An Appreciation of the Prairie Settle

Stickley is known for several iconic Mission pieces that have been customer favorites for nearly as long as the company has existed: the Bow Arm and Spindle Morris Chairs, the Eastwood Chair, and the Round Pedestal Table, to name just a few. And near the top of that list is the Prairie Settle. Like the others, it represents a through line connecting the earliest origins of Mission style to today’s homes.

Birth of a classic
At around the same time that Mission was emerging in the early twentieth century, the Prairie School of architecture was also ascendant—a style, inspired by the flat midwestern prairies, that emphasized horizontal lines over verticals. It’s aesthetic went hand-in-hand with that of the Arts and Crafts movement, and the Stickley brothers were almost certainly admirers.

German immigrant Peter Hansen was a talented craftsman who worked with Gustav Stickley beginning in 1906 and later moved to Fayetteville to join Leopold’s firm, where he stayed until 1946. His arrival corresponds roughly with the appearance of Prairie School influences in Stickley furniture (though that name was never used at the time).

What we today call the Prairie Settle can be traced to a Hansen design from around 1910. He started with a historic settle form: an open seat, typically about twice as wide as a chair, with solid wood ends. Extended horizontal planes reminiscent of Prairie style form its wide wraparound arms; these are supported by graceful elongated corbels and quadrilinear posts that, in a technique invented by Leopold Stickley, display on all four sides the magnificent ray flack grain of quartersawn white oak.

Around 1912, a variation on the settle appeared whose design has been attributed to Leopold himself. In it, the original settle’s book-matched oak panels were replaced by rows of perfectly placed square spindles. Today this design is no longer in production, but a revised version was created in 2003 with full seat and back cushions; this became our popular Fayetteville Sofa!

   
Prairie Spindle Settle                                              Fayetteville Sofa

The Prairie Settle returns
The 1980s and 90s saw a huge resurgence of interest in Arts and Crafts furniture, with collectors across the country paying large sums for Stickley antiques. This exciting trend prompted Alfred and Aminy Audi, L. & J.G. Stickley’s new owners, to re-issue a line of original Mission pieces in 1989—a decision that turned out to be a brilliant one! A key piece in that very first Mission catalog was of course the Prairie Settle, and it has never dropped out of the line in 50 years.



A side note: Among the most passionate Stickley collectors of the 80s was Barbra Streisand, and when she chose to sell her collection of Mission originals at auction in 1999, it was the Audis who bought, among other pieces, her antique Prairie Settle. This very settle, along with an example of the spindle settle, can now be seen in the collection of Fayetteville’s Stickley Museum!

        

A mainstay for today

Time hasn’t diminished the appeal of the Prairie Settle. More than 110 years after it was first designed, it remains a feature of many Mission homes. Today’s homeowners are also discovering new possibilities for the settle alongside non-Mission styles. Unexpected wood finishes and updated fabric options can create fresh looks that may surprise you. The Prairie Settle is a blank canvas for your personal style, even as its original, unmistakable character shines through.

P.S. We don’t want your four-legged friends to feel left out, so we’ve adapted elements of the Prairie Settle in designing our new Mission Pet Bed (mattress and dog not included).

Additional sources:

Amanda Clifford, Director, The Stickley Museum