Any fan of Frank Lloyd Wright knows that his architecture is geared toward harmony between indoors and out. Standing barefoot and towel-clad in the courtyard of Wright’s former private home in Spring Green, Wisconsin, on a brisk recent summer evening, that principle has never been more evident. I felt the appraising gaze of his tall, cast-concrete garden sculptures of mythological female figures, called “sprites,” with arms folded and eyes downcast but still seeming to wonder what *I* was doing *here*? I hoped the tour in the living room couldn’t see me as I emerged from a dark, narrow hallway where I’d showered in a yellow-lit bathroom adjacent to a handful of bedrooms once used by Wright’s apprentices. But after a 6 a.m. flight and a corridor of identical doors, I couldn’t find my way back to mine.
I’m probably not the first person to get lost in Taliesen, but I’m probably one of the first journalists. While there are plenty of opportunities for guided day tours of the 800-acre estate where Wright lived and worked for nearly five decades, an overnight stay is a rare privilege. In 2021, Taliesin Preservation added weekend workshops with classes in crafts like baking, photography and painting, offering regular Wright fans the chance to stay overnight on the grounds for $1,500. But in early June, for the first time in the estate’s 113-year history, journalists were invited to spend two nights there for the reopening of the Hillside Theater after a five-year, $1.1 million restoration.
Writer Lina Abascal sits on built-in seats in the living room of Frank Lloyd Wright’s longtime home, studio and architecture school in Spring Green, Wisconsin.
Since the beginning of fellowships at Taliesin in 1932, the Hillside Theater served as a multipurpose entertainment space for Wright’s apprentice program, hosting film screenings and concerts for the public on Sundays. (The theater is in the same building as the drawing studio used by Wright’s protégés.) In the mid-’50s, Taliesin fellows made some structural improvements to the theater after a fire, but it has remained unchanged since then. Although Wright is arguably the most famous American architect and one of the most influential of our time, his buildings have a reputation for being difficult to maintain. The theater among them was in poor condition, prone to leaks, and in need of restoration.
At the grand reopening gala, which coincided with Wright’s 157th birthday, I met foundation members buying tickets and owners of homes Wright designed. After a performance in the theater, we ate dinner in the high, glass-roofed drawing studio, still furnished with large tables and photographs of Wright and his students. A cellist played next to a photograph of Wright and John Lautner, and wildflower cakes were served.
Although Wright’s persistence in keeping Taliesen alive against all odds makes for good stories, I have to admit: At first I was afraid the house was haunted.
Wright lived in his 3,500-square-foot home and studio from 1911 until his death in 1959. (From 1937, however, he and his colleagues spent winters at Taliesin West in much warmer Arizona.) But his connection to the land stretched back to the mid-19th century, when his ancestors, the Lloyd Jones family, homesteaded nearby. Wright spent summers on his uncle’s farm, which led to a love of the region and the foundations of his principles of organic architecture. Taliesin is considered the fullest embodiment of these ideas, which grew out of his earlier Prairie Style works. But the history of the site is as complicated as that of Wright, whose personal difficulties are well documented.
Wright’s apprentices at Taliesin gave him the hand-sewn curtain made of colorful felt and yarn that hangs in the Hillside Theater as a birthday present in 1957.
Wright built the original Taliesin to live with his lover, Mamah Brothwick, after designing several buildings on the property for his relatives, including the interior of a chapel for his minister-turned-uncle and his sister’s house (the design of which was based on his 1907 article “A Fireproof House for $5,000”). In 1914, a few years after Wright completed the house, a deranged employee committed arson and murdered Brothwick along with six others on the property. After rebuilding, a second fire—this time an accident—destroyed the living quarters in 1925. While Wright’s persistence in keeping Taliesin alive against all odds makes for a good story, I must admit: At first I was afraid the house was haunted.
“Not in your wing,” the staff assured me without batting an eyelid. Later, when a representative of the foundation showed me burned ceiling beams in the outdoor hallway between the living and work rooms, which were from the second fire, they said Wright had joked that the fact that his bedroom burned but not his office meant that God approved of his work but not his personal affairs. (I survived the weekend unscathed, except for a dozen mosquito bites.)
Wright slept in this single bed, which was in the corner of his personal bedroom.
To spend a weekend at Taliesin is to live and breathe Wright’s famous architectural principles and occasionally be confronted with evidence of his complex personal principles. In the main house, Wright and his third wife, Olgivanna, who helped him establish and run the fellowship program, slept in separate bedrooms with twin beds, a fairly common arrangement during the period. The couple sometimes shared a third bedroom with a pink accent wall, a built-in fireplace, a bed that both fit in, and, of course, a desk. Of the three, the room Wright slept in is the largest.
The decor draws inspiration from Wright’s own designs, but also from his collection of Asian art from his travels to China and Japan. (After all, this is the man who wanted everything in the houses he designed to suit his taste, not to “detract” from his architecture.) But a closer look reveals three exceptions: busts of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson and a huge painting of his mother above a fireplace in the study. (Perhaps a questionable location for a building with such a fire history.) Throughout the building, ceilings are low, and there is more furniture that encourages work than comfort. But if you feel cramped, Wright’s signature design offers a higher ceiling and a strategically placed window, an upholstered chair, or a built-in sofa with seat cushions.
Taliesin’s interior, which Wright did not design himself, is heavily inspired by the architect’s Asian art collection, which he amassed on his travels to China and Japan.
In the living room, a grand piano sits next to a square carved-wood music stand and a chair unit Wright designed for a string quartet. In Taliesin’s heyday, architectural apprentices and resident multidisciplinary artists entertained the community with live music after hours. These parties were probably more boisterous than the dinner I attended in the drawing studio, but details of them come only in the form of chatter from foundation staff. Still, I like knowing that Taliesen residents play hard even under Wright’s notoriously watchful eye. I can understand why two former apprentices, 100-year-old Minerva Montooth and Effi Casey, still live on the property (part-time for Casey) half a century later.
During the jam-packed weekend schedule of tours, hikes, and meals, I notice that the folks at Taliesen can’t decide whether to call their founding architect Mr. Wright or just Wright. I imagine the staff pushing for the mononym are trying to humanize the genius through his work, rather than his tumultuous personal life, which has been scoured for years in the press and even by Gen Z on true crime TikTok. Now that I’ve been a houseguest, I decide to drop the word “Mr.”
Top photo by Tim Long Courtesy of Taliesin Preservation
