Percy Dwight Bentley was a La Crosse native who attended Armour Institute in Chicago and absorbed the Prairie School spirit of masters Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright. During his brief practice, from circa 1917 to circa 1921, with Otto A. Merman in La Crosse the two designed a large number of distinguished Prairie School residences (many of which are represented in the collection). Bentley attained national scholarly acclaim for this period of work. After Bentley's departure (to practice with Charles Alford Hauser in Minneapolis, then independently in Eugene, Oregon), former assistant and partner Merman associated with Herbert W. Skogstad. Skogstad was a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Merman and Skogstad increasingly worked in the Period Revival strain of design evident in the later Bentley and Merman years, and the nature of commissions expanded to include work for local institutions and businesses as well as residences. After Skogstad’s death in 1929, Merman continued to practice solo until his death in 1935.
