1142 E COURT
Built in 1858 by brickmaker Nicholas Oakes, the two-story Italianate at 1142 East Court Street is one of Iowa City’s most storied addresses—known today as the Oakes-Wood (or “Grant Wood”) House. Its red-brick walls, bracketed eaves, and green shutters embody a mid-19th-century elegance that later became inseparable from the life and work of Iowa’s most famous Regionalist.
GRANT WOOD AT “1142”
(1936–1942)
Grant Wood purchased the house in 1936, calling it simply “1142.” During his Iowa City years, he taught at the University of Iowa, wrote influential statements on American Regionalism, and produced paintings and lithographs that extended his national reputation. Works from this period include Portrait of Nan (1938), Haying (1939), New Road (1939), Parson Weems’ Fable - Washington Cherry Tree (1939), and Adolescence (1940), along with lithographs such as Seedtime and Harvest, January, and December Afternoon.
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Wood also “restored” and personalized the house—what one architectural survey calls a partial “Colonializing” of the exterior—accenting the brick with white trim, a picket fence, and green shutters. Inside, he experimented with then-modern materials (he famously showcased Masonite as wainscoting and tile effects), turning 1142 into both a studio, laboratory and a social hub for artists and writers.
In 1975, Iowa City attorney Jim Hayes acquired 1142 and embarked on a decades-long restoration, carefully peeling back incompatible finishes while preserving representative elements of Wood’s interventions.
JIM HAYES
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
(1936–1942)
1142 is significant for its tight link to Wood’s late career: it is where he lived and worked until his death in 1942; where he refined his teaching and advocacy for the “Iowa Idea”; and where he created a welcoming salon that helped root Regionalism in the cultural life of Iowa City.
The house’s architectural pedigree and its association with Wood led to its individual listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 and, later, inclusion as a contributing property in the Longfellow Historic District. Both a studio, a laboratory and a social hub for artists and writers.
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​​Under Hayes’s care, the property was listed on the National Register in 1978, designated an Iowa City Landmark in 1996, and re-established as a teaching, gathering, and storytelling space tied to Wood’s legacy.