10/23/2026
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Celebrating Wright at 159
To commemorate Mr. Wright's special day, we will begin sharing the first 159 realized projects from the Drawing Wright ~ The Tapestry of Projects series. These projects will be presented over the course of the next 159 days. These projects will be shared in the same sequence as they appear on the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives project list. Each post will feature a brief write-up on the project along with the accompanying drawings.
The Wright Tapestry of Projects represent a 40-year personal journey through the archives of Frank Lloyd Wright, encompassing more than 1,100 projects drawn, over 1,400 individual structures documented, and totaling more than 6,800 hand-drawn illustrations.
Frank Lloyd Wright Stockman House Museum
Day 136 of 159
Dr. George C. Stockman House
Mason City, Iowa
T.0809/S.139/1908-09
The Dr. George C. Stockman House represents Frank Lloyd Wright’s adaptation of his Fireproof House for $5,000, published in the Ladies’ Home Journal in 1907, for a middle-class client. Although the basic design retains the compact, nearly square form of the published model, Wright expanded its relationship to the outdoors through a broad covered veranda and a more pronounced entrance. The result is a modest Prairie residence distinguished by carefully controlled proportions, continuous wood trim, and a flowing arrangement of interior spaces. It is recognized as Wright’s first surviving work in Iowa.
Dr. and Mrs. Stockman met Wright during his visits to Mason City while he was developing the City National Bank and Park Inn Hotel. Dr. Stockman had practiced medicine since 1888, while Mrs. Stockman was interested in the Arts and Crafts movement and had acquired furnishings in that style for their earlier Victorian home.
The house’s plan derives from Wright’s published Fireproof House, but the Stockman design extends the principal living spaces toward a full-width covered veranda. The living and dining rooms connect through a broad opening, with a central fireplace and substantial chimney anchoring the composition. The veranda opens from the wall shared by the two rooms, allowing the interior to flow outward into a sheltered outdoor space.
The entrance wing projects from the otherwise compact plan, creating a more generous arrival sequence than in the published model. The second floor contains four bedrooms and a bathroom, while the basement accommodates the heating equipment, laundry, and storage. Broad overhanging eaves, horizontal window groupings, and the contrast between plaster and dark-stained wood reinforce the house’s Prairie character.
An especially revealing detail appears in the exterior trim. The original working drawings show wood-trimmed frames around the plaster panels at the corners, similar to Wright’s Hunt House in La Grange. Pencil revisions to the ink elevations instead carry the dark wood bands around the corners of the north, south, and east elevations. This small change has a considerable effect: rather than treating each wall as a separate flat surface, the continuous trim binds the materials together and gives the corners a more fluid, interconnected appearance.
Wright used this type of detailing, often described as back-band trim, in numerous houses from the late 1890s through the mid-1910s. Its machine-made simplicity allowed wood and plaster to meet in a unified architectural composition.
The window treatment also adds distinction. Living-room and dining-room windows are topped by transoms, creating a repeated vertical rhythm within the otherwise horizontal elevations. These details demonstrate how Wright enriched a relatively economical house without depending on elaborate ornament.
The Stockman House belongs to Wright’s broader effort to develop an expressive yet practical architecture for ordinary American households. The Fireproof House for $5,000 offered a model for economical living, and the Stockman commission demonstrates how that model could be adapted to a specific family and setting. Its flowing plan and close relationship between living spaces and the veranda also anticipated principles that became influential among other Prairie School architects.
Threatened with demolition, the house was moved in 1989 from its original location at 311 First Street SE to a new site near Mason City’s Rock Crest–Rock Glen area, where the surrounding architectural landscape includes work by Walter Burley Griffin and Barry Byrne. The move changed its original north-facing orientation, but it saved the building. Restoration began in 1991 and was completed in 1992.
Today, the Stockman House stands as an important surviving example of Wright’s early residential work in Iowa. Its significance lies not in size or extravagance, but in the precision of its plan, the continuity of its materials, and the way a familiar published design was transformed into a distinctive Prairie home.
References & Cataloging
FLWFA 7 drawings
Storrer: Yes
Heinz: Yes
Monograph: Yes
Taschen: Yes
The Wright Timeline drawings are of courtesy and property The Wright Legacy Group and the artist.
Frank Lloyd Wright Architectural Companion.
