Oak Park, Illinois in the context of "Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio"

Prairie School is a late 19th and early 20th-century architectural style, most common in the Midwestern United States. The style is usually marked by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad overhanging eaves, windows grouped in horizontal bands, integration with the landscape, and solid construction and craftsmanship. It reflects discipline in the use of ornament, which was often inspired by organic growth and seen carved into wood, stenciled on plaster, in colored glass, veined marble, and prints or paintings with a general prevalence of earthy, autumnal colors. Spaciousness and continuous horizontal lines were thought to evoke and relate to the wide, flat, treeless expanses of America's native prairie landscape, and decoration often depicted prairie wildlife, sometimes with indigenous materials contributing to a sense of the building belonging to the landscape.

The Prairie School sought to develop an indigenous North American style of architecture, distinguishing it from historical revivals that were popular at the time. It shared many ideals and design aesthetics of the Arts and Crafts Movement, though it embraced the machine and also shared ideals with modernist movements. Many architects were also part of the Chicago School, but Prairie School buildings were seen less in the commercial skyscrapers of Chicago and more in the suburban residences, though the style can be seen in throughout a variety of building types, including banks, schools, and churches. Japanese architecture and prints, interests of Frank Lloyd Wright in particular, inspired the focus on simplicity and openness in addition to the prairie landscape.

Ernest Miller Hemingway (/ˈhɛmɪŋweɪ/ HEM-ing-way; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized for his adventurous lifestyle and outspoken, blunt public image. Some of his seven novels, six short-story collections and two non-fiction works have become classics of American literature, and he was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. After high school, he spent six months as a reporter for The Kansas City Star before enlisting in the Red Cross. He served as an ambulance driver on the Italian Front in World War I and was seriously wounded by shrapnel in 1918. In 1921, Hemingway moved to Paris, where he worked as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star and was influenced by the modernist writers and artists of the "Lost Generation" expatriate community. His debut novel, The Sun Also Rises, was published in 1926. In 1928, Hemingway returned to the U.S., where he settled in Key West, Florida. His experiences during the war supplied material for his 1929 novel A Farewell to Arms.

Raymond Albert Kroc (October 5, 1902 – January 14, 1984) was an American businessman who was instrumental in turning McDonald's into the most successful global fast food corporation by revenue. He purchased it from the McDonald Brothers in 1961, after several years as their franchising agent, and served as the leader of the company until his death.

Kroc was born in Oak Park, Illinois, and worked a variety of jobs, including as a paper cup salesman and a musician, before eventually becoming a milkshake mixer salesman. In 1954, he visited a hamburger restaurant in San Bernardino, California, owned by Richard and Maurice McDonald. Kroc was impressed with the efficiency and speed of the restaurant's operations, and he convinced the brothers to allow him to franchise the concept.

The Frederick C. Robie House is a historic house museum on the University of Chicago campus in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Designed by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright in the Prairie style, it was completed in 1910 for the manufacturing executive Frederick Carlton Robie and his family. George Mann Niedecken oversaw the interior design, while associate architects Hermann von Holst and Marion Mahony also assisted with the design. The Robie House has been described as one of Wright's best Prairie style buildings and was one of the last structures he designed at his studio in Oak Park, Illinois.

The house is a three-story, four-bedroom residence with an attached three-car garage. The house's open floor plan consists of two large, offset rectangles or "vessels". The facade and perimeter walls are made largely of Roman brick, with concrete trim, cut-stone decorations, and art glass windows. The massing includes several terraces, which are placed on different levels, in addition to roofs that are cantilevered outward. The house spans around 9,065 square feet (842.2 m), split between communal spaces in the southern vessel and service rooms in the northern vessel. The first floor has a billiard room, playroom, and several utility rooms. The living room, dining room, kitchen, guest bedroom, and servants' quarters are on the second story, while three additional bedrooms occupy the third floor.