Frank Conroy acted as the director of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop for 18 years, from 1987 until 2005. In 1997, Conroy oversaw the Writers’ Workshop relocation, from the English-Philosophy building to this nineteenth-century house on Clinton Street. Prior to that, the Workshop occupied many settings, finding its first home in a barracks on the banks of the Iowa River in 1936. The Frank Conroy Reading Room, which was completed in 2006, has vaulted ceilings and a magnificent library.