4006 OLD STAGE RD | Property Record | Wisconsin Historical Society

Property Record

4006 OLD STAGE RD

Architecture and History Inventory
4006 OLD STAGE RD | Property Record | Wisconsin Historical Society
NAMES
Historic Name:Sereno W. Graves House
Other Name:
Contributing:
Reference Number:4483
PROPERTY LOCATION
Location (Address):4006 OLD STAGE RD
County:Dane
City:
Township/Village:Rutland
Unincorporated Community:
Town:5
Range:10
Direction:E
Section:28
Quarter Section:SE
Quarter/Quarter Section:SE
PROPERTY FEATURES
Year Built:1845
Additions:
Survey Date:1979
Historic Use:house
Architectural Style:Greek Revival
Structural System:
Wall Material:Limestone
Architect: Graves, Sereno W.
Other Buildings On Site:
Demolished?:No
Demolished Date:
NATIONAL AND STATE REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES
National/State Register Listing Name: Graves, Sereno W., House
National Register Listing Date:9/29/1982
State Register Listing Date:1/1/1989
National Register Multiple Property Name:Graves Stone Buildings of Rutland Thematic Group
NOTES
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, Division of Historic Preservation-Public History. See the "Stone Buildings of Rutland" site file too.

In the early 1840s, a group of settlers from Vermont and Maine arrived in the area that became the Town of Rutland. Among the newcomers was farmer Sereno W. Graves. As a young schoolteacher in Vermont, Graves had spent his summers learning stonemasonry. He arrived in Rutland in 1844 and became perhaps the area's most important nineteenth-century political leader, having held nearly every political office at one time or another. But his longest-lived legacy was the collection of well-crafted limestone buildings he constructed in Rutland, several of which have survived intact.

The most formal survivor is the Sereno Graves House, which he built for himself in 1846. It bears the distinctive hallmarks of the Greek Revival style, in particular the raked molding and the cornice returns at the gable ends. It took great skill to form fairly regular courses with irregularly sized limestone rubble and raised mortar joints and to shape openings and square corners with the rubble.

[Date Cnst:-1846] Sandstone exterior. Owner-built sig. stone Greek Revival residence. Home of sig. builder and local politician.
Bibliographic References:Buildings of Wisconsin manuscript.
RECORD LOCATION
Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory, State Historic Preservation Office, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin

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