Frank Lloyd Wright in Mason City

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), widely regarded as America’s greatest architect, brought his revolutionary Prairie School design to Mason City, Iowa, leaving a lasting impact on the community’s architectural legacy. Wright’s journey to Mason City began when J.E.E. Markley, a local community leader impressed by Wright’s work at Hillside School in Wisconsin, selected him to design a new bank and hotel. This project resulted in the Historic Park Inn Hotel (1909) and the City National Bank (1910)—both signature examples of Wright’s architectural genius.

During his time in Mason City, Wright also designed the Stockman House (1908), his only Prairie School-style residence in Iowa. Built for Dr. G.C. Stockman, the home showcases Wright’s vision for functional, flowing spaces with open living areas and integrated design elements that blurred the lines between interior and exterior. The Stockman House plan, adapted from a middle-class housing design Wright featured in Ladies' Home Journal, remains a prime example of his ability to design homes for practicality and beauty.

The Historic Park Inn Hotel, Wright’s last remaining hotel and a prototype for Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel, stands as a monument to his forward-thinking architecture. Today, it draws visitors from across the world who wish to experience Wright’s lasting impact firsthand. The City National Bank, considered one of the finest banks designed by Wright, complements this legacy with its innovative design and historical significance.

Wright’s influence extended beyond his own projects in Mason City. His ideas inspired architects such as Walter Burley Griffin and Barry Byrne, who designed homes in the nearby Rock Crest–Rock Glen Historic District. This district, completed in 1912, is the largest cluster of Prairie School homes unified by a natural setting in the United States, further cementing Mason City as a hub for architectural innovation.

Wright’s architectural hallmarks—low-pitched, overhanging roofs, horizontal lines, bands of windows, and open, flowing interiors—are embodied in the buildings he designed in Mason City. The Stockman House, Historic Park Inn Hotel, and City National Bank not only exemplify his groundbreaking Prairie School style but also represent key milestones in his prolific career. Visitors today can explore this rich legacy through guided tours and historic preservation efforts that celebrate Wright’s genius and the architectural treasures he left behind in Mason City.

• 1867 Frank Lloyd Wright was born to Anna Lloyd Jones and William Wright in Richland Center, Wisconsin, their eldest son.
• 1871 Birth of Marion Mahoney.
• 1876 Birth year of Walter Burley Griffin and William Drummond.
• 1883 Birth of Barry Byrne.
• 1886 Frank Lloyd Wright attended the Engineering school of the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
• 1887 Wright was employed as a draftsman by Lyman Silsbee, a skilled architect designing in the American Shingle Style in Chicago.
• 1887 Wright joined the firm of Adler & Sullivan as a draftsman for Louis Sullivan, who had just brought Chicago’s striking new innovation, the skyscraper, to a mature art form.
• 1889 Wright designed and built his home in Oak Park, IL helped by a loan from Louis Sullivan.
• 1893 Wright was fired by Louis Sullivan for “moonlighting”. Began independent work at Steinway Hall and in his home. Built a home studio in Oak Park, IL in 1895.
• 1894 Wright designed the Winslow house for his friend, William Winslow, the first foretaste of the Prairie house yet to be.
• 1895 Marion Mahoney, the second woman to graduate in architecture from MIT and the first woman licensed to practice architecture in Illinois, joined Wright in the Oak Park Studio as his draftsman.
• 1901 Griffin joined Wright in the Oak Park Studio — the only architect in the studio permitted to do independent commissions. By 1905 Griffin had become office manager and project director for Wright.
• 1901 Griffin designed the split-level William H. Emery house in Elmhurst, IL.
• 1902 Wright designed the Ward Willets house in Highland Park, IL his first “Prairie” house.
• 1902 Barry Byrne entered the Oak Park Studio as an apprentice.
• 1902 Hillside School at Spring Green, Wisconsin designed by Wright for his mother’s sisters.
• 1903 Wright designed the Larkin mail-order office building in Buffalo.
• 1903 Griffin designed the Robbie Lamp house in Madison, the first small Prairie house with the “L” floor plan.
• 1904-08 Wright designed the Unity Temple in Oak Park of cast concrete.
• 1905 Wright and Griffin part company on unfriendly terms. Griffin began independent practice in Chicago in Steinway Hall.
• 1906 Wright designed the Robie House in Chicago.
• 1907 Wright’s design for “A Fireproof House for $5,000” was published in a “Ladies Home Journal”.
• 1908 Wright designed the Meyer May house in Grand Rapids Michigan.
• 1908 Wright designed & built the Stockman house in Mason City, IA, the third of his “Concrete House Cousins” (after Tan I Deri at Spring Green and the Stephen M. B. Hunt house in La Grange).
• 1909 Wright designed the Park Inn Hotel and City National Bank in Mason City, IA.
• 1909 Wright elopes to Europe with Mamah Cheney for “spiritual hegira”. He completed work on drawings for the German “Wasmuth Edition” of his work while there.
• 1910 William Drummond took over supervision of the construction of the Park Inn Hotel – City National Bank project in Mason City. During that year designed the Curtis Yelland house on River Heights Drive. Park Inn Hotel and City National Bank project was completed in the same year.
• 1910 Marion Mahoney took over the design and construction of two houses at Millikin Place, Decatur, and the supervision of one designed by Wright. These are, respectively, the Robert Mueller and Adolph Mueller houses and the Irving house. She hired Griffin to do landscape design for Millikin Place.
• 1911 Marion Mahony and Walter Burley Griffin are married. At about the same time, Griffin began the planning of what was to be his Rock Glen – Rock Crest residential development in Mason City, IA.
• 1912 Griffin, with the help of Marion’s renderings, won the international competition to design a city plan for Canberra, to be the new capital of Australia.
• 1912 The Arthur Rule house and the Harry Page house were designed by Griffin and completed.
• 1912-14 The Joshua Melson and James E. Blythe houses were designed by Griffin and completed.
• 1913 Griffin and party set sail for Australia. He left his practice in the hands of Barry Byrne, formerly a Wright apprentice from 1902-1908. By 1913 Byrne was under the influence of Irving Gill.
• 1914 Wright completed Midway Gardens.
• 1914 Wright’s wife, Mamah Cheney, her three children, a Wright draftsman,  and Taliesin were killed in a fire set by a deranged hired hand at Wright’s bungalow in Spring Green, WI.
• 1914-16 Completion of Samuel Davis Drake house on Rock Crest by Einar Broaten, apparently after the client unsuccessfully requested the client to have Griffin design his house.
• 1914-15 Griffin’s Sam Schneider house in Rock Glen was completed under the supervision of Barry Byrne, who later added two upstairs sleeping porches.
• 1914-19 Wright designed the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, Japan.
• 1915 Griffin’s Hugh Gilmore House, in the Rock Glen area in Mason City, IA, was built for James Blythe under the supervision of Barry Byrne. Byrne probably modified the original design.
• 1917 Barry Byrne completed his E. V Franke house in Rock Glen district in Mason City, IA.
• 1917 Hollyhock house built on Hollywood Boulevard for Aline Barnsdall by Wright. A transitional design between Prairie School and the concrete blockhouses.
• 1919-22 Construction of the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, Japan.
• 1933 Wright’s Malcolm E. Willey house, in Minneapolis, a transition between Taliesin I and the first Usonian house.
• 1935 Wright’s Falling Water – a concrete house with multiple cantilever balconies built over a waterfall on Bear Run Creek in Pennsylvania. Wright’s very effective answer to the International Style, and, arguably, his most famous house.
• 1935 Griffin traveled to Lucknow, India, where he reinvented his architectural style to conform to Indian needs.
• 1936 The Jacobs house, Madison, Wisconsin, Wright’s first Usonian house.
• 1936 Wright’s Johnson Wax Administration Building, Racine, WI.
• 1937 Death of Walter Burley Griffin in India from peritonitis following a fall from scaffolding at a building site.
• 1945 Lowell and Agnes Walter house, Cedar Rock on the Wapsipinnicon River in Quasqueton, Iowa, one of Wright’s signature houses.
• 1946 Death of William Drummond.
• 1952 Wright’s Price Towers, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, a mini-skyscraper with four apartments on each floor, each cantilevered out from a central service column.
• 1956 Paul and Ida Trier house, Johnston, Iowa. One of Wright’s Iowa USOnian houses.
• 1956 Wright designed the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City, an art museum in a circular snail-shell design providing a continuous, sky-lit circular ramp for the display of objects of Modern Art.
• 1956 Three Marshall Erdman prefab house plans designed by Wright. Marshall Erdman is the same firm that designed the Mason City Clinic in a Neo-Prairie School style.
• 1957 Wright’s Marin County Civic Center.
• 1959 Death of Frank Lloyd Wright.
• 1959 Usonian House in Rock Glen designed by Curtis Besinger for Tom MacNider. Besinger had been a Taliesin apprentice at the time the concept of the Usonian house was being developed. Besinger was chair of the University of Kansas Department of Architecture when he did this design.
• 1962 Death of Marion Mahoney in America.
• 1967 Death of Barry Byrne.
• 1972 The Park Inn Hotel in Mason City is closed. The building is in major disrepair.
• 1992 The Frank Lloyd Wright Stockman House is added to the National Register for Historic Places. The house is opened to the public upon completion of the restoration.
• 1997 Monona Terrace, built almost 60 years after Wright first proposed the plan for its site leading up from Lake Monona to the State Capitol at the summit of a short hill. The number of Wright’s buildings built posthumously gives ample evidence of his continuing popularity in our land.
• 2002 Avenue of the Arts Bridge, connecting the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts with the Minneapolis Convention Center. Designed after a previous Broad Acre City bridge design by Wright.
• 2005 A group of Mason City preservationists formed the Wright on the Park organization and launched a campaign to restore the Park Inn Hotel to its former glory.
• 2010 The new Mason City Architectural Interpretive Center opens to the public. The building, which contains an auditorium and gallery space, was built using a Prairie School design by Walter Burley Griffin.
• 2011 The Historic Park Inn hotel reopens after a $20 million restoration. Reunited with the Historic Park Inn, the City National Bank Building is now a hotel ballroom.