Houses of the Prairie style are characterized by an overall horizontal emphasis achieved by low proportions, low-pitched or flat roofs with wide overhangs, banded casement windows, and low, massive chimneys. Prairie houses are irregular in plan, two stories high, with one-story wings. Siding is brick or stucco with stone or wood trim.

The Prairie style was developed in Chicago by architect Frank Lloyd Wright around the turn of the century. Wright disapproved of styles that were revivals of earlier styles and designed buildings with horizontal emphasis and an open simplicity that would relate to the flat, open landscape of the Middle West. The Prairie style is most common in Chicago, other parts of Illinois, and in surrounding states.

High-style examples of the style are not common in Cincinnati. A local variation that has Prairie elements is a two-story, box-like house with a low-pitched hip roof and wide overhangs. These do not have the variation in levels or the irregular plan of a Prairie style house.