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Property Location
Property Features
This clapboard Colonial Revival house was the first of the Ringling mansions built in Baraboo. The front is dominated by a one-story porch with Ionic columns and a roof balustrade, spanning almost the full width of the house. Ionic columns with fluted shafts are linked by a turned-spindle balustrade. A triangular pediment pierced by a semicircular light punctuates the roofline. The exterior is largely unaltered, but in 1918 an Otis elevator was installed, which entailed the construction of a tower, which rises behind the hipped roof of the core.
The building’s ornate interior combines classical detailing with Craftsman finishes. To the right of the entry vestibule, the dining room displays dark quarter-sawn oak wainscoting, built-in cabinetry, and a false-timbered ceiling, in the Craftsman manner. Leaded-glass windows with a geometric pattern allow natural light to play upon the walls. The library, too, boasts Craftsman woodwork, elegantly executed in warm Honduran mahogany, which conveys the feeling of a gentlemen’s club. Above the built-in bookcases with leaded-glass doors is a tripartite window framed with a heavy architrave and glazed with leaded glass. The library’s classical fireplace is the simplest and yet most imposing in the house. Framing a panel of green Wisconsin marble, the mahogany surround features simple pilasters flanking a large oval and supporting a pediment containing fleur-de-lis, symbol of French royalty. Many of the other rooms feature ornate plaster ceilings and marble fireplaces carved with classical motifs.
National And State Register Of Historic Places Listings
Architecture & History Inventory
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430 East Second St.
00001258
Located in Merrill, Lincoln County
