Long Abandoned Grand Hotel Building in IA

Iowana Hotel, Creston Iowa

Date added: August 17, 2024

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Built in 1919-1920, the Iowana Hotel in Creston played a pivotal role in the development of the city's downtown commercial district. Comparatively modern hotels, featuring fireproof construction and up-to-date amenities, were just beginning to enter into the secondary markets of Iowa's small towns during the 1910s and 1920s. As sources of civic pride and emblems of material and cultural accomplishment, these hotels were often subsidized by towns eager for their construction. Creston was no different from many other Iowa towns of the time in its aspiration for first-class travelers' accommodations. What differentiated this town from its peers was the means by which it acquired the facility. Rather than court one of the franchises then operating in the Midwest, a consortium of several of the community's influential businessmen instead opted to undertake the project themselves. They conceived of a modern, fireproof hotel, contracted with one of the Midwest's most prominent hotel design/build firms for its construction, and funded the project through an enthusiastic community-wide investment campaign.

The Iowana Hotel was thus the result of the resolve of a group of prominent citizens that the city would have a modern hotel. But its success ultimately sprang from a cooperative effort by the community as a whole. Construction of the Iowana represented perhaps the only instance in Creston history in which the entire citizenry joined in a commercial venture intended to enhance the business prospects of their community. The facility proved successful in bringing numerous visitors to town, thereby boosting the town's standing and increasing trade for other businesses nearby. It was also well used by Creston citizens, who met and dined in the Iowana Cafe and attended social functions in the hotel's mezzanine ballroom. At the time of its completion, the Iowana was advertised as the tallest building between Des Moines and Omaha. This may or may not have been the case, but the hotel was certainly the tallest and most impressive building in Creston and the region. Aligned visually with the town's railroad depot, it functioned as Creston's downtown landmark, the center of commercial hospitality in the city's business district.

For three years in the 1880s-1890s, the Blue Grass League of Southwest Iowa, a collection of 18 area counties, erected large structures called Blue Grass Palaces on the outskirts of Creston. These were lavishly ornamented with turrets and towers and festooned with ornaments made from locally harvested grasses and grains. Although the Blue Grass Palaces were ostensibly built to promote regional agriculture and commerce, they were ephemeral, more like county fairs than permanent commercial buildings.

During the 19^th Century, larger cities such as New York, Chicago and San Francisco all had their grand hotels. Each vied with competitors for recognition, and the stakes were continually rising throughout the century, as each grand hotel sought to outdo its predecessors in size and grandeur. New York featured the largest and grandest of the inner-city facilities, climaxing with the 1,000-room Waldorf-Astoria, which set the worldwide standard for hotel accommodations upon its completion in 1893. Resort areas such as Cape May and Saratoga featured elaborate tourist hotels. Mid-sized cities such as Omaha and Des Moines had their own versions of grand hotels. By the late 1800s hotels had begun appearing as well in smaller towns across the country. Scaled-down versions of the metropolitan hotels, they were typically located near the depots that were being built along newly laid railroad lines. These small-city hotels could scarcely compare with the Astors and the Lindells in size and elegance, so they made do with their own scaled-down superlatives in their self-promotion-tallest hotel between Des Moines and Omaha, grandest lobby in the region, most comfortable rooms in southeast Iowa. The smaller railroad hotels of the late 19^th century often shared many of the structural and architectural features of the grand hotels, including masonry construction, electrical power, elevators, and eclectic revival architectural treatment.

The earliest large hotels featured masonry bearing walls and wood-framed interior walls and floor/roof systems. They were prey to fire, however, and many of the early wooden hotels were destroyed in spectacular blazes. During the 1850s, cast iron gained widespread acceptance for facades and interior support of the larger urban buildings in America. Over the next half-century, the standard, so-called fireproof, construction for large-scale hotels entailed masonry bearing walls and iron internal framework. Perhaps the first fireproof hotel built in the country was the Palmer House (1872) in Chicago. The first hotel built in New York with a complete steel skeleton was the New Netherland, completed in 1893.

Mechanical systems also changed incrementally over this period. Hotel elevators, for instance, evolved from the first small luggage lifts at Holt's Hotel (1833) in New York, to the early passenger elevators in the Fifth Avenue Hotel (1859), to the banks of luxuriously appointed elevators in grand hotels of the late 19^th century. Then as now, private bathrooms were more commonly found in American hotels than in their European counterparts. Other functional firsts for American hotels included: first central heating, the Eastern Exchange Hotel (1846) in Boston; first use of spring mattresses, the St. Nicholas (1854) in New York; and first use of electric light, probably the Gilsey in New York or the Palmer House in Chicago, both installed in 1882, a year after Edison invented the light bulb.

After the turn of the 20^th Century, historical revivalism began to wane for hotel architecture. Hotels built between then and the 1920s more often displayed simplified massing, relying on modest terra cotta or brick ornamentation at the cornices and entrances for architectural expression. They displayed a remarkable degree of stylistic homogeneity, described under today's lexicon as Classical Revival, Colonial Revival, Commercial and the catchall 20^th Century Functional.

One of the biggest advances in hotel construction at this time was the development of reinforced concrete for building superstructures. The first reinforced concrete skyscraper was the 16-story Ingalls Building, completed in 1903 in Cincinnati. This was followed three years later by the first concrete-frame hotel, the Marlborough (1906) in Atlantic City. Engineered by Kahn's Trussed Steel Concrete Company, this 15-story structure was reportedly the largest concrete building in the world upon completion. Concrete construction allowed hotel architects the opportunity to integrate frame, floor, wall, and roof into a structural system that was stable, fireproof, and economical to erect. Additionally, concrete dampened structure-borne sound much more effectively than previous structural systems. Reinforced concrete technology developed rapidly in the first two decades of the 20^th century, finding sweeping acceptance among American hotel architects as an alternative to wood or steel-framed buildings. As the use of concrete-frame construction spread, hotel managers began advertising their soundproof, fireproof buildings.

In keeping with broader societal trends, attitudes regarding hotel functionality and hygiene were changing also, as reflected by architectural journalist Joseph Lux in 1909:

The hotel must satisfy three demands. It must function, machine-like, like a perfectly constructed apparatus; it must be up to the standard of the wagon-lifts, and it must, as regards hygiene and cleanliness, fulfill clinical demands. What is needed is a synthesis of hospital, wagon-lifts and machinery. It may be that in fifty years we will reach such excellent hotels.

The Statler (1911) in Buffalo exemplified Lux's philosophy for modern hotel design. Designed by G.B. Post and Sons, the hotel introduced such services as circulating ice water, fire doors, full-length mirrors and private bathrooms to its clientele. Characterized by historian Jefferson Williamson in The American Hotel as "the first in transient hotels," the Buffalo Statler was "universally recognized as the pattern for all future bedroom and bathroom sets." The Statler was additionally noteworthy as part of another developing phenomenon: the chain hotel, with several facilities owned and operated by a central conglomerate or business consortium.

The hotel industry evolved steadily through the 1910s, with the consolidation of hotel chains, the development of concrete-frame construction and the proliferation of smaller-scale facilities in secondary markets as principal trends. By the mid-1910s, widespread hotel building was underway in small towns throughout the country. In this, the hotel companies often received financial assistance from local business groups, who would subsidize hotel construction to lure modern facilities into town. "Investor groups acted not only out of self-interest but also to bolster civic pride," states The Motel in America, "for no town or city could prosper without a modern hotel to accommodate visitors, especially automobile travelers. The full range of hotel facilities such as dining rooms and coffee shops were important adjuncts to private business dealing and public entertainment. Hotels were intended to stand as landmarks symbolic of economic and social vigor. The amenities they provided signified decorum and civility." Hotels in the Midwest had thus become in the 1910s what railroad stations had been in earlier decades: emblems of material and cultural accomplishment.

It was in this milieu that the Iowana Hotel in Creston was conceived in the late 1910s. The town of Creston had been established in 1869 by the Burlington & Missouri Valley Railroad. Reportedly the highest point along the rail line between the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, this location was selected by railroad officials as a logical division point, with a roundhouse and extensive maintenance facilities built here. Several company officials organized a town nearby, platting some 300 acres on either side of the rail line. "Owing to the vast railroad interest," wrote C.S. Rex, "immigration came very fast to the young town on a hill where there was apparently nothing to make a city, nothing but wind and prairie grass. But frame houses sprang up as by magic until quite a city had grown in two or three years in the middle of a vast prairie with not a farm in sight, not even a tree, nothing but luxurious prairie grass." A.C. Rowell built Creston's first store on Union Street, soon followed by Thornton, Way & Company on an adjoining lot. The Revere House Hotel appeared within a year. These first businesses were constructed south of the railroad tracks, but the community's business district soon moved north of the railroad. Here it took hold and remains to the present.

As more people settled here, Creston's population increased incrementally, from 2,000 in 1875, to 5,500 in 1880 and 8,120 in 1890. It remained at about this level for decades (and continues to the present at approximately the same number), with the railroad functioning as the town's principal employer. Served by a direct rail link, the town eventually attracted other agricultural and transportation-dependent industries, along with atypical array of small-city businesses housed in masonry storefronts. Eventually, Creston took on the aspect of a typical Iowa town, with a central business district located near the railroad nexus, surrounded by residential neighborhoods.

Creston's location on a major rail line meant that the town received a steady stream of visitors. To accommodate business travelers and rail workers, several hotels of various sizes and classes operated near the railroad depot. The first hotel of note, erected soon after the town was platted, was the Creston House. Built in 1870 by Colonel S.D. Swan, it was a frame structure described as "large and liberally patronized. Other early inns included the Commercial, the Tremont, the Ogden, the Pennsylvania, the Leavenworth, the Union and the Revere House. This last hotel was a three-story frame building that faced the railroad, with a full-width open porch across the front. Like the Revere, Creston's earliest hotels tended to be relatively modest, frame structures with minimal architectural detailing. It was not until 1880 that the town received its first grand hotel-grand being a relative term-with the completion of the Summit House that October. Named grandiosely after Creston's location at the high point along the CB&Q line, the Summit was built on the corner of Elm and Adams by a stock company composed of Swan & Becker (owners of the Creston House) and Colonel Beckwith, among others. It was operated by S.D. Swan and John Becker and later described by their contemporary George Ide:

The rapidly growing city needed a large modern hotel, and the Summit House met this demand. Immediately after its formal opening its rooms were filled and it has always been a favorite abiding place for the traveling public. Back of the front entrance on Adams street was the large office with wash rooms and sample rooms directly connected. A fine staircase led upward from the office at the head of which was the spacious dining room. The kitchen was a model of convenience and utility. The large number of rooms throughout the house were light, airy, well furnished and comfortable.

The Summit House was a three-story frame structure that occupied much of a city block. Somewhat less formidable than the Summit was the Hotel Ewing, opened in February 1891. Other hotels built in the late 19^th century included the Highland Inn, a three-story, thirty-room frame building on Oak Street, and the Cartwright House, a thirty-room building on Birch Street.

A vulnerability that all these frame hotels shared was their propensity to catastrophic fire. Guests smoking in the rooms, cooks in the kitchen and housekeepers in the laundries all combined to create almost unavoidable fire hazards. The Creston House nearly burned down soon after it was opened. The Thompson House, the Commercial House and the Division Hotel all burned. And in January 1896 Creston experienced the most dramatic conflagration in the town's history when the venerable Summit House burned to the ground. The fire started next door, when a lamp was overturned in the basement of the Horton, Danielson & Company furniture store. The blaze quickly spread to the hotel and, despite the combined efforts of firemen and townspeople, the building was consumed by fire within a short time. "Crowds of spectators were drawn from all parts of the city and from miles around," reported George Ide. The railroad brought up several boxcars on a nearby side track to provide shelter for the furnishings and goods from the burned buildings. "Those who were burned out immediately prepared to resume business by removing any goods saved to new locations. The debris was cleared away, new buildings erected, and in a short time business firms were on their feet again, with faith in Creston, in her people, and in her resources."

The hotel's owners rebuilt on the same site later that year. With its masonry exterior walls, the new Summit House was somewhat more fireproof than its predecessor, though its wood interior construction left it still susceptible to fire. The building featured pressed metal cornices, hood-molded Italianate upper-story windows on the side and a facade defined by five two-story oriel windows. The complexion of Creston's hotels remained largely unchanged through the turn of the 20^th Century and into the 1910s, with the closure of some of the older inns as the only appreciable change. All built in the 19^th Century, they were showing their age, however, and were no longer deemed modern by the business-class travelers they sought to attract. Things changed in 1916, when the new Summit House was also destroyed by fire. The loss of the town's principal hotel facility was sorely felt by Creston businessmen. Visitors coming to town by rail were by then being joined by autoists on the newly designated Blue Grass Road (later U.S. Highway 34), and many were apparently avoiding overnight stays here. "There is no doubt that Creston needs a new hotel," complained the Creston Advertiser-Gazette. "Commercial men are passing by Creston daily and going to towns of lesser population simply because Creston has not the hotel facilities to accommodate them."

When it became apparent that the Summit would not be rebuilt again, a group of Creston business leaders began pressing for construction of a large new hotel in the city's center. To draw in a regular clientele, they felt, the new facility would need to offer at least 125 rooms, and, most importantly, it had to be fireproof. With the country in the throes of the Great War, however, private investors were unlikely to undertake the project. Creston's citizens would have to take it on themselves. As the war was winding down in February 1919, a group of the city's most prominent businessmen formed the Creston Club to research the issue. A committee led by Dr. J.W. Reynolds, Sherman Rex, M.D. Smith, F.D. Ball and Judge Thomas J. Maxwell reported to the Club two weeks later with a proposal for a substantial hotel. Under their plan, the Creston Club would form a corporation that would acquire property and construct the building, leasing it to a management company for day-to-day operation. Construction of the building would be paid for from citizens' stock subscriptions and a private bond issue. "That Creston should have and that Creston will have a new hotel, five or six stories high, fireproof and modern in every way and adequate for our needs, was the unanimous opinion of the members of the board of directors of the Creston Club and a number of other citizens," stated the Advertiser-Gazette. "And this opinion was backed by a determination to see that the hotel was built and was founded upon a plan which makes it practicable and possible."

The proposition was bold, the first time that the citizens of Creston had contemplated such a cooperative business venture. Conceived in the months immediately after the war, it reflected the importance that the community collectively placed on a downtown hotel and its projected contribution to commerce in Creston. The committee "is of one mind, they feel that the proposition is feasible and can be accomplished if all our citizens will cooperate and do their share towards accomplishing this very much needed addition to our city." Support for the plan was presented as a patriotic duty to Creston's citizens with a world war still fresh in their memories: "This is something that will be a great benefit to the city, and anything that is of benefit to the city is beneficial to all its citizens."

The hotel plan was received with enthusiasm. Three weeks after it was first proposed, the committee held a rally in the Elks Club to present its proposal to the citizens. Before an enthusiastic crowd, Reynolds presented the scheme. Investors could offer Liberty bonds in lieu of cash for stock, he said, "while doing their duty for the government they would also be doing business for the city at the same time." Using imagery from the war, Reynolds stated that, according to the newspaper, "Creston had fought one another long enough and, he as a fighter, had laid down his weapons of warfare and was now ready to co-operate with everything for a greater Creston." As Reynolds urged committee members and would-be investors to stand up for testimonials before the crowd, the meeting took on the fervor of a church revival. Then he began taking pledges for investment, beginning with $10,000 from the United Drug Companies, which proposed to open a street- level store in one corner of the building. "Fast and furious the money was advanced. It came in chunks and it came in fast," reported the Advertiser-Gazette. By the time it was over, some $100,000-half the projected construction cost of the building-had been raised in stock pledges. Reynolds and his partner, O.S. Barber, pledged $4,000; D. Davenport, $10,000; Frank Ball, $5,000; and Adam Begg, $2,000. Others pledged varying amounts, down to Harry Bartlett's $50. The commitment of funds was truly citywide.

With the commitment of money in hand, the committee quickly drafted articles of incorporation for the Hotel Investment Company, which the new venture was named. Incorporated in Iowa with a capitalization of $200,000 (4,000 shares of stock at $50 per share), the company was authorized to purchase property and build, maintain and operate the modern fireproof hotel. In April the group selected a property on which to construct the building. Situated on the corner of Montgomery and Maple Streets, the new hotel would be strategically located one block north of the Burlington depot, with Maple Street forming an axis that would link the two buildings visually. Known as the Rex Corner for long-time Creston resident C.S. Rex, the property cost $75,000. It was at that time occupied by commercial buildings that housed the Advertiser-Gazette, the Agnew Clothing Store, Leach's Drug Store, realtor George Ide and others. These existing buildings would have to be demolished before construction could begin on the hotel. George E. Cromley, then proprietor of the Franklin Hotel in Des Moines, signed a 25-year lease to operate the facility once the building was completed.

The Hotel Investment Company then turned to the building's design. The directors had determined that the hotel be five or six stories in height and fireproof in its construction, contain about 100 guest rooms with public and commercial spaces on the street level, and cost no more than $200,000 to build. Cromley in turn had stipulated in his lease contract that the building be designed by an architect of his choice. This turned out to be H.L. Stevens & Company of Chicago. With offices on Michigan Avenue, Stevens had designed and constructed numerous medium-scale fireproof buildings throughout the Midwest. The firm was a logical choice for the Creston project, having built similarly scaled inner-city hotels such as the Martin Hotel in Sioux City, the Jefferson Hotel in Iowa City, and the Brown, the Randolph and the new Savery Hotels in Des Moines. Stevens assigned house architect Rube Sanford Frodin to design the Creston building. Frodin had begun practice as a principal in 1911 and was responsible for such buildings as the Hotel Olmsted in Cleveland, the Hotel Churchill in Chicago, the Hotel Ashtabula in Ashtabula, Ohio, as well as the Brown and Savery Hotels in Des Moines. After considering Stevens' credentials, the Hotel Investment Company contracted with the firm to design and construct their building.

Early in June 1919, C.B. Campbell, superintendent of construction for the Stevens company, arrived in a Creston with the hotel drawings. With so many investors in town wanting input into the development process, Stevens needed to satisfy numerous townspeople with the building's layout and design. In essence, the entire city of Creston was the firm's client, and all its citizens were concerned that the hotel compare positively with those in nearby cities. As delineated by Frodin, the building was a six-story masonry structure with relatively simple massing and classical detailing at its main entrance and entablature. The architecture, typical of its time, reflected the corporation's modest means and the scale of Creston in that it could be considered handsome and imposing but hardly ostentatious. The Advertiser-Gazette described the proposed building:

The hotel here designed and being built by this company in this city will be modern in every respect and will compare with any of the (other hotels) in regard to improvement and modern design. It will be a credit to our city and to every one who resides here. The plans call for 105 rooms. The basement under the whole building will contain heating plant, barber shop, and storage place and billiard parlor. The first floor will be composed of a spacious lobby, home like and inviting, kitchen and dining room, coffee shop, four stores facing Maple Street, each having an entrance to the lobby. The main entrance will front on Montgomery street and will be covered by an ornamental iron markque (sic). One store and the coffee shop front on Montgomery street. The mezzanine floor is composed of an assembly room where writing tables, etc., will be found. Above that will be five typical or sleeping rooms, consisting of four with private baths, five rooms with toilet and twelve with lavatory making a total of 105 rooms. Arrangements are for a high powered passenger elevator and a freight elevator to run from basement to top floor.

Later in June, a crew for the Cohen Brothers Wrecking Company arrived in town from Des Moines to begin razing the existing buildings at the hotel site. Work on the demolition continued without incident until mid-July, when a wall collapsed, injuring two workers. "Richard Stanley and Fred Johnson were at work tearing down the west wall of the Agnew Clothing house, and were at the time of the accident working on a brick pier between two openings," the newspaper reported. "The work had progressed until the men were only some six feet from the floor level when the pier began to topple. Both men jumped as the pier fell but were not quick enough to escape injury from the falling pier." The demolition was finished later that month, and the Stevens crew began excavating for the reinforced concrete basement and foundations.

As work progressed through the summer and fall of 1919, the project was called "the Creston hotel", or simply "the hotel". No real thought had been given to a proper name for the new building. In November, to correct this problem and drum up some additional community support, George Cromley sponsored a contest to name the new hotel. Mrs. W.F. Finefield proposed "The Reynolds" to honor J.W. Reynolds, its principal booster. Mary Thomas suggested "The Blue Grass" to commemorate the Blue Grass Palace. The contest winner was Bonnie Tripp, who proposed "The Iowana". The Iowana it was, and is.

The Hotel Company had initially planned a multiple-story building on the corner, with a smaller, two-story annex facing Montgomery Street to be built later onto the west wall of the main structure. As post-war prices for building materials began to inflate dramatically in 1919, however, the directors instead opted to build the annex with the main building. Judge Maxwell justified the change by stating, "While the building will cost more than anticipated because of the additional cost of the annex, the rental [from the additional commercial space] also increased and the safeness of the investment was made greater by the fact that the building when completed will cost $100,000 less than if it were to be built later."

Inclusion of the annex in the initial construction pushed back the anticipated completion date of the project. The hotel was originally scheduled to open in February 1920. By that time, the reinforced concrete and hollow clay tile structural frame was essentially complete and the building closed in. Work was underway on the electrical and plumbing systems, and C.B. Campbell stated early in February that the building was ready to heat. Carpenters were beginning to install the interior trim. Campbell estimated that the project might be complete by May 1^st and stated that the building was finally far enough along to allow stockholders to tour the inside. In March Rube Frodin stopped by Creston on his way to Webster City, which was contemplating a hotel of its own. By that point the elevators had been delivered by Otis, and the copper marquee had arrived. Campbell had installed the 45-foot flagpole on the roof. The plasterers had begun installing the metal lath on the interior walls, the concrete flatwork was underway on the sidewalks out front, and E. Nichols was working on the interior finishes. "One thing is very plain to any man who has taken any notice at all of the construction work and this is that not only is Creston going to have a hotel to be proud of, but not one single detail has been slighted or neglected," enthused the Advertiser-Gazette. "To say that Mr. Campbell is one man in a thousand is but stating the truth. He is not merely a superintendent, but he takes a personal interest that with his ability and experience will result in giving Creston the best job that would in any way be possible."

By May the Iowana was still not finished. The city had begun booking conventions, the Iowa State Cleaners and Dyers in August, the Ladies' Auxiliary to the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen in October, on the assumption that the hotel would soon be open, but no one was sure when that might be. Work continued at a pitched rate through the summer of 1920; by the end of August the building was finally complete. On September 2^nd, the Hotel Improvement Company sponsored a banquet and dance in the ballroom to celebrate the Iowana's grand opening. As a finishing touch, the large electric "HOTEL IOWANA" sign was installed on the building's corner two months later.

Alternately tagged the only fireproof hotel in southwestern Iowa or the tallest building between Des Moines and Omaha, the Iowana was an immediately recognized landmark in Creston and the region. Traveling salesmen again stopped here in numbers, often setting up displays of their wares in the hotel's sample rooms. The dining room off of the hotel's lobby became a popular meeting place for couples and small groups, and the ballroom on the mezzanine was the site of many of the city's social fetes and organization meetings.

By the time of the hotel's opening that September, the Creston Club, which had built the Iowana, had rechristened itself the Creston Chamber of Commerce and was aggressively seeking bookings from the Grand Army of the Republic, the Knights of Columbus and other groups around the region to fill its grand new facility. Frank Agnew and George Ide, both major Creston business figures dispossessed by the hotel's construction, had built substantial new storefront buildings elsewhere downtown. Architect Rube Frodin had already moved on to his next hotel project, the Robert E. Lee in Winston-Salem; H.L. Stevens had begun construction on this major new property. And Project Superintendent C.B. Campbell had found a new home, moving from Chicago to Creston to establish his own contracting company here.

Through the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, the Iowana Hotel functioned as a central feature on the Creston landscape as the town's most prominent building. Other, smaller and earlier hotels continued to function as low-price alternatives to the Iowana. Eventually several began supplementing their rental income by taking on long-term boarders, but they dropped off one by one during the 1930s and 1940s. During this time the Iowana remained essentially unchanged. The hotel's large lobby was accessed through the main doors centered under the marquee on the Montgomery Street facade. To its west, in the ground floor of the two-story annex, was situated the Iowana Cafe. In the building's southeastern corner was located a drug store and in the northeastern corner a retail jeweler and a Western Union office. Later a beauty shop operated in a storefront next to the lobby. The building itself remained unaltered, with only minor changes made to the interiors of the first-floor commercial spaces.

In the 1950s the complexion of travel in the United States began to change, however, as automobiles began to supersede trains for passenger traffic. By the early 1960s motels and motor courts on the highway south of downtown Creston began to draw business from the Iowana, which offered almost no provision for overnight parking. Travelers could then choose between the Iowana, the somewhat pricey downtown hotel, or the more convenient and more economical motels along the highway.

By the 1960s, the original construction bonds had long been paid, and, with occupancy declining, the Hotel Investment Company sold the property to Edith Thompson in 1971. Thompson turned the building over seven years later to Theodore Thompson and Dorothy Lapy, who in turn sold it in 1986 to William Porter. Throughout these changes in ownership, the building remained largely unchanged, with its facade and interior spatial organization and finishes intact. After Porter sold the property to Paul Ki in 1989, this began to change, however. Ki and his successor, Nui Wong, began making changes to the building's first-floor exterior, while also modifying the interior spaces. The goal behind these alterations is somewhat unclear, although at one point it was proposed to convert the building into a medical college. Eventually, the hotel was abandoned altogether. Today it stands vacant and badly deteriorating, with the roof failing, the basement flooding and animals entering through broken windows. The City of Creston has recently assumed ownership of the Iowana as an abandoned building. The long-range plan for the hotel's development is for MetroPlains Partners LLC of St. Paul, Minnesota, to rehabilitate the structure and adaptively reuse it to provide affordable senior housing.

Building Description

The Iowana Hotel is situated within the central business district of the southwest Iowa city of Creston. Creston's business district is oriented in a traditional gridiron pattern, with Montgomery and Adams Streets forming the principal east-west axes and Maple Street forming the main north-south axis. Situated on the corner of Montgomery and Maple, one block south of the USS. Post Office and one block north of the Burlington Depot, the hotel forms a visual cornerstone for the downtown area. Typical for its time and place, Creston's business district consists primarily of one- and two-story commercial and institutional buildings, built and modified over an extended period. All abut the sidewalks and use similar proportions, materials and scale.

The Iowana Hotel is positioned in the southeast corner of Block 15 in the Original Town of Creston, facing south toward Montgomery Street and east toward Maple. Adjoining this building on the north is a two-story brick storefront, the first of three similarly scaled buildings that extend along Maple Street. Just beyond these, past a vacant lot, is the Post Office, a free-standing Beaux Arts edifice. The Iowana's west side faces a narrow alley, across which is another two-story brick storefront. Across Montgomery Street to the south and Maple Street to the east are more two-story commercial buildings. None of these store buildings could be considered high-style examples of their architectural idioms, and almost all have undergone extensive alterations to their facades at street level.

The Iowana Hotel was designed and built by H.L. Stevens & Company of Chicago in 1919-1920. Today, its defining elements are essentially intact. The building is configured as a massive six-story brick masonry block-80 feet by 66 feet-that abuts the sidewalks on its front and side and the alley at its rear. A similarly detailed two-story, 40-foot-by-66-foot annex abuts the main building on its west side. The building's first floor occupies the entire property, and the upper floors are set back at the rear to form an ell-shaped plan, with a light court in the northwest corner. The roof is flat, covered with composition roofing and lined with brick parapets. Considered fireproof at the time of its construction, the building's structure is comprised of concrete foundations with a structural clay tile / reinforced concrete frame and reinforced concrete slab floors. The hotel's exterior walls are simply configured and relatively plain-faced, with no setbacks, pilasters or columns to provide planar relief. These walls are sheathed with face brick-combed red-brown brick laid in running bond on the south and west facades and common red brick on the west and north sides.

With its corner location in the center of the downtown district, the building features street exposure on its south and east sides. The south wall, containing the main entrance into the hotel lobby, is considered the primary facade; the east wall, facing Maple Street, is considered the secondary facade. Similarly configured and detailed, these facades define the building's architectural character. They are configured using the Commercial Style, with modest classical revival detailing. The facades are divided vertically into a classical hierarchy of base, body and cap. Encompassing the first floor, the base of each facade is comprised of a brick wall footed by a cast stone watertable and divided evenly into bays by large elliptical-arched window openings-four on the south, flanking the center entrance, four on the east, and two on the south face of the annex. Between the arches are round, cast stone medallions set into the wall.

The body is made up of a plain-surfaced wall divided into floors and bays by simple window openings, nine bays on the south, and eight on the east. The building's cap is formed by a modified entablature, which incorporates decoratively brick-framed windows between stucco panels into the architrave, a simple brick wall as the frieze, and a cast stone cornice. This last element forms the only projection from the vertical plane of the walls. Above this cornice is a low, plainly detailed parapet with cast stone coping that lines the roof on all sides. The building's north and west walls, which face away from the streets, feature plain brick detailing and simply framed windows on all floors.

The fenestration is evenly spaced and simply detailed. The storefront openings on the street level of the main building and the annex feature elliptical arches with cast stone spring blocks and keystones that frame brick voussoirs. Each opening contains three pairs of eight-light wood casement windows, with paneled wood bulkheads below and wood fixed-sash transoms over. The second-floor windows on the facades are framed with cast stone continuous sills and brick flat arches with cast stone keystones. The sash here are wood six-over-one double-hung set within wood frames. The windows on the third through the fifth floors feature similarly sized, wood one-over-one double-hung sash with wood frames set plainly within the brick walls using steel lintels and cast stone lug sills. The double-hung sixth-floor windows are smaller in size and framed with bricks set between cast stone corner blocks. The windows on the west and north walls are similar in size and configuration but lack the ornamental brick and cast stone enframements of the facades.

The single most architecturally noteworthy exterior element of the hotel is its main entrance centered on the Montgomery Street facade. Forming the main entryway into the hotel lobby, this double-leaf doorway features the original fixed-sash wood transom and sidelights, with an ornamental cast stone surround that encompassed the second-floor window above. The entrance is sheltered by a copper marquee (now painted) with coffered soffit that cantilevers from the brick wall using tension rods. Other, simpler doorways into the adjacent commercial spaces are situated within the street-level archways, and single-leaf service doors are located on the west and north walls.

The interior spatial arrangement of the Iowana Hotel remains largely unchanged from its original configuration. The first floor is organized around the large central lobby, which is accessed through a wood-and-glass vestibule at the main entrance on the south side. The lobby commands a major portion of the matin building's first floor, with its large sitting area along the south wall and front desk to the north. East of the lobby, with separate entrances on the Maple Street facade, are two commercial rental spaces, which had been occupied at various times by a bank, a barber shop, a beauty parlor, a retail jeweler and other businesses. West of the lobby is the original Iowana Cafe, which takes up the entire first floor of the annex. The kitchen for this restaurant is situated north of the lobby, along the north wall of the main building. The marble stairway to the mezzanine level is situated in the northwestern corner of the lobby, next to a bank of paneled wood telephone booths. The two elevators to the mezzanine and upper levels are situated in the lobby's northeastern corner.

The two-story lobby is the hotel's most impressive interior space. It is dominated by large square columns, painted plaster over structural clay tile, that define the space and support the paneled plaster mezzanine balcony walls. These columns feature paneled shafts and acanthus-leaf capitals. The ceiling features dark-stained, chamfered wooden vigas, from which decorative iron chandeliers are hung. These non-structural beams give the lobby a Southwestern feel, a popular architectural motif of the 1910s and 1920s but incongruous here in that it is not repeated elsewhere in the hotel. The south side of the room is flooded with light (or would be if the windows were not covered with plywood) from the banks of south-facing windows.

The mezzanine overlooks the lobby from the latter space's north side. Sharing exposure to the large southern windows with the lobby, it features a balcony that wraps around the lobby's north, east, and west sides. To the west of the balcony are single-story offices, which likely functioned as the original sample rooms used by traveling salesmen to display their wares. North of the balcony is the ballroom, a relatively large, long, single-story space with a small raised stage on the east end. This ballroom occupies the northern wall of the main building, extending into the western annex. Like the lobby, it features painted plaster walls and ceiling, with a hardwood dance floor throughout. The upper floors are all essentially identical, with an ell-shaped footprint that extends along the south and east sides. These floors are organized with the guest rooms aligned along a double-loaded hallway. A small elevator lobby is situated at the intersection of the ell. The room configuration is in essentially original condition, with no alterations to the spatial arrangement or finishes. The plaster walls and ceilings have deteriorated badly, however. The rooms themselves are relatively small and sparsely furnished, most single-room configurations plumbed only with lavatories. The rooms feature painted plaster walls and ceilings, painted wood trim, and tile floors. Almost all have exterior exposure through double-hung wooden windows and interior exposure to the hallway by means of small transoms over the doorways.

The Iowana Hotel has undergone a number of alterations. The first change of note involved the installation of the large "IOWANA HOTEL" sign on the roof, probably sometime in the 1950s. (This is likely to have been accompanied by the removal of the flagpole from the roof and the sign mounted on the building's corner, both installed in 1920.) Other alterations have involved updating the commercial spaces and the cafe. These ground-floor areas have undergone changes in spatial configuration and surface finishes to accommodate changes in occupation and style. Renovations made between the 1960s and the 1990s have involved the exterior storefronts as well, though the alterations to the windows and doors have not been as serious as those on many other Creston storefronts. The hotel area of the building has remained remarkably unaltered, with windows, doors, spaces and interior finishes largely intact. The public spaces (e.g., lobby, ballroom and hallways) all remain essentially unaltered, and the upper-level guest rooms are mostly intact.

More serious to the building's present condition, however, is the fact that it has suffered extensively from years of deferred maintenance and damage from the leaking roof. Rainwater pouring in from the roof has reached all levels of the building, to the extent that virtually all of the interior finishes are today damaged. Further, water in the basement-which has sometimes been allowed to reach eight feet in depth-has to be pumped out periodically to keep it from damaging adjacent buildings. The City of Creston has installed plywood over most of the building's windows in an effort to block the entry of vagrants and animals. The effort has been only marginally effective, and vandals have trashed the building's interior, strewing furniture and equipment around the mezzanine and lobby. Today the Iowana contains tons of reeking animal excrement and desiccated carcasses.

Although it is difficult to imagine now, given the building's deteriorated condition, the Iowana Hotel once featured elegant interior appointments.