madison Archives - MidMod Midwest

Harold Bewick: Builder of My Ranch

2 min readA little insight into my ranch’s inception. It, along with some 300 other local homes, was built in 1952 by a local contractor. Today, I find out a little more.

My ranch was built in 1952 by one Harold Berwick. The permit – left with some other house papers in a basement cabinets – lists him as “owner” rather than contractor but he never occupied the space, just developed it on spec and passed it along. He apparently did a super speedy job of construction. Continue reading “Harold Bewick: Builder of My Ranch”

The Ranch House in Madison, Wisconsin

2 min readThe post war housing boom changed the character of American residential life in ways that still influence our daily lives now. In Madison, you can see the different “types” of post war houses, spread across neighborhoods on the east (mostly cape cod) and west (mostly ranch) sides of town.

The first post war housing boom spread out toward the manufacturing districts on Madison’s east side, filling in housing between Milwaukee and Atwood Avenues and on the west, filling in beyond Midvale Boulevard as several farms were converted into housing developments.

The “Ranch” house form lagged slightly behind the classic Levittown style “Cape Cod” in Madison’s development. The first houses to be added in these areas – in the first boom area from 1945 on – were the steep roofed Cape Cod styles sitting compactly centered on their lots. Continue reading “The Ranch House in Madison, Wisconsin”