Monona

What it is actually like

Fourteen thousand people, its own school district and city services, and a peninsula of frontage looking back at the Madison skyline.

Monona is where most of our first-time frontage buyers end up. A sixty-foot Monona lot with a landing and a pier often trades for what a near-water lot costs on Mendota, and the drive downtown is under ten minutes at rush hour.

Winnequah Road wraps the peninsula and holds the best of the frontage. Inside the loop, the streets are 1950s and 1960s capes and ranches on flat, walkable blocks, many of them three or four blocks from the park and the swim pier.

The city runs its own school district, community center, library and pool, and the July Fourth fireworks over the lake draw the whole south shore. It feels less like a suburb than like a small lake town that happens to border a capital city.

Who tends to buy here

• First-time frontage buyers
• Families who want a small school district
• Skyline and sunset exposure