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After beginning his independent practice in 1893, Wright focused on individual houses for clients in the suburbs of Chicago and the nearby region. He developed the 'Prairie house' as a residential type marked externally by its extended horizontal lines and overhanging roofs, and internally by its spatial continuity among major rooms, and the integration of furniture and ornament, especially art glass windows, such as the Frank Thomas House, Oak Park, Illinois (1901). Among the most important of these were the Willits House, Highland Park, Illinois (1901); Martin House, Buffalo, New York (1903-06); Coonley House, Riverside, Illinois (1908-12); and the Robie House, Chicago (1908-10).
The Avery Coonley House in Riverside is located on a unique small peninsula surrounded by the Des Plaines River. It is considered one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s most elaborate Prairie-style designs. It is also the first time Wright designed what he referred to as a "zoned house," a home in which the rooms were divided based upon their functions.
Wright described the house in the famous Wasmuth edition of his work: "A one-story house designed for the prairie, with the basement entirely above ground, similar to Thomas, Heurtley, and Tomek houses. All rooms, except the entrance hall and playroom, are on one floor. Each separate function in the house is treated for and by itself, with light and air on three sides, and grouped together as a harmonious whole. The living rooms the pivot of the arrangement, with entrance, playroom, and terraces below, level with the ground, forming the main unit of the design."
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