Today was part two of Frank Lloyd Wright activities for the week. We are doing a four hour Estate Tour of Taliesin East, Wright’s studio and summer home. His family owned land in the area his whole life and he built Taliesin among his Aunts and Uncles. The estate includes a school he built for his Aunts, who ran the highly rated school for years. It’s now home for an accredited architecture school. The tour also went through a home he built for his sister. Finally, we toured Taliesin, which included farm buildings, office space, and Wright’s personal home. The school and Taliesin underwent many changes over the years (121 changes to Taliesin alone).
The tour include a 1.5 mile hike across a number of hills, which Travis described as a death march. Doug suggested that people who had been in actual death marches might balk at this description. That said, it was pretty warm and humid and everyone was glad to get to the top of the last hill and have a break on the patio at Taliesin.
Pour guide, Cyndi, did a great job of describing everything we saw. Apparently, she’s a dairy farmer who knew nothing about Wright when she applied for the job. She’s clearly learned a lot over the years.
There have been a number of fires at both the school and Taliesin over the years. Each of these drove significant changes to buildings on the estate. One of these happened when one of Wright’s employees set fire to the living quarters and then killed 7 people as they escaped the building (including Wright’s mistress and her two children).
There was quite a bit of discussion of Wright’s personal life. He was married three time. He was married to his first wife for 20 years and they had six children. He left her for one of his client’s wife’s, which caused quite a scandal in the early 1900s. They were together for 10+ years before the murder, although never married because Wright’s first wife refused to give him a divorce. After the murder tragedy, he married a 2nd wife, but that marriage lasted less than a year. He was married to his third wife from 1928 until his death in 1959. She continued to be heavily involved in the business after that.
One interesting thing we learned is that while Wright insisted his clients not use furniture he didn’t design, he had a lot of furniture he’d bought at Marshall Fields in his own house.
The main building of the school run by his Aunts
The dining room at the school, which is still used by the architecture school
Fireplace in the gathering room in the school
The Wright family mark
Theater at the school
Wright felt that windmills were ugly. When his Aunts needed one for the school, he proposed this design. His uncles felt it was crazy to spend almost three times on this when it was almost certainly going be blown over in storms. Apparently, after every storm, the would check to see if it had fallen. After the last uncle died, Wright supposedly claimed that the tower was still standing while it’s critics were lying on flat on their backs. The tower stood for over 100 years before being renovated.
This was originally a tool shed
A milking barn. Wright designed the spire to resemble a guernsey teat. The balls on it are toilet float balls from houses he’d bought in the area.
Doug in front of one of the family homes
Travis during “The Death March”
Taliesin from a distance
Doug at the barn
Our break on one of the patios
Travis, hoping we get inside to the AC soon
The Taliesin living quarters
The cantilevered “bird walk”
Travis on the front patio with the bird walk behind him
Marshall Fields furniture
View out to yard
Dining Room/table