edward C. Elliott was a Professor of Education at what would become the University of Wisconsin–Madison, directing a teacher training course and involved in establishing the University of Wisconsin High School. He was later Chancellor of a precursor of the Montana University System and President of Purdue University.

Edward and his wife had this house built in 1910, when Prairie Style was around its peak of popularity. It is an example of the "compact cubical" form of Prairie Style - more or less a two story rectangle with a porch on the side. Typical Prairie features are the broad eaves, the hip roof, and the emphasis on the horizontal (belt course between the two stories and the lines on the second story), and the art glass in the front door sidelights and in some windows. Less typical of Prairie Style are the inward-tapered walls and the tapered columns that flank the doors. A two-story porch projects from one side of the house - rectangular on the first story and five-sided on the second. Inside, the front door opens to an entry with a barrel-vaulted ceiling, and the living room features a large brick fireplace.


It isn't entirely clear who designed the house, but the Elliotts' account books show payments to the prominent George Maher of Chicago, and the Elliotts have ties to the Winnetka area where Maher worked. The house resembles Maher's 1907 design for the Henry W. Schultz house in Winnetka. Madison's Claude and Starck were involved, but possibly only to meet a requirement of on-site supervision.

The Elliotts lived in the house from 1911 to 1916. They were followed by Ralph (Associate Professor of Political Economy at the UW) and Nellie Ness from 1916 to 1928. They were followed from 1929 to 1930 by Chester (Dean of the UW extension) and Louise Snell.

The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 as one of the few works of George W. Maher in Wisconsin, and as a significant example of Prairie School architecture in Madison.

National Register of Historic Places - Edward C. Elliott House

Statement of Significance:

The Edward C. Elliott House is important in that it represents the work of a nationally prominent architect, George W. Maher, and possess high architectural values.

While the attribution of the architect cannot be established through building permits or existing drawings, records in the Account Journal of the original owners indicate payments to Architect George W. Maher during the time of design of this house. The Madison architectural firm of Claude and Starck evidently was retained by the owners to fulfill the need for on-site supervision of the project. Additional correspondence with the family has indicated strong friendships existed with families whose roots were in the Winnetka area and who were most likely familiar with the work of George W. Maher.

George W. Maher (1864-1926) has been cited by H. Alien Brooks as one of the most significant architects of his time, perhaps as influential as Frank Lloyd Wright. Maher had established his own practice in Chicago in 1888, a time when Wright was still with Louis H. Sullivan. Maher, Wright and Elmslie had all worked in the office of Joseph Lyman Silsbee, also in Chicago, prior to moving into Sullivan f s office, or in Maher f s case, establishing his own architectural practice. Maher was remarkable in that his formal education extended only to the eighth grade. He developed as a capable practitioner and a frequent contributor to the Western Architect. His published articles were not self-laudatory discussions of his own work but rather passionate pleas for his colleagues to abandon architectural forms that were mimics of the past and instead to seek new forms representative of a "democratic" nation. In this way his voice was like that of Sullivan's writings in such important essays as his "Kindergarten Chats." A few buildings designed by George W. Maher exist in the state of Wisconsin and the Edward C. Elliott House is the only known example in Madison. It stands as one of the most significant examples of Prairie School architecture within the community.