Tag Archives: mason city iowa

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.

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.