Vallender Building

Historic Site - ready for demolition

The following newspaper articles appeared years ago that suggested the Vallender Building was destroyed years ago:

Templin Buys State-Fairchild Building
The Wisconsin State Journal; Madison, Wisconsin; January 11, 1946

...It is understood that Templin plans to have the building razed and to erect a two-story structure with jewelry store on the ground floor and offices up stairs. ... Until its sale to Caputo, the building had been in the hands of the William Vallender family since before the Civil war.

The 'Vallender Building' - City Landmark to Be Demolished
The Wisconsin State Journal; Madison, Wisconsin; August 27, 1938

 

 

So we were surprised the building still stood.  City leaders today are discussing plans to tear down these buildings and replace them with newer buildings.  Also, the University of Wisconsin at Madison requested this land be turned into a parking lot.  However, some in the Madison community want to preserve these old buildings for future generations.

The following was taken from the article, Vallender Building Historic Statement written by Gary Tipler: The Vallender Building above is a significant example of a rare architectural style in Madison, the Rundbogenstil or American Round Arch Style, a subcategory of the German Romanesque Revival, which was employed by German immigrant architects and builders in the United States. It embodies the characteristics of a German-built structure, reflecting the culture and history of its immigrant entrepreneurial builders, owners and inhabitants, the Vallender family. It is also significant as an increasingly rare building type of its period in Madison -- one that housed both business and residence for its owner. Following its completion, “it was considered to be one of Madison’s finest business structures.”

The Vallender Building is a rare building type in Madison – a mixed-use commercial and residential building built in the 1860s – built by an entrepreneurial owner for both business and space and residence. All but a couple of the commercial examples of that period, 1850s-1860s, are gone from the Capitol Square and only two other ones remain on State Street that are visibly identifiable of the period, the building at 402 State, the George Sherer building (1866) in which the Badger Liquor business is located and the N.A. Brown Building at 414 State (1855). Another is the building at 128-130 State Street, though it was remodeled in 1928-29, in a design by Frank Riley. The Willett Main building at 103 State wasn’t built for owner residency and is a similar kind of building, though designed in a classical style.
Historically, the Vallender Building embodies the characteristics of a German-built structure, reflecting the culture and history of the immigrant entrepreneurs, Frank and William Vallender. It was hand built of locally quarried sandstone and the increasingly rare locally made vermilion-colored red brick.  Buildings built of that brick were once more commonly found in older areas that have been undergoing redevelopment, thus most have been demolished.

Vallender Family

            Franz Vallender was born in Germany (Prussia) in 1815.  His family had been farmers.  With his wife Maria Sophia, son Wilhelm (12), son Mathias (8) and infant Margaretha, less than a year old, he left Prussia and traveled, via Antwerp, Belgium aboard the Centurion, and arrived in New York on May 3, 1852.  Franz changed his name to Frank and worked as a stone mason.  Below is the Vallender Building as it appears today.

On May 4, 1864, Frank Vallender bought the triangular corner lot on State Street at Fairchild for $400 from Benjamin Franklin Hopkins, a real estate speculator.  It is believed that he built the east side of the building as a two-and-a-half-story building but had a change of plans.  By the end of 1867, he completed an addition comprising a full third story above the building and the triangular corner addition. The factors that contributed to the expansion of the building would have been to primarily provide a larger living space for his son’s growing family and to house both their respective businesses, a saloon for himself (east side of building) and a barbershop for his son William at the corner. Franz was getting on in years and likely planned an alternative to the masonry business. His saloon was listed as being located at No. 15 State Street in the 1868 city directory and his son’s barbershop was listed as being at the intersection, later No. 17 State Street.

Wilhelm Vallender was born in Cologne Germany (Prussia) in about 1840, to Franz “Frank” and Sophia Terressa Vallender. Upon arriving in the United States with his parents and siblings in 1852, he changed his name to William. He had been a farmer and later became a barber who had his shop in the State Street building immediately following its completion in 1867, and moved with his wife Bridget Theresa (Smith),  and infant son Frank William into the apartment above his shop. The two-level apartment above was accessed via an exterior wood stair and balcony on the Fairchild side of the building.  In 1874, he was elected foreman of the Andrew Proudfit Engine Co., No. 2, located next door, which had been formed in 1857. The engine company was named after Mayor Proudfit.  William Vallender served as volunteer firemen for many years with the largely German-speaking fire company. In 1875-76, William Vallender served on the County Board of Supervisors. After his wife died in the mid-1890s, he remarried, continued to operate his barbershop until around 1911 when he retired and lived in the building until his death in 1921.  His wife Anna (Mayer) lived there until her death in 1935.

Frank William Vallender, William’s son, was born in 1866, at around the time that the expansion of the Vallender Building was being planned. As a young man, and perhaps because of his father’s work as a volunteer fireman, Frank W. also became a fireman. During the course of his service, he was elevated to the position of Fire Captain of the Fire Station No. 2 by 1910, next door to where he had grown up. He didn’t live in the State Street building after childhood, though a step-sister continued to live there into the 1920s with her mother. He lived with his family for several years in the former Frank Vallender home at 833 Jenifer Street, and another family-owned house at 325 West Mifflin.
            The Vallender family was important in the development of Madison’s early German-speaking community in their contributions to business, civic volunteerism and church.  At least four generations of Vallenders and their descendants have been associated with Holy Redeemer Church. The Vallenders were a founding family of the German language congregation when it first met in the late 1850s following the Vallenders’ arrival in Madison.

Vallender Building Today