This past July we traveled to Mason City, Iowa to stay in the stunning Historic Park Inn Hotel, the second in our "Following Frank" road trips.

Built in 1910 for two Mason City attorneys, the Park Inn Hotel is a classic example of Prairie School Architecture. It is the last remaining hotel of the six designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and served as the prototype for his world famous Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, which no longer stands.

During 2010 - 2011, the Historic Park Inn underwent a 20 million dollar renovation and re-opened in August 2011. One month short of its one-year anniversary, we found ourselves staying in one of the available 27 rooms.(Originally there were 43 rooms, but their 10 x 10 ft size would be unacceptable today.)

We were enchanted from the moment we stepped into the lobby. As if in response to our delight, we were immediately upgraded to larger rooms. Actually, we found out why later: it was because we were there on a Monday and they weren't fully booked. In the meantime, we discovered our room had a Jacuzzi so we were happy!

Exploring this gem, we climbed the stairway to the mezzanine balcony overlooking the lobby and dining room. Impressive is the Skylight Room with its fully restored sky-lit art glass ceiling. There is a Ladies Parlor with art-glass French Doors while the former gentlemen's lounge has adjoining wine tasting and billiards' rooms. The attached City National Bank building now serves as the hotel's 8,000 sq. ft. ballroom and conference center.

While generally regarded as America's greatest architect, Frank Lloyd Wright's career was initially determined by his mother, Anna Lloyd Jones, a schoolteacher with a dominating personality. After briefly attending the engineering department of the University of Wisconsin in nearby Madison, he ventured to Chicago in 1877 to begin work in the office of the man who became his mentor, Louis Sullivan. Sullivan is widely considered America's first truly modern architect.

Wright coined the term Organic Architecture to describe his approach to architectural design - striving to integrate space into a unified whole. It derived from Sullivan's belief that "form follows function." Wright argued, "Form and function are one." In 1895, Wright set up a studio in Oak Park where he and other young Chicago architects developed a coherent new design process - the  "Prairie Style." 

Prairie style architecture is usually marked by its integration with the surrounding landscape, horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad eaves, windows assembled in horizontal bands, solid construction, and restraint in the use of decoration. Horizontal lines were intended to unify the structure with the native, open, undeveloped, horizontal prairie landscape of the Midwest.

The Prairie School was heavily influenced by the Transcendentalist philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson - better homes would create better people, very much a Feng Shui concept.

A small group of prominent citizens in Mason City, Iowa interested in building a new bank and an up-scale hotel, selected Wright as their architect. The City National Bank and Park Inn Hotel opened to the public in 1910. Unfortunately, a mere ten years later, during the financial crisis of the 1920s, the bank failed and the hotel's style went out of vogue. While the bank section of the building survived by becoming retail space, the hotel declined into a third-rate establishment, its leaking skylight, the art-glass panels and mezzanine all removed. By the end of the 1970s the hotel's sole residents were vagrant pigeons.

This local treasure would have been lost forever, had it not been for a group of dedicated and persistent local citizens who, in 2005, formed Wright on the Park, Inc. (WOTP) and achieved IRS recognition as a non-profit organization. WOTP undertook The Park Inn Hotel's restoration. And here we were, a century later, staying in the Historic Park Inn Hotel, an artistic memorial to one of the country's greatest architects!

Our desk clerk and self-proclaimed hotel "tour guide" shared stories about some of the amazing discoveries that surfaced during renovation.  A private home, once belonging to one of the original developers/owners of the hotel, held the missing art-glass panels from the skylight.  Much of the grillwork from the bank's clerestory windows was serving as a fence at a Clear Lake, Iowa home.  All of these were generously returned in support of the restoration.

We enjoyed cocktails in the former Gentleman's Lounge but were disappointed to learn the hotel's 5-Star restaurant is closed on Mondays. But we loved our luxurious room with its Jacuzzi and wished, in hindsight, we had planned to stay longer, especially to try the restaurant.

The next day found us eager to visit the Stockman House, the first and only Prairie School style house designed in Iowa. While in Mason City developing the bank and hotel, Wright was commissioned to design a residential home for the Dr. G.C. Stockman family. Completed in 1908, the Stockman house represents the first time Wright achieved his important revolutionary goals in a smaller, middle class home.

The plan that Dr. Stockman commissioned was an adaptation and variation of a $5,000 fireproof home designed by Wright that appeared in the April 1907 issue of "Ladies Home Journal". Created to address the housing needs of the middle class, the plan showed a four-bedroom house in which the largest possible living space was realized by allowing living room, dining room and veranda to flow together in a more open concept. Revolutionary at that time! Unfortunately, we discovered the Stockman house closed for touring; it was Tuesday in Mason City!  But it was well worth the walk-around!

City planners envisioned the potential value of the Park Inn Hotel and bank restoration as both a tourist attraction and a vehicle for revitalizing the city's downtown. This will be increasingly realized as more tourists visit Mason City for its amazing architectural treasures. In order to achieve that, however, its merchants must realize their city can't be in "shut down mode" for three to four days out of the week. In the meantime, we'll be sure to return on a Wednesday or Thursday.

"A House?  Walls cut by doors and windows! Yet, its empty space makes it useful."

This partial quote is displayed in the auditorium at the Taliesin West architectural design school located north of Scottsdale, Arizona. It is taken from the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu (late 4th century BC), the oldest work  identified with the Chinese school called Taoism.

As evidenced by his works, Frank Lloyd Wright was very much influenced by Asian architectural design features. But does that mean he incorporated Feng Shui tenets in his buildings? While he lived long before Feng Shui became known in the United States, some say Wright's buildings suggest Feng Shui ideas.

Feng Shui is very much about design and placement and refers to living in balance with nature. For the first time, an American architect seemed to understand this concept and apply it in his own way.

While my exposure to Frank Lloyd Wright buildings remains limited, research suggests a connection to Feng Shui principles is there (see my August newsletter). Even if Wright's designs didn't always incorporate the tenets Feng Shui as practitioners would today when advising clients who are building, remodeling or redecorating, the harmonic quality of his philosophy is evocative of modern practice.

Asian influence is evident in his characteristically-tiered overhanging rooflines, for example, but that doesn't compensate for his tendency to build homes with hidden front doors, ignoring a basic aspect of Feng Shui: the power and critical importance of the entryway. Referred to as the "mouth of Chi," the entryway is believed to be where all opportunity and overall well-being come in, thus it should never be hidden!

According to Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., in Fallingwater: A Frank Lloyd Wright Country House, "To Wright, architecture was a great inclusive agency through which humankind adapted the environment to human needs and, reciprocally, attuned human life to its cosmos; amid continual changes architecture could keep human life more natural and nature more humane." In Feng Shui, as with Wright, it is of utmost importance to live in balance and harmony with nature.

I suspect debate will continue among practitioners of Feng Shui about whether or not Wright's buildings suggest Feng Shui ideas, but to quote Alex Stark, a graduate of the Yale University School of Architecture and a Feng Shui practitioner himself, "Wright clearly had an intuitive sense of the energies of nature, which are integral to Feng Shui. He wasn't exposed to it as a practice, but Feng Shui is inherent in all of oriental art and architecture, which he studied."

My conclusion? At the very least, Wright understood and respected the most basic principles upon which the practice of Feng Shui is grounded. Perhaps this is why I, like many others, continue to be drawn to his architecture.

Many blessings,

Hinda Abrahamson

"A mind that is stretched to a new idea never returns to its original dimensions." 

 Oliver Wendell Holmes

Certified in Western Feng Shui, Traditional Compass Feng Shui and Fashion Feng Shui, Hinda is a founding member and President of the Feng Shui Institute. Through her practice, Intentional Spaces, she helps you explore ways to create a balanced and harmonious environment that reflects your individual personality, life style and personal goals.

 For residential and business consultations, speaking engagements, or customizing a workshop for your group, contact Hinda at (952) 938-0894 or email:

Hinda Abrahamson 

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 when you see the world." 

Each of these, in its own way, can

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as we navigate life's journey.

I hope you encounter a new idea, a new resource or a new viewpoint. Perhaps some small insight will answer an unspoken question, provide a helpful tip, motivate or inspire you,

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