Dana-Thomas House

The Dana-Thomas House stands in Springfield, Illinois, at the corner of Lawrence Avenue and Fourth Street. Frank Lloyd Wright designed it in the Prairie style for the philanthropist Susan Lawrence Dana, around a house from the 1860s. The estate also has a library-gallery and a carriage house, and a brick wall encloses a garden with flower beds and a pool.

It is a three-story house, but its rooms are spread across 16 or 17 partial floor levels. A tall entry hall leads to a gallery, dining room and living room on the first floor, with bedrooms above and a library and bowling alley in the basement. The exterior has 250 art glass windows and a gable roof.

Dana's father, Rheuna Lawrence, bought the site in 1868. After her first husband and her father died in the early 1900s, she wanted to remodel the house, but her father's will kept it from being demolished. In 1902 she turned to Wright, whose drawings were labeled as alterations to the existing house. His studio ended up rebuilding almost all of it. Work started in mid-1902 and finished in December 1904. It was among his first mansions and one of the largest commissions his studio had received at that time.

Dana hosted large gatherings there and later religious meetings, but she moved out in 1928 as her finances dwindled. The house stood empty until 1944, when the Thomas Publishing Company and the Thomas family bought it and made few changes. The state bought it in 1981, restored it in 1987–1990 and renovated it again in 2011. It is now a National Historic Landmark and a state historic site, run as a house museum.