The Indian Hills subdivisionwest of the Blackhawk Country Club and just north of University Avenue opened in 1953. It was designed by the Wisconsin State Planning Board as a model subdivision of single-family homes for middle to upper-middle income families. Lots were staggered so that each house would look over or between its neighbors.
Sunset Hills Neighborhood is nestled in a hilly and wooded area on the near west side. Our homes were built in the mid-fifties and sixties and were designed to respect the topography using a variety of natural materials. The area is now considered to have one of the highest concentrations of exemplary mid-century modern residential architecture in the city and includes homes by several prominent regional architects.
1897. UW purchases 159 acres of land from H. J. Hill in Town of Madison south of Sauk Road (now University Avenue), current location of Hilldale shopping center. The area become known as Hill Farm
Additional UW land purchases bring total acreage to about 600. Approximate borders
North - University Avenue
East - Midvale Boulevard
South - Mineral Point Road
West - beyond Rosa Road
1953. State legislature authorizes UW to sell Hill Farms. Proceeds used to purchase new research lands in Arlington.
1955. UW Regents hire consultants to prepare master plan of development. Naturalistic approach to layout: long blocks and curvelinear streets to fit rolling topography.
1956. Sales of lots announced February. First homes constructed. Architecture featured popular housing styles of the period, e.g., Colonial Revival, split-level)
1957. Van Hise Elementary School opens
1957. Formation of neighborhood association
1957-1960. Parade of Homes site.
1957 - original plate along Richland Lane
1958 - Juneau Road
1959 - Pepin Place (included Frank Lloyd Wright prefab)
1960 - Marinette Trail (first floor family room becomes a more common feature)
1958. Special census report: 755 adults, 891 children, 428 units
Until a few weeks ago, I had driven through the Rocky Bluff neighborhood hundreds of times without realizing it was anything more than an agglomeration of single-family homes and small apartment building. It wasn't until I read a 1/22/2018 Capital Times article about the demise of Party Port and a University Avenue redevelopment project on its compact site (Developer works to accommodate concerns of 'neighborhood in a forest' on University Avenue) that I learned this area of Madison has a name.
Madison's Rocky Bluff Neighborhood Association takes its identity as a “neighborhood in a forest” seriously. So seriously, in fact, that when discussing a proposed redevelopment of the Party Port site on University Avenue, some residents were concerned that light and noise pollution from the project could affect the “area’s cherished, unique” Katydid (AKA bush cricket) population.
Digging through the Madison Central Library's vertical files last night for any additional information about Rocky Bluff's history and development, I was disappointed to find that the drawer with the 'neighborhood' folders jumped from 'Richmond Hill' to 'Rolling Meadows'.
"Friendly, close-knit Near West Side neighborhood. Residents dwell in an urban forest on quiet, mature tree-lined streets and enjoy the trails in beautiful Quarry Park."
Note: Due to technical difficulties, the yellow and green arrow videos need to be reshot. They will be shared in an update.
Orange arrow auto tour
Timeline and description
1945. Schafer family purchases 5 acres on northeast corner of Horstmeier farm, with an eye to housing development. (Northern border: Mineral Point Road).
1947. 1st subdivision. Oak Park Heights plat recorded
1948. Midvale Heights annexed by City of Madison from Town of Madison.
Early 1950s. Tokay Boulevard still a dirt road.
Early 1950s. Development west of Midvale Boulevard from Waite Lane, south of Odana Road, north to Mineral Point Road. Ranch-style predominates.
1951. 2nd subdivision. Frank Piper plat recorded.
1954. Neighborhood association formed
1955. Odell Street site of Parade of Homes
1950s. 4- and 8-unit apartments constructed on Presidential Lane and Rushmore Lane
1959. 37 subdivisions recorded. (Definitely a nifty 50 neighborhood. More split-level design as decade progresses.)
Edward Thomas Owen, 1850-1931, was born in Connecticut, graduated from Yale College, and became an instructor at the University of Wisconsin in 1878. By the early 1900s he was Professor of French and Linguistics; he retired in 1915.
He was one of the first members of the Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association and a frequent contributor. In 1909, he and his wife Emilie donated land for a parkway in the Sunset Point area to the City of Madison in memory of their daughters Ethel and Cornelia. This is the origin of Owen Drive and Owen Parkway.
Photo by Retiring Guy
The Owen family (there were two other daughters, Emily and Gladys) maintained a home on State Street in Madison. They also owned about 80 acres of land with a house and several outbuildings south of Old Sauk Road a short distance north of Old Middleton Road, that was the site
of their summer house, called “Tor Wald,” Anglo-Saxon for “wooded hill.” The property remained in the family until about 1974 when it was acquired by the City of Madison and eventually became Owen Conservation Park.
Initial post-World War II development took place in the Hammersley Road, Reetz Road, and Whitcomb Drive area (above and below right end of red arrow in above map)
Faircrest's development took place primarily during the 1960s and 1970s. (Looks like a trip to the Madison Central Library is in order to find out about this neighborhood, which I suppose -- cover your ears, Faircrest residents -- is not all that historically significant.)
Also known as The Highlands Upper Loop. (Not really.)
Information is hard to come by, but from the looks of it, Skyview Terrace development timeline starts in the mid-1950s and extends into the early 1960s -- not including fill-ins. (To be verified.)
Before I saw this 1954 photo published in Forests, Farms and Families: A History of the Midvale Heights Neighborhood, I had no idea this tucked-away development existed. The homes here, built in 1950, are modest by Nakoma standards.
The opening of the Beltline in 1950 and the extension of streets like Midvale Boulevard to the south spurred the West Side’s postwar housing boom. In the mid- to late-1950s, two- and three-bedroom houses with attached one- or two-stall garages began rising from the farm fields in what would become Meadowood.
Posters professing to be long-term residents wrote of their dismay about changes in the neighborhood in recent years. Some talked of crime in the area, others of running into behavior that intimidated them at the strip mall at Whitney Way and Raymond Road where the hardware store is located.
Soglin said the neighborhood has been struggling for well over a decade. “The problems were not addressed at a very critical juncture when the neighborhood started changing in terms of more low-income families, without the resources -- particularly for young people -- in the area,” he told me.
Southwest to northeast: Southwest Commuter Trail (formerly Illinois Central Railroad)
Not much timeline info to be found about this neighborhood. Forest, Farms and Families: A History of the Midvale Heights Neighborhood includes a 1954 photo (Wisconsin State Historical Society) that shows most of the houses along the red arrow auto tour have been constructed. I counted just 2 trees.
