This third Sauk County Courthouse stands amid broad lawns and tall trees that enhance its Beaux-Arts classical monumentality. The courthouse and its setting reflect the ideals of the early-twentieth-century City Beautiful movement of grand civic architecture and landscape design. Even though of relatively small scale, such elements as the raised foundation, smooth-faced limestone walls, Ionic pilasters, pedimented entrance, and ornate cartouche on the roof’s parapet convey this sense of grandeur. From the roof rises a lantern cupola, to which a four-sided, domed clock tower was added in 1915. The annex to the rear was erected in 1963.
Inside the courthouse, the barrel-vaulted ceiling creates a dramatic space. Classical moldings, cartouches, pilasters with console capitals, and marble wainscoting lend grandeur.