Property Record
33 FULLER DR
Architecture and History Inventory
| Historic Name: | Walter & Dorothy Frautschi Residence |
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| Other Name: | |
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| Reference Number: | 5421 |
| Location (Address): | 33 FULLER DR |
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| County: | Dane |
| City: | Maple Bluff |
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| Year Built: | 1932 |
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| Additions: | |
| Survey Date: | 1979 |
| Historic Use: | house |
| Architectural Style: | English Revival Styles |
| Structural System: | |
| Wall Material: | Stone - Unspecified |
| Architect: | Jerome Cerny |
| Other Buildings On Site: | |
| Demolished?: | Yes |
| Demolished Date: | 0 |
| National/State Register Listing Name: | Not listed |
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| 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 Wisconsin Historical Society, State Historic Preservation Office. When the newlywed Frautschis planned their first home in Madison, they rejected a staid design by local architect Frank Riley and reminisced about the country houses they had seen in France, where they had met and married. Soon they discovered Cerny, an architect in Chicago, who had apprenticed with the well-known revivalist architect David Adler and had studied art in France. His designs captured the rambling, additive quality of medieval French architecture, while his interiors combined tradition and modernism. For the Frautschis, Cerny created a white sandstone dwelling that recalls a French Norman farmhouse transported to the shore of Lake Mendota. L-shaped, it presents front-and-side-facing gables with massive end chimneys emerging at their apexes. A segmental archway, reminiscent of the breezeways between house and barn in French country dwellings, links the ell to the central porch, which spans the side-gabled core of the building. At the junction of the ell nestles a round stair tower, projecting above the roof. The tower, along with the rough-textured walls, the heavy but simple archway, and the hipped dormer windows of irregular sizes and orientations all lend a rustic rural charm. Inside, a sleek, sculptural stairway with an iron balustrade spirals toward the tower's timbered circular roof. At the west end of the house, the living room features a parquet ceiling and French windows opening onto the lake. The Frautschis sold the house in the late 1940s and later commissioned Cerny to design another a neo-traditional house next door at 29 Fuller Drive. By the 1940s, Cerny had become so successful that his designs often appeared in Town and Country and House and Garden. |
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| Bibliographic References: | Historic name and architect cited in: Jerome Cerny, "A Monograph of Country Homes" (Lake Forest, IL: Architecture Catalog Company, ca. 1950s). Buildings of Wisconsin manuscript. |
| Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory, State Historic Preservation Office, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin |