Property Record
6004 TAYLOR AVE
Architecture and History Inventory
| Historic Name: | John Leitheiser House |
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| Other Name: | |
| Contributing: | |
| Reference Number: | 11396 |
| Location (Address): | 6004 TAYLOR AVE |
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| County: | Racine |
| City: | Mount Pleasant |
| Township/Village: | |
| Unincorporated Community: | |
| Town: | 3 |
| Range: | 22 |
| Direction: | E |
| Section: | 36 |
| Quarter Section: | |
| Quarter/Quarter Section: |
| Year Built: | 1956 |
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| Additions: | |
| Survey Date: | 1975 |
| Historic Use: | house |
| Architectural Style: | Art/Streamline Moderne |
| Structural System: | |
| Wall Material: | Cream Brick |
| Architect: | Garlinghouse |
| Other Buildings On Site: | |
| Demolished?: | No |
| Demolished Date: |
| National/State Register Listing Name: | Not listed |
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| National Register Listing Date: | |
| State Register Listing Date: |
| 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. CURVED GLASS BLOCK WALL BY ENTRANCEPORTHOLE-LIKE ROUND WINDOWCURVED PORCH ROOFGROUPED WINDOWS Paging through a catalog of “All American Homes” published by the Garlinghouse Company of Topeka, Kansas, in the mid-1950s, local mason John Leitheiser purchased plan number 6692, a sleek International Style dwelling meant to appeal to “home-builders interested in modernistic design.” Leitheiser purchased the complete house plans for twenty dollars, along with specifications and a lumber and mill list. He spent most of the next decade building the house gradually, when he could afford it. He followed the plans closely, with one major exception: instead of building a balloon frame, he erected solid walls of load-bearing concrete to which he bonded the brick veneer. That structural change made it necessary to alter the windows, which Garlinghouse designed to wrap around the corners. Aside from that divergence, this flat-roofed house looks almost exactly like the picture in the catalog. The first floor is streamlined: a one-story living-room wing to the right traces a glass-block curve to the recessed front entrance, itself sheltered under a curved-corner canopy. An ocular window just left of the entry lights a bathroom inside. The second story with stepped-back massing is more cubic, and half the size of the first, leaving room for expansive roof decks. The Garlinghouse plans also called for a pergola between the bedroom and the chimney, but Leitheiser instead opened his deck to the sky. |
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| Bibliographic References: | Buildings of Wisconsin manuscript. |
| Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory, State Historic Preservation Office, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin |