Property Record
348 S MAIN ST
Architecture and History Inventory
| Historic Name: | Fugina House |
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| Other Name: | |
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| Reference Number: | 2569 |
| Location (Address): | 348 S MAIN ST |
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| County: | Buffalo |
| City: | Fountain City |
| Township/Village: | |
| Unincorporated Community: | |
| Town: | |
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| Year Built: | 1916 |
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| Additions: | |
| Survey Date: | 1978 |
| Historic Use: | house |
| Architectural Style: | Prairie School |
| Structural System: | |
| Wall Material: | Board |
| Architect: | Percy D. Bentley |
| Other Buildings On Site: | |
| Demolished?: | No |
| Demolished Date: |
| National/State Register Listing Name: | Fugina House |
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| National Register Listing Date: | 5/8/1979 |
| State Register Listing Date: | 1/1/1989 |
| National Register Multiple Property Name: |
| Additional Information: | A 'site file' exists for this property. It contains additional information such as correspondence, newspaper clippings, or historical information. It is a public record and may be viewed in person at the State Historical Society, Division of Historic Preservation. LOW HIP ROOF PIERCED BY WIDE CHIMNEY. PRAIRIE STYLE WINDOWS AND INTERIOR/EXTERIOR ORNAMENT. CANTILEVER PORCH. ROMAN BRICK. True to the principles of the Prairie style, the Fugina House seems to grow from a wooded hill overlooking the Mississippi River. The two-story house is perhaps La Crosse architect Bentley’s most important work. In plan, it forms a cross so that sunshine can reach all the rooms. A one-story polygonal sunroom projects forward near the north end of the main facade. A flat roof with deep soffits turns from the sunroom to a small entrance pavilion tucked in an angle of the walls. The house’s emphatic horizontality comes from its wide eaves edged with rough-sawn cedar, long wooden sills trimming ribbons of windows, and a rectangular second-story balcony cantilevered from the north facade. Even the masonry is of long, flat Roman bricks with flush vertical mortar joints but deeply raked horizontal ones, an idea seen in houses by Frank Lloyd Wright. Bentley also installed geometric art-glass in the windows, dangled geometric pendants from the soffits, and hung copper screens in the south-facing porch. These elements tie the design to the Arts and Crafts movement, which held that even the most mundane parts of a home should be rendered beautiful with natural materials and good craftsmanship. Wright’s influence is apparent throughout the house, especially inside. A long living-dining room spans the entire first floor, light pouring in through windows on three sides. An enormous fireplace of yellowish Roman brick dominates the room, recalling Wright's maxim that placed the hearth at the center of family life. Clear-finished wooden banding runs eighteen inches below the ceiling in most rooms, conveying a human scale. |
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| Bibliographic References: | H. Allen Brooks, The Prairie School (New York: W.W. Norton Co., 1972) p. 317. Buildings of Wisconsin manuscript. Perrin, Richard W. E., Historic Wisconsin Architecture, First Revised Edition (Milwaukee, 1976). |
| Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory, State Historic Preservation Office, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin |