City skyline over Lake Monona.
Planning

Third Lake Ridge

History

Third Lake Ridge includes the oldest section of the Marquette neighborhood. It extends from Blair Street to the Yahara River and from Williamson Street to Lake Monona.

The neighborhood has a variety of buildings, spanning industrial, commercial, and residential. A diverse group of people have lived, worked, and shopped in this area.

The Marquette Neighborhood Association asked to make the area a historic district as part of their revitalization plan. The Common Council named Third Lake Ridge as our second historic district in 1979.

Map of Third Lake Ridge local historic district

Historic Designation

The Third Lake Ridge Historic District area reflects a broad pattern of social history of Madison and the State and the Upper Midwest, and in that elements within the District meet other designation criteria, namely that many of the structures and sites in the District:

  • Are identified with historic personages or with important events in state or local history
  • Embody the distinguishing characteristics of an architectural type specimen, inherently valuable for a study of a period, style, method of construction, or of local materials or craftsmanship

Architecture

Third Lake Ridge is notable for its diversity of resources, which include neighborhoods that showcase different periods of population growth, commercial resources, and the span of socio-economic status. Many of the structures typify the crafts traditions of vernacular architecture and there are groupings of mail order housing on the eastern edge of the district. The majority of resources are vernacular expressions of Victorian residential architecture. The significant architectural styles found in the district include:   

  • Arts & Crafts 
  • Early 20th Century Commercial 
  • Dutch Colonial Revival 
  • Italianate 
  • Mediterranean Revival 
  • Prairie 
  • Queen Anne 
  • Romanesque Revival 
  • Tudor Revival

Historic Materials

  • Brick 
  • Narrow wood clapboard (2"-4" exposure)  
  • Stone 
  • Stucco

Historic Resources

  • Designated Landmarks 
  • Designated Landmark Sites 
  • Properties constructed during the period of significance, 1850-1929
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