During the restoration, traditional lighting options were installed. The hotel operator, Stoney Creek Hospitality, has since installed CFLs in all the guestrooms to help minimize the utility bill. Fortunately, Wright was “a genius with capturing daylight,” Borcherding notes.
“A Wright expert that came to Mason City pointed out one of Wright’s goals was to have natural lighting in every public space,” Borcherding adds. “The law lounge has French doors to a small patio. The skylight room obviously has a one-of-a-kind skylight in it; the bank/ballroom has the clerestory windows; the banking offices had skylights in them. Daylighting was a nice attribute of a lot of his designs.”
Heating and cooling is provided by a European system that minimized the square footage needed to keep guestrooms comfortable. “At one time, we explored a geothermal system, but in Mason City bedrock is not very deep,” Borcherding observes.
As would be expected, the original single-pane windows are drafty. “We have done interior storm windows to try to alleviate some of that,” Borcherding notes. “We’ve added radiant floor heat to the ballroom because we knew that was going to be a large space and as voluminous as it is, we had to keep the heat at a lower level.”
Beyond Expectations
Condé Nast Traveler named Mason City among the 14 best cities for architecture lovers in 2012 thanks to the Historic Park Inn Hotel, the Wright-designed Stockman House and the Rock-Creek Rock-Glen Historic District of Prairie School-style homes. Recognition like this and the improvements the Historic Park Inn Hotel has brought to Mason City have helped change naysayers’ minds.
“I’ve had several people since the opening of the hotel who have said, ‘I was really against this in the beginning and I couldn’t see where you were going to spend this money but it’s really made a huge difference in our downtown’,” Marinos says. “When we opened the hotel for brief tours, we had people lined up two blocks long, four or five deep, waiting to see inside.”
Borcherding is rewarded when he overhears positive talk about the hotel in town. For him, the Historic Park Inn Hotel has been the highlight of his career thus far. “I can’t even tell you how fun this project was,” he says. “It was certainly not an easy project and definitely a very emotional project. I knew Frank Lloyd Wright experts would eventually tour the facility with a critical eye. I worried a little about their reaction. Fortunately, it’s all been really positive.”
Although she is too modest to admit it, Marinos has created a legacy as mayor of Mason City and through her leadership with Wright on the Park. By bringing back the Historic Park Inn Hotel, she has strengthened the community and set it on a path toward a dynamic future. “For the longest time, I think people in Mason City didn’t have a sense of pride about who they were,” she says. “It’s kind of hard to instill that without something to spark it. The restoration of the hotel has really sparked a lot of other things that are going on, too. If you come to town and see some of the building they’re doing out west to bring people into Mason City and some of the good stuff that’s happening downtown, we’re going in the right direction.”
Donate
As owner and steward of the Historic Park Inn Hotel, Wright on the Park is responsible for all future preservation efforts of the hotel building. Financial contributions through memberships and donations will help ensure the continued viability of Frank Lloyd Wright’s work. For more information, call (641) 423-0689 or e-mail.
Online Buzz
Tour the skylight room with Scott Borcherding, IIDA, principal and interior designer with Bergland + Cram, Mason City, Iowa, and Jean Marinos, finance director for Wright on the Park. Visit retrofitTV and click on “Project Walkthroughs”.
Materials
HVAC: Daiken
CUSTOM WINDOWS: Andersen Windows & Doors
CUSTOM CARPETS: OW Hospitality
SUBWAY TILE: Subway Ceramics
ART GLASS RESTORATION AND REPLICATION: Clear Lake Stained Glass
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT REPRODUCTION FURNITURE: Copeland Furniture
FURNITURE AND AREA RUGS: Stickley
CUSTOM LIGHTING: Scott Architectural Lighting
CUSTOM AND DIGITAL SIGNAGE: ASI
PAINT: PPG
INSULATION: UltraTouch from Bonded Logic
3 Comments
This hotel is amazing as it has been for a long time which makes it more interesting to visit and explore.
Iowa Public Television showed the wonderful documentary about the process: THE LAST WRIGHT https://www.academicvideostore.com/video/last-wright-frank-lloyd-wright-and-rebirth-american-city
I born & raised in Mason City and remember the Park Inn building in good shape and then watched it’s decline.
My wife & I have stayed at The Park Inn about five or six times and I am truly in love with that building. What a great idea to renovate the building and put it to good use. Too many old buildings today are being torn down, I believe, unnecessarily. This is a great article describing a grand old building and the endless hours put into restoring it.