Hotel · Mason City, Iowa · Built 1909–1910
Historic Park Inn Hotel
Listed on the National Register as Park Inn Hotel
Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie School hotel of 1909–10 on Mason City's Central Park, built with the adjoining City National Bank for two local lawyers; the only one of his six hotels left standing, restored in 2011.
History
Mason City in 1907 was a prosperous farm-market town, and two law partners, James E. Blythe and J. E. E. Markley, wanted a building that would outclass a new eight-story bank going up across the corner. They hired Frank Lloyd Wright, then known mainly for Chicago-area houses, and he gave them a combined commission: a bank with offices above on the south, their own law offices in the narrow middle, and a hotel of about forty rooms on the north facing the park, with shops at street level. Wright's drawings date from December 1908 and work began on April 1, 1909. When Wright left for Europe that October, William Drummond of the Oak Park studio took over supervision. The law office opened on August 29, 1910, and the hotel and bank had their gala opening on September 10.
The building cost too much to pay its way. The hotel rarely turned a profit, and when the 250-room Hotel Eadmar opened nearby in the early 1920s the Park Inn went bankrupt; it closed in 1925, the same year the bank failed. The two halves were sold separately in 1926. The hotel's upper floors became cheap apartments, while shops and, briefly in the 1970s, a strip club used the ground floor. The building was emptied in 1972, the year of its National Register listing, and stood vacant for a quarter century. The nonprofit Wright on the Park bought it, reunited it with the bank, and completed a full restoration in September 2011.
“In spite of deterioration and neon signs which conceal much of the facade, the Park Inn Hotel retains the original design by Wright to a considerable extent.”
Architecture
The hotel is faced mainly in long, thin Roman brick with terra-cotta trim, and its broad flat roof slabs project far beyond the walls in the horizontal manner of Wright's Prairie houses. Wright believed each function should show on the outside, so the hotel and bank, built as one design, look different. Shops with large windows flanked the State Street entrances, and a skylit cafe at the back forced a U-shaped plan on the floors above. On the second floor the law offices lay east and guest rooms west, joined over the entrance by a loggia looking onto Central Park; the third floor held more rooms around the deep U. The restoration rebuilt the art-glass skylights and cleaned the facade of later neon signs.
What to look for
- Deep overhanging roof slabs over Roman-brick walls
- The second-floor loggia facing Central Park
- Art-glass skylights over the former cafe
- The adjoining City National Bank, designed with the hotel
Setting
The hotel faces north across Central Park on West State Street in downtown Mason City. The City National Bank, its twin, adjoins it on the west corner, now part of the hotel. A few blocks away the Rock Crest–Rock Glen district along Willow Creek holds a planned group of Prairie School houses by Wright's circle, and Wright's own Stockman House is also in town.
Timeline
- 1907Blythe and Markley commission Frank Lloyd Wright
- 1909Construction begins on April 1
- 1910Hotel and bank open on September 10
- 1925Hotel closes after bankruptcy
- 1972Last tenants leave; listed on the National Register
- 2011Restoration completed in September
Where sources differ
- Wikipedia gives the hotel both 42 and 43 rooms; the nomination counts about fourteen guest rooms on the second floor and about twenty-four on the third.
- The nomination says the Park Inn influenced Wright's Imperial Hotel in Tokyo; how directly is a matter of interpretation.
- The exact National Register listing date is not legible in the nomination.
