In 1998 the large district was added to the National Register of Historic Places,[2] primarily for having "the finest collection of Period Revival style buildings" in Madison.

In 1914 and 1915 the Madison Realty Company bought farmlands along Verona Road and began plans to develop them into the subdivision that would be Nakoma.

Chicago landscape gardener Ossian Cole Simonds and Leonard S. Smith laid out the general plan for the subdivision.

It was later described by one of its promoters like this: The rolling landscape facing south and east, with an unobstructed view of Lake Wingra, the Capitol, the University, and the city, seemed an ideal location for a large community of homes.

The general result was to leave the land as nature made it, unmarred by the cutting through of streets, so common in the conventional city plat.

Instead of an expensive streetcar line, the developer provided a private bus service to help people commute into the city.

The suburb was promoted as family friendly, prohibiting saloons, and replacing the old grade school with a new Prairie School-styled building.

The Homes Company agreed to maintain the streets, keep vacant lots clean, and provide fire protection and police.

It was built in 1854 by Charles Morgan at a spot along the old Madison-Monroe stage road where an ample spring (now the duck pond) supplied water for horses.

[8] Hallmarks of the style in this building are the low-pitched roof with cornice returns, the symmetry, and the plain window sills and lintels.

[10] The style's hallmarks present in this house are the emphasis on the horizontal, the wide eaves, the stucco, and the grouped windows.

Prairie School was an effort to make a new "American" architecture that didn't derive from European styles like Italianate or Queen Anne.

Wisconsin son Frank Lloyd Wright was the leading proponent, and there are a number of Prairie School houses in the district.

[11] American Craftsman style was developed by the Greene brothers in California, influenced by the English Arts and Crafts movement and Oriental wooden architecture.

As mentioned above, Nakoma's developers placed deed restrictions on buyers which forbade businesses in the district, to preserve the residential quality.

[4] Colonial Revival was a long-popular style that had appeared around 1880, based on early English and Dutch-styled houses from the East Coast.

[15] Hallmarks of the style in this house are the symmetric façade, the front door with sidelights and pilasters, and the multi-pane windows.

Paul Stark was the real estate man who promoted Nakoma starting in 1920, when growth in the subdivision began to boom.

[17] Hallmarks of the style present in this house are the steep roof surfaces, the asymmetric façade, the prominent chimney, and the false half-timbering.

[19] It has the steep roofs, half-timbering, and multi-pane windows common to Tudor Revival houses, but the main entry through a round corner tower makes it a more Norman version.