Sigma Phi living well above its station!

First Harold Bradley House (1909), Louis Sullivan.  106 Prospect St., Madison WI

There's nothing I can add to what we know about Louis B. Sullivan, Wright's Lieber Meister, mentor and employer of his early professional years.  It's unfair to categorize Sullivan by his relationship to Wright, though the fact that the latter is better known makes it a pragmatic tactic.  But in fact, he deserves to be as well known as Wright and Madison is as lucky to have this landmark house as it is to have the Gilmore House up the street.

I suppose we might as well call it a prairie style house, though it is marked heavily by the (wonderful) finicky detailling for which Sullivan was famous.  The house sits on a giant lot (certainly larger when the house was built), and is possibly the nicest house for a fraternity in the world.  The estimable Legler and Korab say the top floor was burned out in 1972 by an "electrical fire", but Sigma Phi manfully ponied up $762,000 to put the house back in order.  As always, Korab's photographs make us see the house anew and ought to be consulted.

Here are photos of the side and front of the house:

[See Legler, D. and Korab, C., Prairie Style. Houses and Gardens by Frank Lloyd Wright and the Prairie School (New York: Stewart, Tabori and Chang, 1999) 84-87; Visser, K., Frank Lloyd Wright and the Prairie School in Wisconsin. An Architectural Touring Guide (Madison: Prairie Oak Press, 1998) 103-105.]