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Set in a grove of walnut trees, the former John Mann House is one of the finest sandstone farmhouses in Dane County. Mann came to Wisconsin from Ostego County, New York, in 1850 and for a time operated a livery service in Madison. In 1856, he bought this 130-acre farm and erected this Italianate house made of sandstone from a neighbor’s quarry, a stone barn, and two stone outbuildings. The house is a two-story cube with a one-and-a-half-story wing. Unusually tall windows pierce the eighteen-inch-thick walls, giving the house a vertical emphasis. Scroll brackets and pendants embellish the deep overhang of the hipped roof. Inside, on the first story are the original hemlock floors, maple banister, and newel post. In the barn, both the double-door entrance and the heavy hand-hewn structural timbers are original as well. The house now serves as a restaurant, and the stone barn has been converted into a taproom.