Carroll Street on the Square - Gay Building

Gay Building
16 N. Carroll St.
1914 - Current

Leonard Gay and his sons, real estate developers who built apartment and commercial buildings, constructed the nine-story Gay Building, now the Churchill Building, in 1914-15. Designed by young architect James Law, who later was mayor of Madison, the building was Madison's first skyscraper, nearly twice as tall as any other Madison building at that time except the Capitol. Rankin said local newspapers worried it was so large and would house so many workers that the street car company might have to add extra cars.

Construction of the Belmont Hotel and Gay Building spurred the state to adopt its prohibition against buildings higher than the base of the Capitol dome.