As a teenager growing up in the Italianate-style brick house her well-to-do
father built in 1872, Susan Lawrence led the good life in Springfield, a
privileged one filled with parties and prestigious people.
The only surviving child of Rheuna and Mary Agnes Lawrence, at 21 she
married Edwin Dana, a young man slated to take over the management of her
father’s western mining properties. They spent several years in St. Paul,
Minn., where both of their children died in infancy, then in the 1890s
returned to Springfield, where tragedy continued to stalk Susan.
In 1900, her husband was killed in an Oregon mine inspection accident; her
father, who served as mayor of Springfield from 1890 to 1892, died the
following year. As executor of his estate, she, with the approval of her
mother, decided to enlarge and update the family mansion in order to bring it
up to speed for 20th Century entertaining.
Bypassing local architects, she chose Frank Lloyd Wright, a slight,
Wisconsin-born Welshman five years her junior who had been making a name for
himself in and around Chicago with his innovative domestic designs and
ingratiating way with wealthy clients’ wives. The 1902 commission was his
biggest to date.
The architect and his employer were, in a way, the odd couple, he a poor
Mama’s boy who spent money faster than he could make it, she a monied Papa’s
girl. But they also were surprisingly similar in some respects, eccentric
individuals of enormous energy who dared to be different.
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Susan’s idea was to incorporate the brick foundation of her parents’
30-year-old house, a portion of the original floor plan, her father’s study, a
sitting room and a marble fireplace in the remodeled dwelling.
But as construction progressed, it became apparent the structure was taking
on Prairie-style trappings — long horizontal lines, low overhanging hip
roofs, massive chimneys, arched entryways, urns, skylights and rows of ribbon
art glass windows.
True to form, the arrogant, self-taught, Oak Park-based architect was doing
it his way, in a manner as far removed from the elegant, ornate designs of the
Victorian era as his farm-field roots were from Susan’s urban upbringing. When
he was through more than two years later, people hardly knew the old place.
The cost, including furnishings and fees, was $60,000.
Susan, her mother and live-in cousin Florence Lawrence celebrated
completion of the revamped mansion with a series of Christmas parties, the
first honoring designers, artisans and laborers who played a role in creating
the handsome, avant garde structure.
Visitors marveled at the interior, with its raised main level, open floor
plan and central fireplace and hearth. Graced with terra cotta sculptures by
Richard W. Bock, a friend of Wright’s, a full dining room mural by George
Niedecken and Wright-designed furniture, light fixtures and art glass doors,
it clearly stated money had been no object.
The 35-room, 12,600-square-foot house boosted the owner’s reputation as a
generous woman with gumption, and the architect’s image as a man sought after
by the rich and famous.
Within a few months, her mother died and master marketeer Wright sailed
away to Japan, leaving Susan in Springfield to host governors, politicians and
guests from around the world.
A philanthropist and suffragette, she had long sought equal opportunity for
women in a world ruled by men, and reportedly often contacted her late father
for advice on practical matters through an “other-world spirit.” She opened
the house to metaphysical and mystical religious groups, as well as her own,
the Lawrence Center for Constructive Thought.
Susan’s 1912 marriage to Danish concert artist Lawrence Joergen-Dahl, a man
half her age, lasted only a year; he died in Chicago of Bright’s disease. In
early 1915 she married mining engineer Charles Gehrman; separated five years
later, they divorced in 1930.
Aging and alone, her fortune dwindling, Springfield’s once sought-after
hostess moved to less expensive quarters in 1928. Her mansion was used only
intermittently until 1942, when she was declared legally incompetent and
hospitalized; the following year her furniture was put up for auction, but
bids for chairs that originally cost $7 to $18 apiece were less than $1, so
much remained unsold.
In 1944, the 40-year-old house that had cost $60,000 was bought by Charles
C. Thomas for use as his medical publishing company’s headquarters. He made a
down payment of $1,000, took an $11,250 mortgage and paid off an estimated
$5,000 lien.
The State of Illinois bought the house in 1981 for $1 million. Then-Gov.
Jim Thompson lobbied the legislature and worked with local representatives in
sponsoring legislation for the purchase. He also helped raise money for the
$5.2 million restoration, according to Donald P. Hallmark, site manager. About
$1 million more has been spent in capital projects since 1990.
In addition, Thompson has raised almost $2 million from well-heeled friends
to buy and return many of the home’s original objects, including dining room
chairs, a music stand, an art glass lamp and a hammered copper urn, which was
purchased last December for $288,500.
The Dana-Thomas House remains a Midwestern monument, not to the Illinois
prairie, not to the people of Springfield, not to suffragette Susan Lawrence
Dana and her fortune, nor to former owner Thomas or fund-raiser Thompson, but
to the wizard himself, Frank Lloyd Wright.
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Susan Lawrence Dana-Thomas House is open 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Wednesday through
Sunday except some holidays (last tour of the day begins at 4 p.m.). Time: 1
hour. Suggested donation: $3 adults, $1 ages 3 to 17. Accessibility: Manual
wheelchairs and walkers are limited to the first floor (the house has 16
levels); motorized chairs are not allowed. Miles from downtown Chicago: 197.
Address: 301 E. Lawrence Ave., Springfield. Phone: 217-782-6776.