It is the mission of Wright on the Park, Inc. to own, preserve, maintain and educate the public about The Historic Park Inn Hotel designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
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HistoryTHE PARK INN HOTEL & CITY NATIONAL BANK BUILDING: A BRIEF HISTORY
In 1907, when James E. Blythe and J. E. E. Markley, the two partners
of a prominent Mason City law firm were looking for an architect to
compete in quality with the eight-story bank building that would be built across the corner by a competing bank, they didn't hesitate to give the commission to
Frank Lloyd Wright. He was the young architect who was building a reputation in the Chicago area, and Markley's experience of Wright was first hand. His two daughters were students at the Hillside Home School in Spring Green, Wisconsin where the older daughter had matriculated in 1902, the year its new school building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright had been completed.
For them Wright would build a complex, multi-purpose building that would give multiple income streams. Their office would be on the second floor of the building's narrower central waist and the hotel's east wing, surrounded on the south by a two-story banking room with rental office space above and, on the north, by a 42-room hotel, with basement shops beneath the Bank and Hotel. Wright managed to pack all these functions into an aesthetically well-integrated building that architecturally would be the bridge between Wright's Prairie School period and his Midway Gardens and the Imperial Hotel to follow.
Wright's drawings of the bank and hotel are dated from as early as December 17, 1908. Construction was begun on the first of April, 1909, with supervision by Wright until his departure for Europe in late October of that year. At that time William Drummond from Wright's Oak park Studio took over the supervision of its construction and designed a nearby Prairie style home during his visits.
The law office of developer-owners Blythe and Markley was open for business on August 29, 1010, with the gala opening of the entire structure September 10 of that year. Wright returned to the Midwest from his year in Europe
in October, 1910.
By contemporary Iowa standards the Park Inn Hotel was very up-to-date with beautiful public spaces including its dining room with a sky-lit stained glass ceiling and a mezzanine balcony between it and the front lobby. The balcony looked down into both the lobby and dining area. A second floor ladies parlor opened through a loggia of stained-glass French doors onto a balcony that cantilevered over the sidewalk, with a wonderful view of Central park across the street. The basement men's lounge below the lobby was well lit by eight-foot plate glass windows below sidewalk level, protected from the sidewalk by concrete curbs and a brass rail.
The hotel had forty-two rooms that were small by our present standards. Most of the rooms had a shared bath between pairs of rooms. There were no private baths. Nevertheless, in 1910, the Park Inn Hotel was the symbol of upscale elegance in our small industrial city that was growing by leaps and bounds in population and across its entire economy. Industrially, it was a microcosm of our nation's industrial expansion in the early 20th century.
Unfortunately for the Park Inn Hotel, Mason City's industrial expansion led
in 1922 to the completion of an eight-story 250-room hotel with a
large restaurant, ballroom and other upscale facilities. Its large rooms had
private baths - facilities equal to the best the state could offer. The Park Inn
Hotel was no longer the number one hotel in town and began a gradual decline ending with its closure in 1972.
In 1922, after the farm crisis of 1920, the City National Bank closed in its 1910 location and was merged with another local bank. By 1925, four of the five Mason City banks present in 1920 had failed. The City National Bank building was sold separately in 1926 and underwent an unsympathetic remodeling into a new commercial use in that year.
HOW WRIGHT AND THE PRAIRIE SCHOOL CAME TO MASON CITY
Mason City was the first city in the State of Iowa to have a building by
Frank Lloyd Wright, but it came about on a visit by Wright to design his Park Inn Hotel - City National Bank building completed two years later. It was another forty-one years before the next Iowa client commissioned Wright to build a home. How this first house came about involves an interesting story.
The wife of J. E. E. Markley, one of the two partners of a prominent
Mason City law firm was an ardent Unitarian and looked forward to the one
or two occasions each year when an inspiring Unitarian preacher from Chicago would come to Mason City to preach. The man's name was Jenkin Lloyd Jones, and two of his sisters ran a progressive school in Spring Green, Wisconsin, following the educational principles of John Dewey.
It was natural that the Markley's would like to have their two daughters
educated by sisters of this wonderful man who Frank Lloyd Wright knew as his "Uncle Jenk". They could put their daughters on the milwaukee Railroad train as it passed through Mason City bound for Chicago and have them taken off in Spring Green. The first of the Markely daughters began high school there in 1902, the year the building Wright built for his two spinster aunt's "Hillside Home School" first opened. It was a spectacular limestone building in the "Priaire Style" and made a deep impression on Marion, their first daughter to matriculate there, and on her parents.
In 1907, when the two law partners were looking for an architect to compete in quality with the eight-story bank building that would be built across the corner by a competing bank, they didn't hesitate to give the commission to Frank Lloyd Wright, the young architect who was ubilding a reputation in the Chicago area. For them he would build a complex, multi-purpose building that would give them multiple income streams. Their office would be on the second floor of its central waist surrounded on the east by a two-story banking room with rental office space above and a 42-room hotel on the west with basement shops beneath the two major building segments. He managed to pack all these functions into an aesthetically well-integrated building that architecturally would be the bridge between the Prairie School and Midway Gardens and the Tokyo Imperial Hotel to follow.
It was on one of his trips to Mason City while planning his bank and hotel,
that Dr. G. C. Stockman and his artist wife Eleanor contracted with Wright
to build a home for them, the third elaboration on the floor plan of his design
for a "fire-proof" house that appeared in a 1907 Ladies Home Journal. The room arrangement of that middle-class house was with four bedrooms above
and a living room and dining room flowing together around a central fireplace,
each having equal access to a private veranda to make one large living space. Completed in 1908 during his planning of the Park Inn Hotel, this was Wright's first building in Iowa.
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