File:Historical Marker, Harold C. Bradley House, Prospect Avenue and Van Hise Avenue, Regent, Madison, WI.jpg

English: Built between 1908 and 1910, this Prairie and Sullivanesque-style house was designed by George Grant Elmslie and Louis Sullivan for Josephine Crane Bradley, and her husband, Harold C. Bradley, a Biotechnology professor at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. The house is not only one the most significant of the many houses designed during Sullivan’s career, but is one of only a few houses designed under Sullivan of such a substantial size to be located in a suburban setting. It is the most notable large surviving residential commission of Sullivan’s career, given that the most comparable building, the Babson House in Riverside, Illinois (1907-1909), was demolished in 1960 to make way for a residential subdivision. The Bradley House is universally considered to have been very successful in connecting the exterior with the interior, with cantilevered sleeping porches at the ends of the gabled south wing on the second floor, wrapped by casement windows, making the house appear to be floating above the surrounding landscape, while bay windows on the first floor create cozy interior spaces surrounded on three sides by the outdoors. The house’s interior, however, is more controversial - it did not feature an interior layout or design befitting the Bradley family, instead, being far better suited to the needs of the fraternity that has occupied the house for the vast majority of its existence. In addition to being unsatisfactory to the client, the house was also designed at a time when Sullivan’s professional and personal lives were beginning to fall apart, making it difficult for him to get any commissions for work, or maintain interpersonal relationships. Sullivan was also descending into alcoholism, with this downward trend continuing for the rest of his life. Sullivan’s career in 1908 was a far cry from where it had been a decade and a half prior when he was one of several architects selected to design buildings for the 1893 Columbian Exposition (World’s Fair) in Chicago. Due to how turbulent Sullivan’s life was at the time, historical sources state matter-of-factly that most of the house’s design felt to George Elmslie, with Sullivan only giving occasional input. Others claim profusely that Sullivan was the main designer, and that Elmslie’s role was overstated. However, Elmslie did leave Sullivan’s firm before the house was completed, in 1909, to partner with William Gray Purcell and form the firm of Purcell and Elmslie. Elmslie’s new firm would go on to design another house for the Bradley family less than five years after this house was completed. Despite the context surrounding its creation and the controversial debate over who should receive credit for designing it, the house is a notable work of architecture and quite significant, and was done under Louis Sullivan’s leadership.

The house is T-shaped with two wings, the north wing being wider and featuring a double-gable roof, while the smaller south wing featuring a gabled roof. The first floor of the house and the base are clad in red brick, with several hipped roof sections that extend out past the footprint of the second floor, including one-story bay windows on the east and south facades. The house features art glass casement windows, a porch at the entrance on the north side of the building, and a porch on the first floor at the western end of the south wing, which is tucked underneath the second floor of the house. Above the brick base, the house is clad in wood board and batten siding oriented horizontally and wooden shingles, all of which is painted black. Decorative wooden panels with Sullivanesque ornament are present at the cantilevered east and west ends of the south wing, which form spandrels below the windows of the sleeping porches and long beams that terminate at vertical trim pieces, echoing the motifs found on Sullivan’s other work. The cantilevered ends of the south wing are supported by four brick piers, which contrast with the dark wooden cladding around them. The interior of the house features beautiful decorative woodwork, wooden floors, coffered ceilings with wooden beams, decorative bronze sconce and pendant light fixtures, a staircase screened by a row of wooden slats, decorative Sullivanesque wooden railings, built-in furniture, and brick fireplaces with mosaic tile inlay panels.

Shortly after moving into the house, the Bradleys found that it was too big and expensive to maintain, hiring the firm of Purcell and Elmslie to design a smaller house in nearby Shorewood Hills, Wisconsin, which was completed around 1915. They subsequently sold the larger house to the Sigma Phi Fraternity Chapter affiliated with the University of Wisconsin - Madison, who have owned the house ever since. The house suffered a devastating fire in 1972 that destroyed the roof and heavily damaged the second floor, but was rebuilt faithfully and carefully to its original design. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, and was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1976. It is also a contributing structure in the University Heights Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. The house today continues to serve as a fraternity house, and has been wonderfully maintained and preserved under their generational stewardship.