The Charles and Anna Ruhland House is an excellent example of the Craftsman Style of architecture popularized by Gustav Stickley. George and his son Charles Ruhland were the owners of the Baraboo Brewery. Charles chose a different direction in house design from his father’s Victorian home located directly next door.

The entire house from ground level to the roof edges, as well as the walls of the west-facing roofline dormer is clad with russet red brick set into black mortar. Although the form of this house is somewhat upright in nature, the low broad proportions of the full-width one-story entry porch of the main south-facing facade, the horizontal nature of the main entry porch balustrade and porch skirting, as well as the horizontal nature of the paired windows located above the main entry porch on the second floor of the main south-facing elevation serve to remove the sense of severity.

The philosophy of the Craftsman style is also represented in the interior of the home through an open floor plan, transfer of natural light throughout the house and simple but handsome wood surfaces. The house on both the interior and exterior is relatively unaltered since its construction. The philosophy, simplicity and organizational principals of Craftsman Movement are demonstrated in the Charles and Anna Ruhland house through the restrain in ornamentation and the use of quality materials.

The Craftsman Movement was a lifestyle embraced by many who relished a simpler life which offered more free time. William L. Price describes the ideal house in Gustav Stickley’s More Craftsman Homes as; “when free men have housed themselves to meet their present need and have no fear that the need of tomorrow shall cry at their doors unmet, - then shall men and women and little children out of the fullness of their lives, out of the free gift of their surplus hours, build for each and for all, such parks and pleasure places. And the men and women and children shall find playtime to use them; find time and powers out of their work to write plays and play them, to write poems and sing them, to carve, to paint, to teach, to prophesy new philosophies and new sciences; to make, to give, to live.”

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