Property Record
5701 Cedar Place
Architecture and History Inventory
| Historic Name: | Carson and Beatrice Gulley House |
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| Reference Number: | 241080 |
| Location (Address): | 5701 Cedar Place |
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| County: | Dane |
| City: | Madison |
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| Year Built: | 1954 |
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| Survey Date: | 2019 |
| Historic Use: | house |
| Architectural Style: | Ranch |
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| Wall Material: | Aluminum/Vinyl Siding |
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| Demolished?: | No |
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| National/State Register Listing Name: | Not listed |
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| Additional Information: | City of Madison, Wisconsin Underrepresented Communities Historic Resource Survey Report: Carson Gulley was born in Zama, Arkansas in 1897. His parents were farming sharecroppers. At the age of 17, Gulley’s father apprenticed him to a schoolteacher to supply him with an education. In 1920, Carson left home and began working as a dishwasher, then cook, at a restaurant in Eldora, Arkansas. This was followed by a variety of cooking jobs in Kansas, Florida, and New York. He then worked briefly as a chef at Principia College in St. Louis, followed by a position as head chef at the Essex Lodge Resort in Tomahawk, Wisconsin. During his time at the resort, D.L. Halverson, the director of dormitories and commons at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, visited and was impressed with the quality of food and service and offered Carson Gulley a job at the university. In 1926, Carson Gulley began a 27-year tenure as a head dormitory chef at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Carson and his wife Beatrice were married in Madison in 1930, and the couple lived in a non-extant apartment at 42 South Brooks Street. Gulley was active within the African American community during the 1930s and 1940s. He played a role in the organization of the Mount Zion Baptist Church, the Madison Chapter of the NAACP, and the Capital City Masonic Lodge, serving in a leadership role in all of them. In 1936, Gulley established and taught a popular curriculum for chefs and bakers and conducted seminars at the Tuskegee Institute and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The United States Navy established a similar school during World War II at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for service cooks, developed and taught by Gulley. Gulley is also credited with developing recipes for a boneless turkey roast and the fudge bottom pie. Gulley was a popular figure with students. In 1954, Gulley retired after being passed over for the position of director of dormitory food services at the university, despite being a senior chef for two decades. The position was given to a younger, less experienced, White man. As a hobby for over 20 years, Gulley assembled a collection of spices, which led to his accolade as an authority on herbs and spices. He authored the nationally acclaimed cookbook Seasoning Secrets: Herbs and Spices in 1949. A revised edition of the book was published in 1956 titled Seasoning Secrets and Favorite Recipes of Carson Gulley in 1956. One of the most financially successful and prominent African Americans in Madison from the 1930s to the 1950s, Carson and Beatrice became Madison’s first Black television personalities. The station WMTV invited the chef and his wife to host a cooking show called What’s Cookin’ in 1953, it's first-year broadcasting in Madison. At the time it was the only known television program in the United States to feature an African American husband and wife team. The weekly television show ran until 1962 and was syndicated across the country. Also in 1953, Carson Gulley hosted a twice-weekly radio cooking program WIBA Cooking School of the Air. The Gulley family, along with many African American residents in the city, were not permitted to purchase a home in Madison because of their race. After purchasing property to build a house, a group of neighborhood residents petitioned the Crestwood Subdivision’s board of directors to buy back the land. Gulley appealed to the City Council’s Committee on Human Rights in favor of equal housing rights, influencing the passage of Madison’s Fair Housing Ordinance in 1954. The neighborhood co-op voted 64 to 30 against the petition and in favor of the Gulleys, after which the Gulley family built an extant ranch house at 5701 Cedar Place in the Crestwood neighborhood on the west side of Madison in 1954. At the end of 1961, Carson and Beatrice Gulley built a non-extant building at 522 University Avenue in which to live and open a restaurant and catering business. The restaurant, serving weekend buffets, opened in September 1962. Tragically, Carson Gulley died in November 1962 and was buried at Forest Hill Cemetery in Madison. Beatrice continued to operate the restaurant until at least 1964. The University of Wisconsin-Madison renamed the Van Hise Refectory the Carson Gulley Commons in 1966, the first building on any University of Wisconsin campus named after an African American and the first building on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus named after an employee other than administration or faculty. The extant Mediterranean Revival style building at 1515 Tripp Circle on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus was the site of much of his work as a chef for the university. The large refectory building was originally constructed in 1926 with major additions and alterations completed in 1943 and 1960. The building was renamed the Carson Gulley Center in 2013. |
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| Bibliographic References: |
| Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory, State Historic Preservation Office, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin |