Category Archives: 2) Frequent Destinations

Finally, after over 20 years effort, millions of dollars, and a massive painstaking renovation, the world’s last remaining hotel designed by Frank Lloyd Wright is scheduled to reopen  in Mason City, Iowa in early September (with a soft opening in July, word has it).  No word yet on how many rooms or what it will cost to stay at what will be known as “The Historic Park Inn Hotel” (first opened in 1910).

The hotel is one of several architecture-related reasons to visit this northern Iowa city, which has worked hard to preserve and promote its Prairie School buildings. A new Architectural Interpretive Center formally opens in May. Next door to the center is  The Wright-designed Stockman House – which I toured last fall and is well worth a visit. Tour season  begins in May, I believe. And there are walking tours of all the other Prairie School homes in the area.

Here’s more details:

• The Historic Park Inn Hotel – first opened in 1910 – will reopen as a boutique hotel. A celebration is being planned for Sept. 6-11 (the week marks the 101th anniversary of  the hotel’s original opening).

• The long effort to revive the hotel cost about $18.5 million project,  spanned three different owners of the property, most recently a citizens group that bought the building for $1 from the city after the hotel got no takers on eBay.
• First opened with an adjoining Wright-designed bank, the hotel (one of six designed by Wright) started deteriorating in the 1920s and closed in 1972. It fell into further disrepair after being converted into apartments and small businesses.
• Mason City is well-known to architecture enthusiasts for its Rock Glen/Rock Crest National Historic District, the largest grouping of Prairie School homes unified by a common natural setting in the U.S.