A tour of the Stockman House in this town gives visitors keen insight into understanding the Prairie School style of architecture and what forward-thinking views made Frank Lloyd Wright famous.

It can be hard to grasp in today’s era, when open floor plans and strong horizontal lines are common. A Google Images search of “contemporary house architecture” yields a slew of structures seemingly descendants of the Prairie School movement. To this day, to look modern, homes tend to look Wrightian.

Chicago architect Frank Lloyd Wright was in Mason City to design the Park Inn Hotel and City National Bank. Dr. George C. Stockman and his wife, artist and suffragist Eleanor, asked Wright to design them a house. The house was finished in 1908, two years before the hotel and bank.

Wright had been among a handful of Chicago architects who sought a truly American architectural style. They created the Prairie School style, noted for horizontal lines. overhanging eaves, bands of windows, solid look, symmetry, chimney in the center, Roman brick or stucco exteriors, integrated interiors and natural materials. The intention was to have a style relevant to nature and the surrounding environment — the praire.

Gone were the boxy rooms with one pane on each wall found in most old homes, such as ones of Colonial and Victorian designs.

For the Stockmans, Wright designed a middle-class home. His upscale homes typically had Roman brick exteriors. The modest homes had stucco.

At the Stockman House, you might meet tour guide Jim Smith. He is a member of the River City Society for Historical Preservation. In fact, you might pepper him with questions about many of the homes you spot in Mason City on the way to the Stockman House. He’ll inform you that the man who designed the Prairie School-style homes across the street — the Rock Glen neighborhood — is also the man who designed the capital of Australia. He can answer many of your questions, but, first, on with the tour.

The Stockman House was among Wright’s elaborations of an article in Ladies Home Journal titled “A Fireproof House for $5,000.” Though neither fireproof nor $5,000, Wright’s homes in this “fireproof” series focus on integrated living space around a central hearth with stairs near the front hall and an elevated porch.

Standing outside the home, he pointed out the trim — which hides the foundation — gives the house a horizontal look to match the cantilever roof and ribbon of windows. Also note the foundation is not high like so many homes. And the front door is on the side. In fact, so is the service entrance. The architect placed the front and service doors on the same side so that access to most of the house can be reached without disturbing people in other parts.

Stepping inside, Smith points out the concrete slab. Wright liked natural materials and avoided covering them. It also is why light bulbs are left exposed. There is solid quarter-sawed oak and the chimney is made from narrow Roman bricks and is in the exact center, the heart of the home.

Immediately, the openness of the house is noticed. It is an open floor plan built in the days before open floor plans were common.

In the summer:

10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Saturday

1 to 5 p.m. Sunday

Last tour begins at 4:30 p.m.

In the fall:

Same hours but only Saturday and Sunday

Address:

530 First Ave., NE, Mason City, Iowa

Website:

www.stockmanhouse.org

The bookcases are designed by Wright, too, and so are many other items. Some are originals. Some are replicas. Some items were rebuilt from photography. Smith knows about each item. To furnish the rest of the home, the society used arts-and-crafts furniture, much of it made by Gustav Stuckley.

Smith points out how the rows of windows have just enough mullion between each window for an abutting wall, if needed. The kitchen and the dining room share the same row, for instance, but are separated by a wall. The upstairs rooms are the same.

Wright considered how air flowed through the home. The upstairs rooms each have a cutout rectangle along a wall near the ceiling where rising hot air could escape to the attic. The attic has a vent that can be opened or closed to let heat escape. This kept the home considerably cooler in the summer.

The house has been open to the public since 1992.

To save it from demolition, the society moved the house from its original site, on the northeast corner of land that had become the Methodist church’s, in 1989. The church agreed to sell it to anyone who could move it. The society raised the $12,500 and moved the house. The story about its move appeared in the Homes section of the New York Times.