Frank Lloyd Wright Architecture in Iowa

Located inside Cedar Rock State Park, the Lowell and Agnes Walter House was completed in 1950, making it one of the state’s earliest FLW Usonian houses. It is also Iowa’s only FLW building to be awarded his signature red square tile, which only 25 of his buildings worldwide have. This red signature block was Wright’s way of separating his fully designed work from the rest, as it signifies that all indoor (chairs, dishes, flooring, etc.) and outdoor specifications met Wright's approval. This Independence home also maintained Wright’s inclusion of nature and was built on a beautiful rural site that overlooks the Wapsipinicon River.
 

Tours are offered seasonally Memorial Day weekend through mid-October, five days a week. Reservations are recommended though walk-ins are accepted as space permits. Park events are offered year-round and typically include guided hikes, snowshoeing, naturalist series, yoga series, a June evening event, fall concert series and a Wright-related lecture event. The 426-acre Cedar Rock State Park also has a series of grass back trails and lands for public hiking, hunting, fishing and other outdoor activities.

Built in 1908, the George and Eleanor Stockman House in Mason City was the first FLW-designed home built in Iowa. It underwent an authentic restoration in 1992 and today continues to feature all the architectural hallmarks of Wright’s Prairie School period. It’s also the only Prairie School house museum in Iowa that is open to the public (year-round tour times are posted on their website).
 

Aiming for middle-class affordability, Wright’s Stockman House is a masterpiece of compact efficiency with a revolutionary open floor plan that allows interior space to flow around a broad central chimney. The surrounding ribbons of windows under the extended horizontal planes visually integrates the inside and outside. While inside, visitors are embraced by warm earth tones of oak, brick and sand-textured walls illuminated by original amber light fixtures. Arts & Crafts and Wright-designed reproductions of the period furnish the home.
 

Visitors to the Stockman House will begin their tour in the adjacent McCoy Architectural Interpretive Center (AIC), which features exhibits and models of Wright’s architectural designs. The AIC also houses a gift shop, restrooms, indoor and outdoor seating areas and educational materials and is wheelchair accessible.

Discover more Prairie School architecture by strolling through Mason City’s Rock Crest-Rock Glen neighborhood, made famous for its collection of homes built between 1910 and 1917 that were designed by Walter Burley Griffin and other associates of Wright’s. The neighborhood was originally envisioned to include 26 homes, each uniquely suited for their site, that would all face and share the natural setting of Willow Creek. The creek bends between a limestone bluff and a lower meadow, hence the name Rock Crest-Rock Glen. By 1917, only eight of the homes had been built before Griffin left to pursue another project. Today, you can admire the completed Prairie Style homes via a self-guided walking tour.

The 1910 Historic Park Inn Hotel is FLW’s last remaining hotel of the six he designed worldwide. Exemplifying his Prairie School style, it is architecturally, historically and internationally significant. Its highlights include original art glass and skylights as well as its location across the street from Mason City’s beautiful Central Park.
 

The hotel adjoins Wright’s City National Bank building. They share a unified design with beige brick, prominent sandstone stylobate and trim, ornamental columns and colored tiles that abstractly echo the trees in the park. Today, Wright’s City National Bank and Historic Park Inn Hotel are the pride of the community thanks to the monumental efforts of Wright on the Park, the non-profit citizen’s organization that was formed in 2005. Being a National Historic site, it was superbly restored and sensitively repurposed with modern amenities and re-opened to the public in 2011 for conventions, overnight guests, dining and tours. Book your room and enjoy nearby attractions like the MacNider Art Museum, the Mason City Public Library and Meredith Willson’s Music Man Square.

One-Day FLW Iowa Tour

The distance between Mason City and Cedar Rock State Park is approximately 120 miles or a two-hour drive. If driving from the east, your tour can begin at the Walter Estate in Cedar Rock State Park and then travel northward to Mason City. If traveling from the north or west, the inverse would make more sense.
 

Tourism Connections in Neighboring Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota

Wisconsin: Some of the state’s most famous FLW tourism sites include the SC Johnson Administration building and Jacob House. The most paramount is the UNESCO World Heritage Site Taliesin Preservation, located in Spring Green (a two-hour drive or 130 miles away from the Walter estate in Cedar Rock State Park). Wright lived and worked at Taliesin for 50 years. The property is regarded as Wright's "self-portrait" and worthy of an entire day.
 

Illinois: The Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy’s northern Illinois itinerary features many sites located in Chicago/Oak Park, including FLW Home and Studio, Unity Temple, Robie House and the Rookery building. The Frank Lloyd Wright Trust offers clustered tours of many Frank Lloyd Wright sites in Chicago/Oak Park. The distance between the Chicago/Oak Park sites and Cedar Rock State Park is approximately 240 miles or 4.5 hours. However, in the middle of this distance is the Laurent House in Rockford (IL), the only FLW-designed house that accommodates people who use wheelchairs. A Southern Illinois/St. Louis itinerary includes the Dana-Thomas House and Lawrence Memorial Library in Springfield and the Kraus House in St. Louis’ Ebsworth Park.
 

Minnesota: The Wiley House is located in Minneapolis, along with the Francis and Mary Little House II Hallway Reconstruction in the Minneapolis Institute of Art. The distance between Minneapolis and Mason City is approximately 137 miles or slightly longer than two hours. The only standing FLW-designed service station is also located in Cloquet (MN).
 

FLW Sites Outside the Midwest

FLW buildings in the United States and throughout the world have been preserved as tourist attractions. In the U.S., his most famous sites outside the Midwest are:

• Taliesin West (Scottdale, AR)
• Fallingwater (Mill Run, PA)
• Guggenheim Museum (New York)