| Additional Information: | Associated resources: contributing Mackenzie Retaining Wall (#247350); noncontributing shed (#247349); noncontributing greenhouse (#247348).
The Mackenzie House is a one-story, wood frame residence finished with tongue-and-groove siding and resting on a concrete basement. The flat roof is covered with a rubber membrane, installed in 2024. The Mackenzie House is a fine and intact example of the Modern Movement, designed by the Madison architectural firm of (Ronald G.) Bowen and (Henry) Kanazawa and erected in 1966; Rolland H. Williamson, an architect with Bowen and Kanazawa, may have been involved in the design. A small, master bedroom addition was appended to the north (side) façade in 1985, its plans prepared by architect J.M. Sharpe of Madison. A dry-laid, coursed stone retaining wall erected in 1985 wraps around the addition’s northwest and southwest facades and rises to about four feet in height; it is a contributing structure. Three shorter, dry-laid, coursed stone retaining walls are located near the house but are of insufficient size and scale to include in the resource count; they are described below. There are three non-contributing resources on the property: a ca. 2010 flat-roofed shed; a 2015 greenhouse; and a portion of the tail of a panther effigy mound, part of the Lake Forest Mound Group (ASI #47DA-575). The Mackenzie House retains a high degree of integrity.
The Mackenzie House is a fine example of the Modern Movement of the mid-twentieth century, with its long, horizontal main block expressing its post-and-beam structure, creating panels filled with floor-to-ceiling, fixed windows, and slender louvered vents that extend the full height of the window openings. In the main block, a band of windows is recessed at basement level, creating the illusion that the house sits on a floating plane. This illusion carries through the wing and the addition by the way in which these sections cantilever slightly over the basement. The flat roof has broad eaves, which appear to rest on heavy, projecting wood beams, enhancing the horizontality of the main block. The Mackenzie House distinctly shows the influence of Mies van der Rohe, especially in the main block, which appears to reference the Farsnworth House (1951) on the exterior with floor-to-ceiling windows and in the way the first story appears to float above the basement (an illusion carried through the wing and the addition and on all four facades with cantilevering) and on the interior where a few walls in the center of the plan isolate a utility core (in this case, the vestibule and kitchen), leaving the rest of the plan open and allowing space to flow within the main block and from indoors to outdoors. Henry Kanazawa was a student and later an associate of Mies. The house has an unusual feature that may be attributable to the influence of George Fred Keck: fixed windows and louvered vents. This is a configuration used by other modernists, notably Mies van der Rohe, but the developer of this configuration appears to have been George Fred Keck. However, Keck and van der Rohe typically placed vents horizontally, beneath the windows. In contrast, the louvered vents are placed vertically in the Mackenzie House. Ronald Bowen may have been a student of Keck's. Rolland H. Williamson may have been involved in the design of this house as well.
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| Bibliographic References: | Bowen and Kanazawa, Architects, "Dr. Alan and Janet Mackenzie House," blueprints, September 7, 1965; and James M. Sharpe, "Mahoney House Addition," 1985. |
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