William Gray Purcell and engineer George Feick Jr. crafted this handsome Prairie Style house for the part-owner of the Eau Claire Book and Stationery Company. It was the firm’s first ambitious residential commission. The house’s cruciform shape and open plan with rooms arranged around a freestanding fireplace became the prototype for two of the firm’s finest designs—the Josephine Crane Bradley Summer Residence in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and the Edward W. Decker Summer Residence on Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota, both after George Elmslie had joined the firm. A low-pitched hipped roof, widely overhanging eaves, ribbons of windows, and bands of color—dark red brick walls under cream-colored stucco—emphasize horizontality, while shallow bay windows emphasize the building’s rectangular geometry.