What do you actually do inside a Frank Lloyd Wright house? That’s the question most first-timers are quietly asking as they line up on East Lawrence Avenue, not quite sure whether they’re allowed to touch anything or whether they’re supposed to just stand there looking reverent.
The Dana-Thomas House sits on a residential street in Springfield’s near-east side, which is itself a little disorienting. It doesn’t tower over anything. The neighbors have vinyl siding. There’s a gas station two blocks west. And then there’s this low, amber-brick structure from 1902 that looks like nothing else in central Illinois — or most of the country, for that matter.
Susan Lawrence Dana commissioned Wright to design it after she inherited money from her father, and she wanted something that announced itself. Wright gave her 35 rooms, 16 original art glass designs, and a layout that flows like a conversation instead of a grid. Dana eventually ran out of money and had to sell. Charles Thomas bought it in 1944, kept it intact, and in 1981 the state of Illinois acquired it. Which means that most of Wright’s original furniture, light fixtures, and that remarkable art glass are still here — still in context, not in a museum case somewhere else. That’s rarer than it sounds.
Tours run Thursday through Sunday, and you should book ahead, especially on weekends. They’re docent-led, which some people find stifling, but the guides here tend to be genuinely knowledgeable rather than script-readers. Ours spent a solid ten minutes on just the butterfly motif that Wright wove through the glass patterns — it’s one of those details you’d miss entirely on your own. Adults pay $10; children under 17 are free, which is one of the better deals the state offers.
The house rewards slow looking. The barrel-vaulted gallery on the upper level, the way the ceilings compress and then open up as you move through rooms, the Japanese art objects Dana collected — none of it photographs well, which is maybe why people underestimate it until they’re standing in it. Wright was working out ideas here that he’d push further at Fallingwater and the Guggenheim, and you can feel the thinking-in-progress quality of the place. It’s not polished in the way a later masterwork is polished. It’s interesting in a different way.
The grounds are modest — this isn’t a sprawling estate — but the exterior is worth a slow walk around before you go in. The horizontal lines, the way the structure seems to hug the earth rather than rise from it, the overhanging eaves: it all reads differently in person than in the famous photographs.
Plan for ninety minutes minimum if you’re taking the full tour. There’s no café, no gift shop to speak of, and the parking is street parking, which is usually fine. Go on a Thursday or Friday if you can; the weekend crowds thin out the experience somewhat. Wear shoes you don’t mind standing in for a while — the floors are original, and they don’t rush you, which is either relaxing or maddening depending on your temperament.
Springfield has a lot of Lincoln sites, and visitors tend to string those together and head out. The Dana-Thomas House is something different — a reason to linger a little longer, and one that has nothing to do with 1865.
