Category Archives: Iowa

October 24, 2010 · 6:26 pm

Mason City and Frank Lloyd Wright

We went up to Mason City yesterday to check out the work being done to restore the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed hotel there and while there’s a lot of work still to be done, it’s a great looking building and should be a gem if restored well. The hotel and adjoining bank – are scheduled to reopen on June 30, 2011 although I’m told guests probably won’t be able to stay there until later in the summer. The bank side looks far from done – and the ground floor has been completely gutted. We couldn’t see the hotel side as well (construction of the building and the streets its on restricted our access and view) but looks like it’s more intact.  It will be the only remaining of six FLW-designed hotels in operation!

We also visited the FLW-designed Stockman House – took an informative tour for $5 a piece. Well worth a visit- it’s the first FLW Prairie Style house in Iowa and was saved from the brink of destruction back in 1993. We also toured the Rock Glen/Rock Crest neighborhood – with its Prairie Style homes by a FLW contemporary. And of course we had to stop at Birdsall’s, the old ice cream store on Federal Street that looks pretty much like it did decades ago (and has very good malts and sundaes.) Nearby Borealis looked like a good place too – a little cafe.

 

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October 17, 2010 · 2:56 pm

The Frank Lloyd Wright house in northeast Iowa

Not long ago, D and I toured Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous Robie House near the University of Chicago on the south side.  The tour cost $15 and we were in a group of maybe 10 people. The house was mid-renovation and had little furniture. I couldn’t help compare this to my visit a few years earlier with my friend Francine, who was visiting from London,  to Wright’s not-as-famous-or-grand house, Cedar Rock, near the town of Quasqueton.

At Cedar Rock, Francine and I paid a very modest suggested donation – a couple of bucks as I recall – then hopped on a little cart that took us down to the house on the river. We – and only we – took a guided tour of the building, which was fully furnished. We were astonished to have the whole place to ourselves.

Now comes word that the trust fund that enabled these tours has run dry and the DNR has assumed most of the financial responsibilty. Staff has been cut, visitor hours and tour times have been reduced. Perhaps they should charge more for admission (currently, a “$5 donation is suggested) – which seems only fair. The home is open Memorial Day through Oct. 21, Thursday – Sunday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. with hourly tours.

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October 15, 2010 · 10:08 pm

Best Burger in Iowa City?

A writer for Edible Iowa magazine says the best burger in Iowa City can be found at Short’s Burgers and Shine on Clinton Street, made with local beef and home-baked bun and apparently there’s a $6 Burger special on Monday nights. Don’t forget the hand-cut fries and the Iowa-brewed beer including the venerable Amana Colonies’ Millstream, as well as Court Avenue Black hawk Stout, Old Man River Helles and Dunkel, and Peace Tree Hop Wrangler (I recently tried a Peace Tree sweet corn brew.) Sutliff Cider also gets a nod.

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October 14, 2010 · 10:52 pm

changes in Maquoketa Iowa

Speaking of Maquoketa – and I was at least blogging recently about one of Iowa’s hardest towns to spell –  there is news that this eastern Iowa city’s Banowetz Antiques, one of the best antique dealers in the state, is downsizing so the owners can have more free time. Certainly understandable.  Apparently they’ll still operate their lovely B&B in town, the Squiers Manor, in an 1882 brick Queen Anne-style manse, which is full of their antiques. (And it is Squiers not Squires – although it’s fit for a squire.  It’s named after a man name J.E. Squiers.) I’ll never forget how tolerant they were when we brought a baby with us during one stay.

 

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October 13, 2010 · 11:13 pm

Grant Wood Scenic Byway …in northeast Iowa

Now that we have a fuller picture of Iowa painter Grant Wood thanks to a new biography (for details see my earlier post on the topic), perhaps its time to visit the Grant Wood Scenic Byway in northeast Iowa. Stone City inspired Woods landscape of the same name. Anamosa is Wood’s birthplace and home to the Grant Wood Art Gallery (as well as the National Motorcycle Museum, of all things, and one of the prettiest prisons – no joke – around: The Anamosa State Penitentiary, which has an interesting history museum where you can learn about the serial killer John Wayne Gacy who resided there.)

The DM Register recommends traveling on Highway 64 east from Anamosa to Maquoketa (visit Banowitz Antiques and stay the Squires Inn, owned by the Banowitzes) and then Highway 62 to Bellevue…where you can stay at Potter’s Mill B&B (I was there years ago when it was a restaurant); the Old city Hall Gallery; and Bluff Lake Catfish Farm (a restaurant which began as a place where people could catch fish they caught nearby in two lakes.)

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October 11, 2010 · 11:15 pm

Madison County, Iowa – beyond the bridges

The DM register awhile back offered some suggestions for a road trip in Winterset, beyond visiting the famous covered bridges of Madison County so here they be:

– Heavenly Habitat Bed and Breakfast – the name apparently stems from its former life as a Lutheran church. There’s two rooms available plus a shop selling shabby chic antiques. It’s at 218 S. Ave.

– Fons and Porter Quilt supply – run by two women who have a magazine, mail-order biz and quilting show on Iowa Public TV. 54 Court St.

– Rudy’s – a western-themed restaurant on, where else, John Wayne Drive (an homage to Winterset’s famous native son.). offers chicken and noodles, meatloaf, homemade pie and the like. (Could it have a better small town ambiance than the Northside Cafe, of “Bridges of Madison County” movie fame?)

I am still trying to remember the name of a business that sells antiques and old farm stuff every once in awhile in a barn somewhere in Madison County. If anyone out there can recall the name or details, please help me out!

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October 5, 2010 · 10:36 pm

The real Grant Wood? And another way of looking at his Iowa landscapes…

There’s a new biography out about famous American (and Iowan) painter Grant Wood (R. Tripp Evans’s “Grant Wood: A Life”) and a review in the NYTimes reports it doesn’t paint the typical portrait of Grant as the “simple, homespun, rustic Iowan he may have seemed to be.” And it questions Midwest travel marketing that welcomes people to “Grant Wood Country” and Wood’s vision “of the values that made this country great!”

Instead, the book reportedly argues that Grant and his work have another side – that’s more shall we say eccentric or contrarian even sensual and sly.  Those rolling hills of Anamosa County depicted in his famous painting “Stone City?” – the author says they unmistakably refer to rounded mens’ buttocks (Grant, while married to a woman, was homosexual we’re told) and I won’t even mention what a field of sprouting cornstalks represents.  Go ahead, take a guess.

It does have me wondering more about the Grant Wood poster we have hanging over our bed that shows three dour old Daughters of the American Revolution holding tea cups. I’ve always found it amusing but now could it mean something else? See: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/books/04book.html?scp=1&sq=Grant%20Wood&st=cse

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October 1, 2010 · 6:45 pm

Three great fall drives – one obvious; two not

Couldn’t help but be amused by three perfect fall drives recommended by People Magazine. I’ve been on all three – which is not what many could claim, I’d guess. The first is a no-brainer: Highway 1, must-see stop: Big Sur. The second isa drive along the Mississippi River, with a must-see stop : Dubuque, Iowa, which is one of my favorite cities in Iowa (and this is a drive I wrote about for the New York Times travel section several years ago.) The third drive was even more of a surprise: Highway 50 through the middle of the country. Must-see stop: Dodge City, Ks.  (With all due respect to my in-laws who live in and around Dodge, I don’t buy this one…)

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September 22, 2010 · 8:03 pm

cedar rapids eating options

You never know when fate might bring you to Cedar Rapids – and you’re hungry when you arrive – so here are a few restaurant options I found in the latest Edible Iowa magazine:

– La Salsita, 700 1st Ave. 319-365-9733 (Mexican)

– Gyro Hut, 1455 Mount Vernon Rd., 319-364-1959 (fully loaded gyros)

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September 7, 2010 · 10:45 pm

A good bike ride in Des Moines

We made a nice new loop on our bike ride Monday – starting on the Urbandale trail then heading north on the newly finished trestle-to-trestle trail into Johnston, which  petered out too early at an ice cream stand – but then we cut through some housing developments and rode on too-busy NW 62nd street to hook up to the Neal Smith trail which we took to the Butterfly Garden at Saylorville  Lake (some of it on recently improved trail), then headed back on the Neal Smith trail to the bridge that connects back to MLK Blvd. and the Urbandale trail.

A little improvisational but it worked and was a fun interesting ride.

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