Churchill Building

The Churchill Building, also known as the Gay Building, is a nine-story, 134-foot-tall (41 m) high-rise building in Madison, Wisconsin. Completed in 1915, and located at 16 North Carroll Street, it was Madison's first skyscraper. The building, like many others built in Madison during the early 1900s, was built in the Beaux-Arts style. The building was the second-tallest building in Wisconsin at the time, after Milwaukee's City Hall; remaining so until 1917 when the Capitol Building was completed, though the latter isn't considered a skyscraper. When the building was completed, there was speculation that extra streetcar service would be needed to handle the increased concentration of people going in and out of the building.^[1]

The building was developed by Leonard Gay (for whom it was first named) and designed by architect James R. Law, Jr., who later became mayor of Madison from 1932 to 1943. The height of the building interfered with views of the Capitol and thus drew opposition. The city's landscape architect, John Nolen, led an unsuccessful campaign to to stop its construction. After the building was completed, a 90-foot (27 m) height limit was enacted for buildings around the Capitol; as a result, the Gay Building remained Madison's tallest (other than the Capitol) until the Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down the height limit law in 1923, which allowed construction of the taller Belmont Hotel. ^[2] In 1974, developer Don Hovde acquired the building, gutted and renovated it, and changed its name to the Churchill Building.^[3][4]

See also

List of tallest buildings in Madison

References

1. ^ "Churchill Building". Emporis. http://www.emporis.com/application/?nav=building&lng=3&id=churchillbuilding-madison-wi-usa. 
2. ^ Stuart D. Levitan, Madison: The Illustrated Sesquicentennial History, Volume 1: 1856-1931 (University of Wisconsin Press, 2006), ISBN 9780299216740, pp. 189, 239. Excerpts available at Google Books.
3. ^ Patti Colla, "Activity Picking Up, Realtors' Hovde Says", Milwaukee Sentinel, March 8, 1975.
4. ^ Hovde Realty: History (accessed June 8, 2010).

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