The Cass and King Street Historic District is an assemblage of significant late 19th and early 20th century houses unified by their location along city streets in la Crosse's most prestigious residential neighborhood.  Many of the buildings are designed by La Crosse's most prominent architectural firms.  The buildings were constructed in the district beginning in the mid 1880's and are excellent representatives of the residential styles and construction preferred by La Crosse's most prominent industrialists, professional, businessmen and middle class families.

The wide variety of residential historic styles represented in the historic district include Italianate, Romanesque Revival, Tudor Revival, and Spanish-colonial/Mediterranean Revival.

One of the many beautiful mansions you'll find in La Crosse's Cass-King Street neighborhoods is N.B./Jessie Holway House, 1419 Cass Street 1892.  This romanesque Revival styled mansion features Richardsonian Romanesque styled solid stone elevations, round arches and round buttresses and Queen Anne styled conical roofed towers. 

The Nymphus B. Holway House

The Nymphus B. Holway House would be celebrated as a true masterpiece anywhere in the world. It was built in 1892 by a Lumberman who would settle for only the very best. The home reflects the wealth and prominence of Holway, a lumber baron, as well as the significance of the lumber industry to river towns in the late 1800’s. The home was completed in about two years. The native limestone façade (from La Crosse landmark, Grandad Bluff) features a massive triple arched entry, 3-story tower with conical roof, highly ornamented 3rd story gable and neo-classical porte cochere. The three floors, over 9000 sq. ft. of living area, include over 21 rooms, 8 fireplaces and 29 stained glass windows. The interior woodwork is primarily quarter-sawn oak and Birdseye maple; although butternut, ash and sycamore are also represented.  The stone facing, the round Syriann arches on the porches and windows and round buttresses forming the front gable are from the Romanesque Revival influence, while the conical roofed towers suggest the Gothic influence found in the Queen Anne style. This exceptionally well preserved house, designed by the prominent La Crosse architectural firm, Stoltze and Schick, was constructed by the local contractors, the Gross Brothers.
 

Information supplied from the Intensive Survey Report-Architectural and Historical Survey Project by Joan Rausch, Principal Investigator and Richard Zeitlin, Project Historian.  Addendum by Joan Rausch, Architectural Historian and Principal Investigator and Carol Lohry Cartwright, Project Historian. Prepared for City of la Crosse, Wisconsin by Architectural Researches, Inc. La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Contact Us you would like more information.

Click here to return to the previous page.