A longtime admirer of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture, Karilyn Ross walked into the B. Harley Bradley House in Kankakee eager to take a look around.

She was unaware of just how engaged she would become once inside.

Ross, 25, of Moweaqua, was led to believe that her boyfriend, Colin Furrow, 23, of Limestone, won a contest for a free private tour of the historic Wright-designed home.

Designed in 1900, the home at 701 S. Harrison Ave., restored and serving as a museum, holds significance as Wright’s first in the prairie style.

While on the tour in early October, Ross was told to look for Wright’s initials that he had allegedly hidden and carved into a windowsill.

No such initials were to be found.

As it turned out, there was no contest, either.

Months earlier, Furrow contacted Wright in Kankakee with the details of his plan, and the organization was on board to help him execute it.

He then created a fake Wright-related email account and started sending himself newsletters to make it seem believable.

One night, while they were out to dinner, he mentioned a B. Harley Bradley House couples tour giveaway, and pretended to enter it.

He scheduled a fake prize announcement email to come to his inbox a month later.

The deception, and the reason behind it, became clear when Ross turned around from the windows to find her boyfriend down on one knee with a ring in his hand.

She said yes.

Furrow’s plan went off without a hitch.

“Never mind me putting the ring on the wrong finger at first because I was so nervous,” he said.

Since he also planned the “free tour” to include a photography session, the Oct. 4 engagement was captured with candid photos, and Ross was none the wiser.

Well, she might have had some suspicion that the question was coming, but she was oblivious to the extent of planning going on.

When the moment came, she was “pleasantly, wonderfully surprised.”

“It was probably the best feeling of my life,” she said. “I still get butterflies hearing him talk about it.”

Ross noted the relationship feels “like marrying a best friend.”

“The amount of work that he put into this proposal meant everything to me,” she said. “He knows how much I love history, and he basically gifted me a piece of history with the way he proposed. I could not have been more excited and happy to say yes.”

Growing up, Ross visited the Dana-Thomas House, a Wright-designed, prairie-style home in Springfield, with her family.

She was drawn to the history of the site and to Wright’s unique building design.

“He had a very complicated personal life, but there’s no doubt that there is art to his style of architecture,” Ross said.

Around Christmas time in 2024, the couple visited the Dana-Thomas House together with Ross’ parents.

Seeing how excited his girlfriend was on the visit, and remembering another Wright house is located in Kankakee, the proposal idea clicked.

“She absolutely loved anything Frank Lloyd Wright,” Furrow said. “The architecture, the colors, everything about it.”

On Wednesday, the couple reached their two-year anniversary of being together.

They met on the dating app Hinge.

At the time, Furrow was an undergraduate student at Illinois State University, and Ross was a graduate student St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa.

Originally from Moweaqua, a small town near Decatur, Ross currently is living in Davenport as she works toward a doctoral degree.

Furrow is native to and still lives in the Kankakee area.

The couple said they are looking forward to finally living in the same state, although they are not yet sure where they’ll settle down.

They also hope to visit more Wright homes, possibly taking some road trips in the future, as they have only seen two so far.

Toward the top of the list is the Fallingwater house museum in Pennsylvania, which was built partially over a water fall.

Their wedding date is set for May 15, 2027, at St. Rose of Lima Chapel in Kankakee.

“A months-long endeavor of planning and plotting and deceiving her worked out in my favor,” Furrow said.

With Valentine’s Day here, some romantic-minded people might want to make a partner feel special in a similar fashion.

Furrow’s advice is that plans do not have to be cost intensive to make an impression.

“You’ve got to get creative,” he said. “If there’s thought put into it, it makes for a really good surprise. It doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. Put thought and effort into it, and it’ll take you a long way.”