The design of the bank building deliberately rejects the classical influences common at the time, and is meant to evoke an air of simple dignity.

[2] Smith had decided that his real estate clients needed a simple and convenient way to obtain financing, so he founded the bank and hired Wright as the architect.

During the 1950s the building was modernized: the biggest change was the lowering of the original skylight to allow installation of air conditioning, but the work also involved covering much of the interior limestone and removing the oak trim.

This remodeling removed Wright's originally designed partition which divided the building into bank and real estate offices.

Wright's earliest 1904 plans for the Dwight bank showed a vertical brick block with a column flanking each side of the recessed central doorway.

"[1] Margaret Randall, in her 1996 work The Price You Pay: The Hidden Cost of Women's Relationship to Money, stated Wright's Smith Bank, along with his City National Bank in Mason City, Iowa, was "designed to evoke our culture's worship of money.

[2][3] The present-day structure consists of one open, interior space, while Wright's original design divided the building into two sections.