Dana-Thomas House State Historic Site
More than four hundred pieces of Wright-designed art glass, furniture, and ornament make Susan Lawrence Dana’s house an unusually intact total work.
Artwork inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright
Wright transformed Susan Lawrence Dana’s family house in 1902 into a sprawling Prairie composition of low roofs, changing floor levels, art glass, furniture, murals, and built-in social choreography. Dana was not a passive client: her wealth, reform interests, entertaining, and public ambitions shaped an interior made for performance as much as domestic life.
A guided tour is essential because the exterior conceals more than thirty rooms and a highly controlled sequence of compression and release. Watch how sumac motifs migrate through glass, lamps, hardware, and furniture, and how servant circulation differs from guest routes. The intact collection makes small details more important than any single dramatic room.
- Commissioned
- 1902
- Art glass
- More than 400 pieces
- Access
- Guided tour only
Quick guide
- Follow the threshold
- Notice each shift in ceiling height, light, stair, and sightline as Wright controls movement.
- Track the sumac
- Find the abstracted plant motif in glass, furniture, fixtures, and ornament.
How to make Dana-Thomas House State Historic Site count
- Follow the threshold
- Notice each shift in ceiling height, light, stair, and sightline as Wright controls movement.
- Track the sumac
- Find the abstracted plant motif in glass, furniture, fixtures, and ornament.
- Recover the client
- Connect Dana’s entertaining, reform work, and resources to the unusual program she requested.
- Compare circulation
- Ask how guests, family, and domestic workers moved differently through the same architecture.
Good to know
Guided tours are offered daily at 9:30 a.m., 11 a.m., 1:30 p.m., and 3 p.m. Self-guided interior visits are not available, and reservations are encouraged because tours hold at most 15 people. Limited free street parking surrounds the house. Arrive early enough to locate a legal space and check in before the tour departs.
Notice these
- Sumac art glass
- Barrel-vaulted gallery
- Wright-designed furnishings