The Sunset Hills Historic District is a residential historic district encompassing the Sunset Hills subdivision on the near west side of Madison, Wisconsin. The district includes 93 houses developed between 1955 and 1978, all designed by professional architects in the Modern style. Developer Willis E. Gifford, who also developed the Pilgrim Village subdivision in 1939, planned Sunset Hills; the idea for a single-family neighborhood of professionally designed houses came after Pilgrim Village residents rejected his original plan for apartments. Madison was growing rapidly at the time, and the new subdivision catered to affluent professionals who came to the city for work, including many professors and administrators at the University of Wisconsin. The district includes several designs by Herb Fritz Jr., a Madison architect who worked under Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin, and William V. Kaeser, who worked for Frank M. Riley and was heavily influenced by Wright. It also has three houses designed by Elizabeth Mackay Ranney, the only practicing female architect in Madison in the 1960s.
