Situated on a 1.5-acre parcel of land that slopes gently down to the shore of Lake Monona in what today is the city of Monona, the highly intact Ray S. and Theo P. Owen House is the largest and the finest Craftsman Style house to have been built in Monona. Ray S. Owen was a professor of civil engineering at the University of Wisconsin in Madison when the first portion of his house was built in 1911 and it was designed by James and Edward Law, brothers and Madison architects who were then at the very beginning of careers that culminated in the creation of the largest and most successful architectural practice in Madison in the first half of the twentieth century.

The rectilinear plan Craftsman Style dwelling that the Laws designed for the Owens was a small one-story-tall summer cottage that contained a living room and kitchen, and it was clad in wood, was partially encircled by screen porches, and was positioned on a slight rise that gave its occupants views overlooking Lake Monona. This cottage, called “Bungalowen” by the Owen family, was just a summer residence and as the Owen family grew a second story was added that housed two bedrooms. In 1932, however, the Owens had a year-round house built that was to be connected to the cottage, with the cottage portion to be used thereafter in the summer months as a guest house. The resulting L-plan Craftsman Style house portion was designed by a family friend, Theron Mandeville Woolson, who was a designer based in Winnetka, Illinois, and it was one-and-one-half-stories-tall, it rested on a full basement story, and its first story contained a large living room, a dining alcove and adjacent kitchen, and a master bedroom and an adjoining bathroom, while the second story contained space enough for three bedrooms. The house and its attached cottage is still highly intact and in excellent condition today, it is still owned and occupied by a third generation of the Owen family, and it is the finest example of the Craftsman Style to be found in the city of Monona.

It is a private home and is not open to the public.