English: Built initially in 1946-1948, this Streamline Moderne or Art Moderne-style hotel was designed by Lawrence Monberg, and was Madison’s most prestigious hotel for most of its history. The building is one of three notable Art Moderne-style buildings designed by Monberg for the Quisling family, whom were prominent physicians of Norwegian descent in Madison during the mid-20th Century. The hotel was intended to feature a more bold and complex design, but material limitations caused by World War II and an increase in labor and material costs forced the plans to be simplified, eliminating the planned curved entrance, decorative ornament and trim, curved corners of the building facing Lake Mendota, and a two-story glass facade housing a bar and restaurant on the first two floors of the building facing the lake. When it opened, the hotel was managed by Augie Faulkner, whom bought the property from the Quisling family in 1952. The hotel was expanded with a five-story podium at the end of Wisconsin Avenue in 1972, which housed 40 additional guest rooms, a ballroom, new lobby, and The Admiralty Room, an upscale restaurant. The hotel saw guests including famous celebrities during its history, with Elvis taking one of the hotel’s clothes hangers as a souvenir that is now on display at Graceland, and inspired Cyndi Lauper’s song “Water’s Edge.” The aging hotel was finally sold by the Faulkner family in 2012.

The original building, now known as the Langdon Building, is clad in buff brick with long ribbons of windows that de-emphasize the ten-story building’s verticality across most of the facade. The ribbons of windows are framed by narrow bands of trim, and have stacked bond brick panels between the individual window openings, which feature one-over-one windows, and windows that wrap the corners of the building. Vertical extruded brick walls on the facade at the location of the building’s original entrance feature circular windows on each floor, being an example of the nautical themes and motifs often employed with the Art Moderne and Streamline Moderne styles. The hotel’s exterior is rather boxy and simple, featuring less flourishes than the original concept, though the originally planned curved entrance canopy and lobby, and two-story glass-walled bar and restaurant were finally added during the 2012-2014 renovation, but utilized modern materials and don’t quite match the original intention as a result. The renovation also added an eleventh floor to the building, which is clad in glass and features a rooftop terrace facing Lake Mendota. The building’s original steel windows were removed in a prior renovation, with thee circular entrance canopy, and tapered window wall on the second floor facing the lake being removed during the 2012-2014 renovation. The renovation also restored the remaining Art Moderne elements inside the building, as well as new features that compliment the original Art Moderne style of the building, and adding back lost features. All of the hotel rooms were expanded and modernized as part of the renovation.

In 2012-2014, the hotel was sold and was subsequently renovated and expanded with a new fifteen-story Postmodern-style tower and four-story podium to the northeast, which compliment the materials of the original tower. The new tower, known as the Wisconsin Tower, was designed by architect David Manfredi of Elkus Manfredi, an architecture firm, and is meant to evoke the design of the original building, though its creation did spur controversy in the surrounding neighborhood due to the size of the tower. The tower is clad in buff brick and features many Renaissance Revival-inspired flourishes, including Quoins, but massing and form that seems to draw inspiration form the nearby Quisling Towers na 4th original hotel, and the top three floors are setback and clad in a darker material, helping to de-emphasize their presence. The base of the tower features a podium with larger windows, and the building features a series of two terraces linked by stairs that lead down from the intersection of Wisconsin Avenue and Langdon Street towards Lake Mendota, allowing for the original sightline of the lake to be restored and adding a public plaza, while maintaining the connection between the original hotel and the new tower, as well as the previously existing footprint of the hotel, which had blocked the end of Wisconsin Avenue since 1972. A new staircase between the Langdon Tower and the podium allows for public access to the shores of Lake Mendota, where there is a terrace, walkway, and docks on the lake. The original hotel building is a contributing structure in the Mansion Hill Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997. Today, the renovated Edgewater Hotel is once again one of the city’s most upscale and prestigious hotels, with modern amenities, yet maintaining its original character.