Wisconsin’s Own: Twenty Remarkable Homes (Wisconsin Historical Society Press), by M. Caren Connolly, Louis Wasserman and Zane Williams

When wealth arrives, mansions will follow to house the oversize desires of the rich and to trumpet the status of the owners. At least until the age of the McMansion, conspicuous architectural consumption was also a forum of creativity for patron and architect alike. Wisconsin’s Own looks inside 20 stately homes built from 1854-1939, a time when styles shifted from Victorian Gothic to Mediterranean and Prairie School to Art Deco. Milwaukee architects M. Caren Connolly and Louis Wasserman wrote the text and drew the elevations, while Madison photographer Zane Williams shot interiors and exteriors. We can always wonder why our favorite mansions aren’t included, yet the authors do a fine job providing insight into a cross-section of homes from across a state that has produced wealth and fine architecture since its inception.