'Jazz in Bloom' Saturday at Dana-Thomas House

[July 18, 2012]  SPRINGFIELD -- Frank Lloyd Wright designed the Dana-Thomas House as a place for Susan Lawrence Dana to entertain. In keeping with her tradition, the Dana-Thomas House Foundation will provide an evening of entertainment, "Jazz in Bloom," featuring the Jane Hartman Trio, on Saturday. The event is from 6 to 9 p.m.

This is the only evening summer event at the house and allows attendees the opportunity to experience the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed environment as special guests, very much as it was originally intended. Visitors have found that the art glass takes on a particularly lovely sparkle in the summer evening light.

During the evening, guests are welcome to tour the Dana House at their leisure. Admission includes food by Arena Catering and a cocktail bar. A silent auction featured at the event has become renowned for rare and unusual decorative arts and collectables, as well as golf and baseball game packages, entertainment tickets, spa treatments, gift baskets, and more.

Music and evening entertainment were also a part of the Taliesin Fellowship life of the Frank Lloyd Wright community. Evening events would involve elegant dress and grooming, music and plays, and fine meals. These events taught Wright's students the appreciation of gracious living and the incorporation of various arts in their architecture.

In Susan Lawrence Dana, Wright found the ideal client, one who already held these same interests and fine tastes and could afford them. Together they created one of Wright's most lavish residential projects of the Prairie period of his career. Thus, Springfield has the distinction of being the location for one of Wright's early Prairie houses.

Tickets for Saturday evening are $60 each and may be reserved by calling 217-788-9452.

Proceeds from the event support the education and preservation programs of the Dana-Thomas House Foundation, which was established in 1983.

The Dana-Thomas House State Historic Site, administered by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, is located at 301 E. Lawrence in Springfield and is open Wednesday through Sunday for public tours starting at 9 a.m., with the last tour leaving at 4 p.m.

[Text from file received from the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency]