These six Janesville homes plus a church and elementary school in the Jefferson/Bostwick Historic District will be featured on the Rock County Historical Society’s 29th Historic House and Garden Tour.
St. Paul’s Lutheran Church
210 S. Ringold St.
Founders of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church were German Lutherans who came to Janesville in the early 1850s.
In September 1949, parishioners bought four acres of land at the corner of South Ringold and South Third (East Holmes) streets for $33,500 and built a new church, school and parsonage.
The Neo-Gothic church building was dedicated June 5, 1955. The building cost $336,443. The congregation borrowed $200,000. Church furnishings and stained glass windows were gifts of church members. The three-manual Schantz pipe organ was installed in January 1956 when it cost $25,338. This organ was renovated in 1988.
Photo By: Bill Olmsted
Roosevelt Elementary School
316 S. Ringold St.
This Janesville School District elementary school is named after President Theodore Roosevelt. Original construction of this American Colonial-style building started in April 1929 and finished in March 1930. Its first students reported for school, in the 10 large classrooms, March 31, 1930.
In 1939, an addition was built to the north and west in the same architectural style as the original building.
A second addition that included more teaching rooms and a library was completed in 1952.
Sept. 1, 2005, marked the opening of the school’s third addition. It featured more classrooms, air conditioning, improved lighting, a new library/computer media center and administrative office space.
Photo By: Bill Olmsted
Jennifer and Don VanWart
323 S. Garfield Ave.
This classic Colonial Revival style house was built between 1928 and 1929 by Wisconsin architect Frank Riley for the Bernard Palmer Jr. family. It emulates the Colonial Georgian and Federal era with its side-gabled roof and central entry.
While the second story is symmetrical, the main level is counterbalanced with a side porch, bowed front and dormered side.
The inside of the house features a prominent central staircase, detailed Colonial woodwork and moldings, lots of windows and vintage bathrooms. The kitchen also has been renovated by the VanWarts.
Photo By: Bill Olmsted
Joanne and William Engler
415 Forest Park Blvd.
Local Pember-Nuzum Clinic physician Everett C. Hartman built this house without a lot of ornamentation in 1934. Yet its long-sloping roof and sets of multi-paned windows convey the feel of an English country house.
The house, which sits on the grounds of 3.5 lots, seems to be tucked away from the hustle and bustle of the street in a park.
Forest Park was originally platted in 1887 by the Forest Park Improvement Co. as a 100-foot width boulevard.
Photo By: Bill Olmsted
Lindsey and Justin Winters
413 S. Garfield Ave.
This historic French Eclectic house was built for Raymond Harrison, who was known throughout Wisconsin and northern Illinois as the Chevrolet/Cadillac dealer. In 1944, he bought the Janesville dealership at 209-11 E. Milwaukee St., which now houses Floral Expressions.
The house has a steep-pitched roof with few gables, a truncated hip roof with an eyebrow window, a freestanding chimney, battered sidewalls, an arched entry and multi-paned full-length French windows. The façade detailing is formal and inspired by smaller French manor houses.
Stone accents are inserted above the house’s many French doors and archways. The full-view windows in the formal living room and updated kitchen allow for a phenomenal view of the backyard, where there is a wading pool amongst the flower gardens.
The Winters have added iron balconies to the upper front windows to provide added interest to their home.
Photo By: Bill Olmsted
Joseph Eagan
435 S. Garfield
This Colonial Revival house was built in 1941. The architectural style is featured throughout the home and captured in the entry-door pilasters, three-pediment roof dormers and wide-board siding.
From the 1920s through the 1940s, some of the lots on Garfield Street were some of the most expensive in Janesville.
Photo By: Bill Olmsted
Oakleigh and Tobin Ryan
1000 E. Milwaukee St.
This house, known as the Whiton-Parker House, was built around 1852 by one of Janesville’s most prominent citizens Edward Vernon Whiton, who was a territorial legislator and the first chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
There are only eight structures of historical and architectural significance that predate this house, according to a 1982 survey, “Historic Janesville: An Architectural History of Janesville.’’
In 1905, Janesville merchant F.H. Sheldon bought the house and sold it to Kenneth S. Parker, vice president of the Parker Pen Co., in the mid 1920s. Current owners Oakleigh and Tobin Ryan bought the house in 1999.
Photo By: Bill Olmsted
Jayne and Philip Schauer
1218 Ruger Ave.
This Greek Revival style house reflected the agrarian lifestyle of owners Thomas and Sarah Sleeper when they moved into the newly built home on Ruger Avenue nearly a decade before the Civil War.
Although the house has been through a number of alterations and additions since the New York natives moved in, its classical design has endured.
Attracted to its understated elegance, Jayne and Philip Schauer bought the house in 1995 and began restoring it. The 10-year process reversed 160 years of ravaging effects and uncovered a timber frame construction.
The space between siding and plaster was filled with “nogging”—a curious 19th-century technique of filling wall cavities with brick and mortar. The original mullioned window sashes were refurbished and replaced with salvaged wavy glass of the era. Wood shingles were put on the roof, and old growth white pine was used to replicate missing and damaged trim and siding.
The staircase, baluster and railings feature the original cherry finish, while the trim, soft wood floors, paneled walls and doors are painted simply. A tray ceiling and built-in display cabinets are new in the dining room. The kitchen area was redesigned. A diverse collection of antiques creates the warm ambiance of a bygone era.
Recent landscaping unearthed a brick walk that leads to the home’s front entrance.
