• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018 Exp. 10-31-84 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Inventory—Nomination Form See instructions in How to Complete National Register Forms Type all entries—complete applicable sections_______________ 1. Name historic Davidson Hall and/or common Northwestern Military and Naval Academy 2. Location street & number 550 South Shore Drive not for publication city, town Lake Geneva vicinity of state WI code 55 county Walworth code 127 3. Classification Category Ownership Status Present Use district public X occupied agriculture museum X building(s) X private unoccupied commercial park structure both work in progress _ X_ educational private residence site Public Acquisition Accessible entertainment religious object in process yes: restricted government scientific being considered X yes: unrestricted industrial transportation X n.a. no military other: 4. Owner of Property Board of Directors of the Northwestern Naval and Military Academy name c/o Mr. Donnell M. McGough, Treasurer street & number 550 South Shore Drive city, town Lake Geneva vicinity of state WI 53147 5. Location of Legal Description courthouse, registry of deeds, etc. Walworth County Courthouse street & number P.O. Box 1001 WI 53121 city, town Elkhorn state 6. Representation in Existing Surveys Wisconsin Inventory of Historic Places title Geneva Lake Intensive Survey has this property been determined eligible? yes no date 8-85 federal state county local depository for survey records State Historical Society of Wisconsin city, town Madison state WI 53706 7. Description Condition Check one Check one excellent deteriorated unaltered X original site X good ruins X altered moved date fair unexposed thel£esent and original (iff known) physical appearance Davidson Hall, the principal building of the Northwestern Military and Naval Academy, has, since its construction in 1915, been a prominent visual and educational landmark on the Lake Geneva shoreline. The Hall is a monumentally scaled Neo-Classical Revival school building, more than four hundred feet in length, containing all the classrooms, living quarters and indoor recreational facilities that the Academy provides for its one hundred seventy-nine students. The Hall is located in the center of forty-three acres of well- landscaped grounds having nearly one thousand feet of Lake Geneva southern shoreline. The grounds slope back some two thousand feet from the shoreline to a height of one hundred twenty-five feet at the southern boundary of the property on South Shore Drive. In this space, the grounds change in character from the wide, expansive lawns of the parade ground between the shoreline and the school to mature hardwood stands between the school and South Shore Drive. The surrounding neighborhood primarily consists of resi­ dential subdivisions created out of the acreage of the older estates which once bordered the Academy. The Academy grounds also include a one-story apartment building for married faculty and a late Georgian Revival house for the headmaster and his family. Neither are considered significant to the nomination. Davidson Hall is designed in a plain, almost severe Neo-Classical Revival style which a local historian, in describing "the great white building", termed "impressive and dignified." The plan of the building follows Neo-Classical and especially Palladian precedents, being composed of a large, porticoed rectangular central block continued with long rectangular wings extended horizontally east and west, each wing terminated by a porticoed pavillion. This five-part scheme was built in stages, with the central block, west wing and western pavillion completed by late 1915, the east wing by 1916-1917, and the eastern pavillion by 1918-1920. The principal facades face north and south, are symmetrical in design, and are identical with each other excepting that the slope of the land through the site meant utilizing an exposed full basement story on the east, west and north facing facades. For the same reason, it was also necessary to lengthen the runs of the three exterior staircases on the north, or lake-facing, facade of the building. Construction is of reinforced concrete over steel frames throughout, emphasizing the importance that was placed on the creation of a fire-proof building. All exterior walls are faced in Hydrostone, an extremely hard plaster applied on metal lath over the reinforced concrete walls in a manner duplicating the look of coursed, smooth-faced ashlar granite. The north and south facades of the fifty-foot wide central block contain the main entrances of Davidson Hall. Each facade is two stories tall and has corners terminated by two- story tall Tuscan Order pilasters. The capitals of these pilasters support a full entablature which acts as a cornice for the entire building. Above the entablature is a lower attic story having a flat roof with north-facing skylights surrounding a centrally placed hip roof which is located over the rotunda space below. Both floors of these facades are five bays wide with the first floor having two flat-arched, six-over- one light windows on either side of the double entrance doors. The doors have a single light transom above and a simple stone surround surmounted by an entablature having a pulvinated freize, the whole supported by carved stone consoles. The second floor has (continued) NPS Form 10-900-a OHB 'Vo • -2024-0018 fj-82) Expires 10-31-87 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Inventory—Nomination Form Davidson Hall, Lake Geneva Continuation sheet Walworth County, Wisconsin Item number 7 Page 1 five flat-arched, six-over-one light windows. Dominating this facade is a colossal portico having a flight of granite steps fifty feet wide leading up to eight Hydrostone- faced reinforced concrete Tuscan Order columns. The portico is six columns wide with the end columns doubled. The capitals of these columns support the same entablature which acts as the cornice of the main building, and the name "Davidson Hall" is placed in bronze letters in the middle of the freize of the entablature. Above the entablature is a blank, pedimented attic story with a stone plaque displaying the Academy seal carved in relief and placed in the center. Extending one hundred thirty feet east and west from the center block are two, ten-bay- wide two-story wings. Each bay of these wings is defined vertically by two-story-tall Tuscan Order pilasters and contains two flat-arched, six-over-one light windows. The capitals of these pilasters support the entablature which acts as the building cornice. The roofs of both wings are flat with a gable roof clerestory which admits light below to the two-story hall running the length of the roofs. Terminating each wing is a two-story pavillion, each surmounted by a flat-roof attic story. The north and south facades of these pavillions contain the secondary entrances to the building and are identical in treatment to the central block with the following minor exceptions: they are three bays wide instead of five, the colossal portico dominating these facades is four columns wide instead of six, and the end columns are not doubled. The original attic story above these porticos had a shallow-pitched pediment attached to it and supported by the portico below, but these were all removed at a later date. The eastern pavillion is forty feet by one hundred twenty feet and is considerably longer than the western pavillion. The east-facing facade of the eastern pavillion is treated in an identical manner to the facades of the east and west wings, being two stories high and pilastered for its entire length. Located just to the northwest of the original building and attached to it by a short, L-plan wing extended from the west facade of the western pavillion, is the Herrick Alumni Gymnasium. Built in 1959, the gymnasium is a large rectangular block having centrally placed salients projecting from all four of the principal facades. The building rises two stories above a full basement story and terminates in a flat roof with a short parapet topped with concrete coping. The north, south, and west facing facades have only minimal window openings save for the basement story, and are faced in a coursed, quarry-faced ashlar stone over reinforced concrete walls and steel frames. The building is essentially astylistic in design except for the east facade, the only facade that directly faces the older Davidson Hall. This facade was designed in conscious imitation of Davidson Hall and is the only facade with a significant amount of window openings which, in this case, light the main gym space inside. The windows are made of transluscent glass block and are grouped in five, two-story bays, each bay set between smooth, plain two-story-tall stone pilasters. The whole group is then surmounted by a cut stone entablature topped by a coursed, rock-faced ashlar stone parapet. Various service rooms including the heating plant which serves the whole building, are located in the basement story of the gymnasium. The gymnasium building occupies the site of the original one-story-tall powerplant which, built in 1916-1917, was all that was completed of a projected dining hall/power plant wing. (continued) NPS Form 10-900-a °WB 'Vo • 1024-0018 Expires 10-31-87 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Inventory — Nomination Form Davidson Hall, Lake Geneva Continuation sheet Walworth County, Wisconsin Item number 7 Page 2 The interior of Davidson Hall is in keeping with the unadorned design of the exterior and was planned to serve both the functional and the ceremonial needs of the Academy. The main entrances are located under the north and south porticos of the central block.

Load more

  16

Copy Link