Westcott House

In the early 1900s Frank Lloyd Wright and a circle of architects around Chicago developed what became known as the Prairie style, an approach that took its cue from the flat horizons of the American Midwest. Their houses stretched low and long, with sweeping horizontal lines, broad overhanging eaves, ribbons of windows, and open flowing interiors, a radical break from the vertical, compartmented homes of the Victorian age.

Wright believed a building should belong to its place and be designed as a whole, from the structure down to the windows, the furniture, and the light fixtures. The Westcott House, designed for Burton Westcott and completed in the early 1900s, is a fully realized example of these ideas, and the only one Wright built in Ohio, which makes it a landmark for anyone interested in the roots of modern American architecture.

Burton J. Westcott was a Springfield businessman involved in the automobile industry, at a time when Springfield was a prosperous manufacturing city. He and his wife Orpha commissioned Wright to design a home for their family, and the result was a spacious Prairie house with an attached stable and pergola, laid out to Wright's total vision of a unified design.

The family lived in the house for years, but as the decades passed and ownership changed, the home fell on hard times. It was divided into apartments, its open spaces chopped up, its art glass and details altered or lost, and by the late twentieth century it had deteriorated badly, a Wright masterpiece hiding in plain sight in a decline that seemed likely to end in demolition.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, preservationists stepped in to save the Westcott House. A major restoration undertook the painstaking work of reversing decades of alteration, removing the apartment partitions, reconstructing lost features, recreating the art glass, and returning the house to Wright's original plan, inside and out.

The restoration extended to the furnishings and finishes, aiming to present the home as Wright intended it, a complete work of art. When it reopened for tours, it gave the public something rare: the chance to experience a fully restored Wright Prairie house, rescued from the brink, in a part of the country where his work is scarce.

Because the tour experience is largely indoors, the Westcott House rewards a visit in any season. Spring and summer bring the surrounding gardens and the pergola to life, and the bands of art glass glow their best in strong daylight, making the warm months a fine time to see how Wright worked with light.

Fall adds color to the neighborhood and comfortable weather for the visit, while winter turns the focus fully to the interiors and the play of low light through the leaded windows. Since the house is seen by scheduled tour, the season matters less than checking the calendar before you go.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.