BK Olson, Travel Blogger

Category: Frank Lloyd Wright

  • A Wright Trifecta

    A Wright Trifecta

    A windmill + lots of bugs + a celebration = a great day in Wisconsin.

    Jim and I got up way earlier than we normally do these days for a drive to western Wisconsin. We heard about the celebration and the bugs on a Facebook group, so why not throw in one more stop to make it a Frank Lloyd Wright trifecta!

    Click on the first photo in each group and scroll to see the square photos at full size.
    To see more in this series, visit Frank Lloyd Wright.

    Stop 1 (of 3): Taliesin

    On our first visit to Taliesin, we took the One-Hour House Tour. This was a pretty face-paced tour which included some of the interior rooms with some time in the courtyard. We were able to walk around most of the outside of the house on the way from, and back to the shuttle bus.

    This time around we decided we would start the day with a Highlights Tour. This two-hour tour was also fast-paced and our tour guide was constantly moving us right along. Our goal today was to see more areas of the estate as well as the house again, since who can get enough of that, right? Between our three stops today and some research I did for this blog, we learned about Mr. Wright’s first design project and his last.

    • 1886. There is some great family history at the Unity Chapel website. It tells of the immigration of Mr. Wright’s family from Wales, his Wisconsin upbringing, and Wright’s earliest work – Unity Chapel. The chapel combined the talents of famed Chicago architect – Joseph Lyman Silsbee and a “young boy architect of the family” who “looked after its interior.” Wright was 18 years old at the time.

    Hillside Home School and Studio

    “I suppose that the Hillside Home School, were it existing today exactly as it was in 1909, would be termed a progressive school. Yet the charm and value of Hillside lay in the fact that it did not know it was a pioneer in new education. It was too busy doing its job as a school, a home and a farm all at once. Each area contributed to the others and was never separate.” ~ Mary Ellen Chase tells in her book The Goodly Fellowship of her early experience teaching at the Hillside Home School.

    • 1887. Mr. Wright designed Hillside Home School (I) (a.k.a. Hillside Home Building) for his aunts – Ellen and Jane Lloyd Jones – to function as a dormitory and library. Mr. Wright had this building demolished in 1950 because he didn’t like the Victorian feel of this shingle-style building, so luckily I took a picture of a picture for proof of its existence.

    • 1897. “Romeo and Juliet Windmill was commissioned by Wright’s aunts to pump water for the Hillside Home School, and Wright offered them a striking observatory tower of wood. The design features two intersecting towers, with Romeo as a triangular storm prow, supported by the octagonal Juliet. The aerodynamic structure allows storm winds to pass around the structure without causing harm. In 1992 Taliesin Preservation fully restored the windmill as its first project on the Taliesin estate, in partnership with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.” ~ READ MORE

    A Definite Upgrade

    • 1901. The design of new Hillside Home School (II) was more to Mr. Wright’s liking and a beautiful upgrade for his aunts. By then, their day and boarding school had grown and classrooms were needed for children from first through twelfth grades.

    A New Era

    • 1915. The school was closed and the grounds were purchased by Mr. Wright, to relieve his aunts of their financial distress.

    • 1932. In keeping with his aunts’ wishes to keep these buildings as learning facilities, Hillside Home School became the central campus for Frank and Olgivanna Lloyd Wright’s newly-founded Taliesin Fellowship. Providing architectural training with a “learn by doing” approach, the community was known as the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture. Its name was later changed to the School of Architecture at Taliesin, but its members were still known as the Taliesin Fellowship who resided at Taliesin during the summer months and Taliesin West in the winter.

    With the inspiration and help of a young and eager group of apprentices, Wright remodeled and expanded the school over and over again – each time trying out new ideas. Pictured below are the Assembly Hall and the Fellowship Dining Room.

    Abstract Forest

    The ceiling in the Assembly Hall above was another of Wright’s ways to bring the outside in. Stripping off the leaves and some of the smaller branches, he was able to create the feeling of a forest for his 5,000 sq. ft. drafting studio. The windows set up high let in the light as it may jut through the leaves in a forest. Wright’s buildings were always situated correctly on their site to collect the sunlight during different times of the day. And of course there would be a fabulous fireplace with seating for everyone!

    When we were ready to leave, our tour guide gave us the bad news and the last bullet on this blog’s timeline:
    • 2020: The School of Architecture at Taliesin was closed after 88 years.

    A Great View

    As we left through the doors to the right of the fireplace above, we got a great view of the Romeo and Juliet Windmill that I talked about before. When we turned around we got a great view of the building we had just left. What a beautiful campus that inspired so much learning! The second photo was taken from the window of our bus as we approached. That’s the best I could do with that one.

    Midway Farm

    On our way to the residence we were driven through the scenic Taliesin estate past Midway Farm, Taliesin’s former farming complex. Midway Barn was in quite a state of disrepair, so we didn’t even make a stop here. I’ll spare you my crappy picture through a dirty shuttle-bus window and show you a beautiful one from Wikipedia. I will pay attribution to the author here.

    I wish that we could have stopped and disembarked to take a photo from a distance, but this tour is described as a “quick overview” and it did not happen. Hopefully their hint at a renovation in the years to come will come to fruition so we can tour one day. I will say that the resident animals had some pretty fancy digs with Mr. Wright at the helm of its design.

    The Residence

    Our tour group was quite large today so it was a little difficult to get shots without people. The house is a little worse for wear, but still fabulous. It looked like it needed a good power wash on the exterior, which I’m sure it will get with more healthy donations.

    Bringing the Outside In

    Every room in the house had fabulous views. I can certainly see what drew Wright’s ancestors to this part of the country.

    Wright’s Personal Studio

    A fabulous Japanese screen that was flattened and mounted behind glass adorns Wright’s Studio. Although it’s difficult to see in the first photo, there is a lovely photo at the website below. The gorgeous screen depicts a huge pine tree with its branches reaching out into the sky and clouds. Wright planted a tree right outside the window to achieve the same effect.

    “Following its recent conservation, updated framing and new glazing, the Japanese screen “Pine Tree with Pheasants and Ducks” returns to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Drafting Studio at Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin. A National Historic Landmark that was once Wright’s home and architectural studio, Taliesin houses an extensive collection of works that he purchased throughout his life.

    “Frank Lloyd Wright’s knowledge of and appreciation for Japanese culture and art are well known. He was a prolific collector of woodblock prints, screens, scrolls, ceramics and sculpture throughout his life, filling the living spaces and the vault at Taliesin with wonderful treasures,” says the foundation’s Director and Curator of Collections Margo Stipe.

    Of the dozens of screens in the collection, “Pine Tree with Pheasants and Ducks” is one of six in the Kano School tradition in the Wright collection, most of which date to the 17th century Japan (Edo period 1603-1868). Stipe elaborates, “These screens are large, bold, and gorgeously decorative, and Wright admired them for their flat abstracted patterns of pine trees, rocks, birds and flowers set against a gold ground.” ~ READ MORE

    Still More to See!

    As we say goodbye to Taliesin one more time, we see in the distance the Romeo and Juliet Windmill and Tan-y-Deri – Welsh for “Under the oaks”. Wright designed this house for his sister and her family – Jane and Andrew Porter in 1908. Looks like we haven’t seen everything quite yet! This house can be seen on the four-hour Estate Tour!

    Stop 2 (of 3): Wyoming Valley School

    “Built in 1957, the building was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, who donated his design and 2 acres of land to the Wyoming School District in honor of his mother, Anna Lloyd-Jones Wright. She had been a kindergarten teacher and encouraged his lifelong love of learning.

    The school opened in 1958 with 46 students in grades 1 through 8. After consolidating with the River Valley School district the building was used by the district 4th graders until being closed in 1990. The building then changed hands several times but mostly remained empty.

    In August of 2010 the school was given to the not-for-profit Wyoming Valley School, Inc., by Jeff Jacobsen, a local landowner and neighbor of the school.” ~ READ MORE

    We Came for the Building, but Stayed for the Bugs!

    I have to admit, we were originally going to stop here just to see another Frank Lloyd Wright building, but it turns out there was an art show going on called Jennifer Angus: A is for Apple, B is for Bug, and C is for Cicada. We perused for quite a while because this show was fantastic and it looked absolutely fabulous in this setting!

    Not Creepy-Crawly at All!

    Jennifer Angus is a professor in Design Studies at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, and her medium is insects! The entire school was filled with bugs! Although most were under bell jars, some were right out there in the open and displayed in fascinating ways. The first two photos below look like they could be wallpaper or a stencil for your wall, but the canvas was decorated with actual bugs.

    The last photo in this grouping are tiny houses on stilts that were dripped with wax that made me think it was honey. The boxes below were filled with flowers that are carved out of wax. Was this a tribute to the bee and its direct connection with the world’s flowers and plants?

    A Beautiful Exhibit in an Historic Building

    This exhibition was a great opportunity to see this building after its major renovation. Just three miles south of Taliesin in Spring Green, Jennifer’s installation is “educational, interactive, and a perfect fit for this historic school.” She was thrilled to have her first installation in a Frank Lloyd Wright space, and she called it “inspiring.”

    In the Words of Jennifer Angus…

    Stop 3 (of 3): The Seth Peterson Cottage

    “At the time Seth Peterson approached Wright to design the Cottage, the architect was nearing ninety years old, in the seventh decade of the most creative and innovative architectural practice in American history” ~ From a brochure from the celebration called “Celebrating Thirty Years Living Wright”

    A Little Trickery?

    At first Mr. Wright refused Seth Peterson’s request to design a small home on a fabulous heavily wooded piece of property on Mirror Lake, near Wisconsin Dells. After all, he had a lot on his plate – the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, the Marin County Civic Center near San Francisco (just to name a few), as well as designing several private homes.

    After one of their meetings, even after getting “NO” for an answer, Seth sent Mr. Wright a check for a down payment. Knowing that Mr. Wright always needed money, he figured that he would cash it, and then be under contract so the home would be built.

    I guess it worked! The 1958 Seth Peterson Cottage was Wright’s last Wisconsin building. Unfortunately, both Wright and Peterson died before the Cottage was complete.

    Small but Mighty

    “This 880 square foot Cottage is balanced just on the edge of the steep wooded hill that plunges down to Mirror Lake. Framed by strong terrace buttresses of local Wisconsin sandstone, and with walls of the same stone, the building possesses a monumentality that is surprising to find in such a small structure.

    The massive chimney and walls of the building, rising two stories over the bathroom and kitchen, are strong vertical elements that anchor and offset the energetic wedge of the roof. The great flying roof, seeming to hang in space without support, frames the principal views to the west and south. The flagstones used to pave the outside terrace continue inside the building as the cottage floor, manifesting Wright’s philosophy of making little distinction between the outside and inside worlds in which we live.”

    Saved from the Bulldozer

    The Cottage, as well as many other properties along the lake were purchased by the State of Wisconsin in 1966 to add to the recently created Mirror Lake State Park. When all of the other properties were bulldozed, this one was left standing. Not sure what to do with the Cottage, it was boarded up for safety and preservation for over twenty years, until the Seth Peterson Cottage Conservancy was formed.

    Rehabilitation of the badly damaged house took more than three years and today’s gathering celebrates thirty years from its return from its shambles. Quite a debt was accumulated with this massive renovation, but with cottage rentals becoming so popular, the debt was quickly paid off. The Cottage remains solvent and is booked up at least two years in advance.

    “Since that time, the Cottage has remained totally self-sufficient, depending largely on rental income, the cooperation and aid from the Mirror Lake State Park staff, and an army of talented volunteers who handle minor repairs, visitor tours, annual spring work weeks, production of the newsletter, and much more.”

    In Conclusion

    What a fabulous day! It seems the more I dig, the more I find. I’m sure there will be many more Wright trifectas in our future, so stay tuned!

    Happy trails,
    Barb

  • All About Frank

    All About Frank

    We planned the last stops of our month-long road trip at several Frank Lloyd Wright properties in Pennsylvania. We enjoyed a previous visit to two of them very much and thought they deserved an encore. We discovered the other three on a website and the story of how Polymath Park came to be sounded very intriguing.

    As always, Mr. Wright’s “organic architecture” never disappoints. “No house should ever be on a hill or on anything. It should be of the hill. Belonging to it. Hill and house should live together with each the happier for the other.” ~ Frank Lloyd Wright.

    Click on the first photo in each group and scroll to see the square photos at full size.
    To start at the beginning of this series, visit Fall for New England 2021.

    A Bed, a Beer, and Two Bridges

    After a less than stellar hotel the night before, the Comfort Inn in Connellsville, PA was a very pleasant surprise. Since the hotel had a small bar in the lobby, we grabbed a couple of Yuenlings and headed to our room after a long day on The Search for Lights.

    This beautiful, newer hotel was located in a more residential area and right next to the Youghiogheny River. I just had to explore a little the next morning before we left. A definite gaggle of geese were enjoying breakfast, but I decided not to disturb them by trying to get in closer for pictures. Turns out we’ll be having lunch by this same river later today.

    Fallingwater

    After my tour of the area surrounding our hotel, we had an even better tour coming up about thirty minutes away at 9am. Our “Architectural Tour” at Fallingwater was an hour inside the house, followed by free time exploring the outside and its iconic views. We visited this awesome site about nine years ago, but my photos got lost in the shuffle. Since we were traveling fairly close today anyway, why not stop by again and finish this trip off right!

    “Fallingwater is a house designed in 1935 by renowned American architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) for the Kaufmann family, owners of Pittsburgh’s largest department store. One of Wright’s most widely acclaimed works, Fallingwater exemplifies his philosophy of organic architecture: the harmonious union of art and nature.

    Fallingwater is located in the mountains of Southwestern Pennsylvania, also known as the Laurel Highlands, in Mill Run, Fayette County, which is about 70 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Wright designed Fallingwater to rise above the waterfall over which it is built. Local craftsmen quarried native sandstone and other materials from the property and completed the construction of the main house, guest house and service wing in 1939.

    Fallingwater is the only major Wright work to come into the public domain with its setting, artwork and original Wright-designed furnishings intact.” ~ READ MORE

    Interior Space

    We had a wonderful full-house tour of the inside, but photos were only allowed on the lower level. There is a great video on YouTube called The Falling Water House, which shows a much-younger Kaufman family enjoying the land and the waterfall long before the house was built. It speaks of the process of the planning – where Mr. Wright was left to “do his thing” and come up with a house for the record books.

    When Mr. Wright presented the plans, there were plenty of nay-sayers that felt the house would surely be washed into the river within a few years. With Mr. Wright’s series of cantilevers and his use of local stone, concrete, and steel, he assured the family that it would indeed be here for years to come. So far it’s been 83 years, and it still looks as good as it did in 1939!

    Mr. Wright incorporated some of the big boulders from the hillside into the design by the fireplace (below). I’m sure they absorb the heat from the fire to keep the room toasty. The windows frame the trees beautifully (bringing the outside in), the floors are waxed to give the feeling of wet stones, and all of the Wright-designed furnishings are still in place.

    Wright’s Inspiration was Nature

    If you’re not that familiar with the works or history of Frank Lloyd Wright, visit this tab within the Fallingwater website. It’s very interesting and tells of Wright’s Wisconsin roots (yay!!).

    “Mr. Wright spent his days surrounded by—and indeed a part of—the changing natural landscape. A patchwork of open fields, lush green valleys and rock-edged streams fed by the Wisconsin River all proved influential in the formation of his later organic design philosophy.

    Wright’s family lived on a farm and, as a boy, his experiences taking care of animals and harvesting a life out of the earth made an indelible impression on him that influenced him consciously and, even more importantly, unconsciously, throughout his life. During his youth, he spent many hours purposefully observing the subtle behavior of sunlight, the shifting shadows of dusk and the changing of the seasons.” ~ READ MORE

    Good Advice

    It goes on to talk about how Edgar Kaufmann, Jr. traveled to meet Mr. Wright at his home in Wisconsin in late September of 1934 after reading Wright’s autobiography. Within weeks, he began an apprenticeship at the Taliesin Fellowship, and later was instrumental in his parent’s decision to build Fallingwater.

    “Though he had no plans to become an architect, the young Kaufmann also began to enthusiastically discuss Wright’s ideas with his parents. Following a visit to Taliesin in 1934, Edgar Kaufmann, Sr., began a casual correspondence with the architect regarding several potential civic projects in Pittsburgh. Kaufmann quickly recognized their mutual passion for new ideas, aesthetic beauty and the relationship between man and the natural world and Wright found a patron that would change the course of his life, his career and, indeed, modern architecture itself.” ~ READ MORE

    Kentuck Knob

    Completed in 1956, Kentuck Knob is a crescent-shaped house that curves around a courtyard. Constructed of native sandstone and red cypress, the house blends naturally with its surroundings – a recurring Wright theme.

    Since the home is privately owned, no photos were allowed inside. The current owners are committed to preserve and maintain the house for years to come, so folks who love Wright’s designs can come take a closer look.

    “I.N. and Bernadine Hagan [the original owners] spent thirty wonderful years at Kentuck Knob. “There is a sense of beauty, comfort, serenity and harmony in the house and all of its surroundings,” Mrs. Hagan said.

    Bernardine Hagan explains the beauty of living at Kentuck Knob as truly being one with nature. Mr. Wright believed that a building should fit into or be a part of its natural surroundings. Mrs. Hagan believed that nowhere, with the possible exception of Fallingwater and Taliesin West, could there be a better example of this relationship than Kentuck Knob.” ~ READ MORE

    Take a Walk to the View

    Rather than show off the great view from inside the house, you have to walk out back to see the Youghiogheny River Gorge and the Laurel Highlands from this fabulous perch. The grounds were so beautiful that Jim thinks that he likes this property even more than Fallingwater.

    We could have opted for a lovely wooded stroll among some sculptures, but an offer was made for a bus ride back to the visitor center. Since we still have lots to see today, we took the offer. The Visitor Center provided a little shopping, a scoop of ice cream, three red phone booths, and some fabulous bird houses – all while we reflected on another great day.

    If you’d like to get the story behind the phone booths and two postal boxes (not pictured), please visit this link. This link is also where I found the beautiful drawing (below) of Kentuck from its planning stages.

    Picnic Lunch by the River

    If you’ve read many of my blogs, you know how much we enjoy our lunch with a view and the money we save packing our own! Today we are situated on a park bench next to the Youghiogheny River with our Playmate cooler. As the children played and folks strolled or ran on the path alongside, we enjoyed the babbling river and a view of the Great Allegheny Passage Bridge.

    Observation Points and Falls

    There were warning signs in several spots about the fall’s dangers. Although it didn’t look that treacherous today, we couldn’t confirm that there weren’t larger falls downstream. I suppose during the spring thaw or after major downpours this river could be raging. All in all it was a beautiful area and I’m sure Frank would be happy that we opted for nature, rather than an eat-in (expensive) lunch.

    Polymath Park

    “Wright designed his first Usonian home in 1936, when Milwaukee Journal writer Herbert Jacobs challenged him to design a house of good quality that cost no more than $5,000. Similar to the homes for Broadacre City, a utopian model for an American community that Wright completed with Taliesin apprentices in 1934, the Jacobs house embodies Wright’s notions of an ideal home set within the American landscape. Just as it seemed that Wright’s pivotal design years had past, the Jacobs House commenced two prolific decades of innovation (1936-1959), which we now refer to as Wright’s Usonian period.” ~ READ MORE

    We discovered Polymath Park when we were making reservations for our earlier tours. It was really a leap of faith that brought us here at all. There wasn’t a whole lot of information on the website at that time about how the “Park” came to be, just that there would be three more FLLW houses to tour and I could take pictures inside. And, of course, we would end the day with a fabulous gourmet meal in the Treetops. What a wonderful way to end this road trip!

    The Visionary Envisions

    In the year 2000 Tom and Heather Papinchak purchased a vacation home in the mountains about an hour outside of Pittsburgh. About three years later, they had the opportunity to buy the 130 acres adjacent to their home. And with it came two Usonian Design homes – the Balter House and the Blum House.

    Tom, a licensed contractor (also a visionary and entrepreneur) decided to restore them both – mostly just to preserve them and save the land from potential development. He thought he may eventually offer tours, since they were built by Peter Berndtson, who in 1938 began studies at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin Fellowship – during which time he worked on the Guggenheim Museum!

    The Balter House was just lovely (below) with its massive fireplace, spacious living area and a sun room in the trees. We couldn’t tour much of this house, so visit the website for a few more interior pictures (without a tour guide who just loved to stand in the way). “During the summer the entire house is filled with green-tinted sunlight, which is sure to heighten your connection with nature and your inner spirit towards a simpler life.”

    In 2007 Polymath Park opened for overnight lodging and tours. There was quite a buzz and busloads of guests and tourists started arriving.

    The First Rescue

    In 2006 Polymath Park became involved with the relocation of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Duncan House, originally located in Lisle, IL. The Duncan House and all subsequent houses that were rescued from demolition were painstaking disassembled. After detailed cataloging and numbering of all the bits and pieces, they were packed in shipping containers and transported to Polymath Park for reassembly. Mr. Papinchak and his four-person crew began the rebuild piece by piece, which was completed after nine long months.

    We were able to tour this house, so there are photos below. In this case, none of the furniture was original, making it seem just like a normal mid-century modern home – with some Frank-inspired details, of course.

    In 2008 Heather and Tom repurposed their home as an on-site restaurant for their guests – now known as TreeTops Restaurant.

    A Second Rescue

    Somewhere around 2016 in Cloquet, MN (near Duluth), Peter and Julie McKinney’s house was being swallowed up by the city. They tried to sell it with no success. Frank Lloyd Wright designed their house for Peter’s grandparents, the Lindholms in the mid 1950s. It even had a name: Mäntylä (of the Pines).

    In 2016 Polymath Park was approved by the FLW Building Conservancy and the McKinney (Lindholm) family for the relocation and preservation of the Lindholm “Mäntylä” House. Three years later, Mäntylä had its grand opening at Polymath Park and the McKinneys joined the celebration! Please watch this YouTube video to hear the whole story – it’s really wonderful!

    With this rebuild, all of the original furniture (built by FLLW) was included, which made this my favorite visit of the day, and it helped the McKinneys feel right at home during the celebration and reunion with their home – almost a thousand miles from its original location.

    More to Come!

    Heather and Tom soon became known as “preservationists with the space and know-how to foster wayward homes”. In 2019 Polymath Park saved Frank Lloyd Wright, Jr.’s “BirdWing” design from demolition. This new endeavor will become part of the Wright collection soon, I’m sure. Seems like a great reason to revisit this beautiful part of Pennsylvania.

    The End of the Road(trip)

    After an absolutely fabulous dinner at TreeTops, we said goodbye to Frank Lloyd Wright and after one more sleep we were home, just amazed at all we had experienced in the last month.

    My next post will be a detailed itinerary of the road trip with links to each stop. Click on the green link below to get started. If you’re all caught up, stay tuned for our Winter 2022 series that’s coming up soon!

    Next up: Fall for New England Recap

    Happy trails,
    Barb

  • Racine, Wisconsin

    Racine, Wisconsin

    On this chilly day in August of 2020 – when staying home seems to have become the norm – I am daydreaming about a chilly day trip that Jim and I took in November of 2019. We determined that in the thirty-four years we’ve lived in Wisconsin – even though we passed by every time we were headed to Chicago and beyond – we had never been to Racine or Kenosha. We decided it was time for that to change.

    Last week we were in Kenosha, where we enjoyed some great outdoors, its beautiful lakefront, the Civil War Museum and the historic Southport Light Station. Today we’re in the city of Racine to get a double dose of Frank Lloyd Wright and see another fabulous lighthouse.

    Our first stop today was to experience Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs at SC Johnson’s world headquarters in Racine. Tours are free and open to the public with reservations. Only 15 minutes apart, tours of this facility and Wright’s Wingspread are a great combination for any FLW fan, although they require separate (free) reservations. We got checked in at the historic Golden Rondelle Theatre, located in the administration complex. There is an awesome photo of the theatre at the link.

    “The Golden Rondelle Theater was originally built as the SC Johnson Pavilion for the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair. After the Fair was over, The Golden Rondelle was dismantled and its steel framework was shipped back to Racine, where it was re-designed by Taliesin Associated Architects, the architectural business formed by Wright’s apprentices after his death.

    Today, the building continues to function as a theater for both company and public events. Visitors to SC Johnson can arrange to view the Academy-Award-winning To Be Alive! and Carnaúba: A Son’s Memoir, which tells a remarkable story of family and adventure. Learn more about the company’s films here.” – READ MORE

    After a short introduction at the Rondelle, we made our way across campus to the Research Tower. There’s some great information about the Tower at the link. “Wright called his design a “helio-lab,” or sun-lighted laboratory. At the building’s dedication, he said he hoped it would be a “flower among the weeds” of typical, “drab” structures built for business.” Boy, he sure accomplished that!

    Two gorgeous statues (Nakoma and Nakomis) were installed in 1979 on either side of the Tower, and are a realization of figures Wright designed in 1923. They remind me of the sprites that started their lives at Midway Gardens in Chicago and ended up bull-dozed into Lake Michigan. You can read that tragic story at the link. On a happier note, some of the sprites were recovered and are on display at other FLW complexes, and the molds were recovered, so reproductions can be purchased at the Frank Lloyd Wright Store. They really are beautiful.

    Wright instructed the crew to plaster the vertical gaps in the brick using colors that would blend in, and make the horizontal plaster stand out – for a distinctly horizontal design using regular-sized bricks. These three photos illustrate the concept pretty well. We did go inside the Tower, but no photos were allowed (so go visit!). OK, here’s a website with some great interior shots by Chicago Tribune photographer Bill Hogan.

    We walked from the Research Tower to the Administration Building via the most beautiful parking lot I’ve ever been in. Usually full of water during (much) warmer months, the blue circular vessels form a mesmerizing reflecting pool. I’m assuming that Wright wanted it to be a joy to go to work every day. Can you imagine?

    Several of the many supports for the Administration Building are pictured below. These supports have a huge circular top, and look like a golf tee. This was one of Wright’s unique design ideas that the Johnson’s, the construction crew and even the city said wouldn’t work. Wright took on that challenge and tested them extensively to go farther that just passing the city’s tests – each are able to bare 12 tons of load. Plus they are just gorgeous! These supports continue inside on an even grander scale, and the acrylic ceiling is another beautiful design element! Unfortunately no photos were allowed inside, so sneak a peek in the windows or visit the link above.

    We made our way up Sam’s Walk to Fortaleza Hall, another fantastic building which includes a timeline of the company’s products and a room with scale models of Frank Lloyd Wright’s buildings. Very impressive. The last photo was taken from outside the glass windows. It is a replica of the doomed S-38 Sikorsky seaplane that HF Johnson and his crew took bound for Fortaleza, Brazil in 1935. Their goal was to study the carnauba palm – the key ingredient in nearly every SC Johnson product at the time. The story of that journey is told in one of the movies at the Golden Rondelle Theatre.

    Since we extended our stay as long as possible before they booted us out, time was of the essence with our next tour coming up fast. We quickly scarfed down Subway (not our typical day-trip type of lunch) but oh well, Wingspread is next and I looked on that with great anticipation!

    Now a retreat and executive conference center, Wingspread was commissioned by Herbert Johnson and built by Wright for Herbert and his family. At the beginning of our tour we watched a wonderful video of his two children, then in their 70s. They tell wonderful stories about the house and the challenges of working with Wright – the only architect who can come in 4x over budget and get away with it, even with leaks in the roof! The link will lead you to some of the most beautiful photos of the complex. Be sure to check out the overhead view, showing the four wings.

    The pool is covered in the photo below. I’ll bet the 80-year-old grapevines look beautiful during the other three seasons of the year. Also, check out the crow’s nest, which can be accessed by the spiral staircase in the photo just above. That and the swimming pool sealed the deal when Herbert’s son didn’t want to move out to the boondocks for fear of losing all of his friends. Instead he had lots of friends over to play on the vast property.

    Frank Lloyd Wright has always been a favorite of mine. If you love him too, check out the tab up top. I have a few posts of places I’ve visited over the years. Unfortunately at the time we visited Kentuck Knob and Falling Water in Pennsylvania, I was inept at keeping my digital photos organized and backed up and lost them all. Hopefully that will never happen again, and some day I’ll be able to visit again and replace them.

    Now we’re off to our final stop of the day. About a mile east of Wingspread is Wind Point Lighthouse, standing 108 feet above the village of Wind Point, Wisconsin. Wind Point is one of the oldest and tallest active lighthouses on the Great Lakes, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. The lighthouse was built in 1880 and was designed by Orlando Metcalfe Poe who had served in the Civil War as a Brigadier General. It was lit for the first time on November 15, 1880 and continues to be lit to this day.

    I’ll leave the photos in a block, so you can click on the first one and scroll through the rest.

    I hope you have enjoyed this wonderful day in Wisconsin as much as we did. It’s kind of ironic that we feel we have to travel hundreds of miles to see new things, when there are so many new things to see right in our own state. Safe travels.

    Happy trails,
    Barb

  • The Arizona Biltmore

    The Arizona Biltmore

    So much of what I love about traveling is taking the tours and hearing the stories. Anytime I can hear an interesting, inspiring or funny story, I consider a tour to be a success. In my opinion, since often times the tours are free or close to it, it’s a great idea to take tours whenever they’re offered. Most times the tour guides are volunteers and just want to share information about a person or place that they are passionate about, which usually makes for a wonderful time.

    Click on the first photo in each group and scroll to see the square photos at full size.

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    The Jewel of the Desert

    Deemed the “Jewel of the Desert” since 1929, The Arizona Biltmore tour was well worth the $10 price tag. It would have been free with a reservation there, but that was not in the budget at this time (darn it), so I drove from Peoria on a Thursday morning to catch the 10:00 tour. I left my usual 10-15 minutes after I should have, and then had a terrible time finding the place, which got me there past tour time. Google maps said I was there and clearly… I was not. Luckily another tour was available on Saturday, so I drove around to find it and set my sights on Saturday’s tour. Friday night I moved to a hotel in Scottsdale, which made the commute a lot less stressful.

    The top picture was taken from The Arizona Biltmore’s website, which offers other stunning photos of the rooms and grounds. The rest of the photos in this blog are mine, but it was very difficult to get an outside front picture of the place without cars or people swarming around.

    A living Architectural Masterpiece

    Although not “officially” designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, his influences are all over this beautiful hotel. And with each renovation, more and more of his signature elements were added. His “Saguaro Forms and Cactus Flowers” stained glass that Wright had designed as a magazine cover for Liberty Magazine in 1926, was fabricated by Taliesin students and installed during the 1973 hotel renovations and restoration.

    “The Arizona Biltmore is a living architectural masterpiece, showcasing the seminal influence of America’s most heralded architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. As the consulting architect, Wright collaborated with a former student, Albert Chase McArthur. Wright’s dramatic style and imprimatur are imbedded throughout the resort’s design. The Biltmore was erected entirely of “Biltmore Block,” a variation on a textile block first used by Wright to construct private homes. The pre-cast blocks were made from desert sand on-site and created in 34 different geometric patterns inspired by the trunk of a palm tree.” – Read More about the Arizona Biltmore HERE.

    It is definitely a top notch hotel and “some day” I’ll have to stay there, just to say I did. But for now, I’ll settle for my stories – and there are quite a few.

    By Invitation Only

    Originally you could stay here by invitation only and the powers-that-be didn’t let just anyone in. Celebrities, presidents – you get the idea. It wasn’t until 1973, when it changed ownership once again that it became a traditional hotel. It is said that every president of the United States has visited there, with the exception of Barack Obama. Not sure if his plans include a trip, just to keep the streak alive.

    Star-Studded Guest Book

    Irving Berlin sat poolside and wrote “White Christmas” and Marilyn Monroe called the Biltmore’s her favorite pool. Ronald and Nancy Reagan, as well as Clark Gable and Carol Lombard honeymooned here. Is was said it was a mystery where all the men disappeared to after dinner, but it wasn’t a mystery what was going on in the Mystery Room during prohibition. The spotlight, high atop the building (pictured) was used to warn of a raid by shining the beam into one of two skylights. The one pictured is in the History Room and the other – conveniently located in the ceiling of the Mystery Room.

    In 1929 the Aztec Room was second only to the Taj Mahal in square footage of gold leaf ceiling. The room is round and has a spot on the floor that is acoustically perfect. There is a stage and would be the perfect place for a wedding reception. The Gold Room would be great for an even larger reception and, along with also having gold leaf on the ceiling, has two original linen tapestries, which are insured for millions.

    The lobby is fabulous and the hotel offers at least two restaurants. I have so many more pictures, but I’ll cut it off here. Let it just be said that this was a superb stop and if you love Frank Lloyd Wright as much as I do, you should definitely visit on your next trip to Phoenix.

     

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    Happy Trails,
    Barb

  • The Historic Park Inn Hotel

    The Historic Park Inn Hotel

    In July I took off for Iowa all by myself for the first time in years, making the rounds with relatives and ending with a visit at my mother-in-law’s. This was a special treat to have Elaine all to myself. Usually there are lots of others around – at least my husband, but this time it was just us.

    Click on the first photo in each group and scroll to see the square photos at full size.

    Mason City, IA

    We were out and about and I must have mentioned our visit to Taliesin West, when Elaine told me about The Park Inn Hotel. We made the trip to Mason City that afternoon rather than wait, since Ragbrai was headed this way the next morning. This was a spur of the moment find and it was gorgeous! We took a self-guided tour and snapped a few pictures.

    “The Historic Park Inn Hotel, together with City National Bank in Mason City, Iowa, were designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright and completed in 1910. The design greatly influenced architecture in Europe and is as striking today as it ever was.

    The Park Inn Hotel is [one of] the last Wright designed hotel[s] in the world, and a complete renovation, including restoration of the distinctive brick and terra-cotta façade as well as art glass windows has restored the Prairie School building to a functional hotel.”     – READ MORE

    A Great Influence

    Great Find!

    More than one hundred years after its original completion in 1910, following a nearly $20 million restoration, it is GORGEOUS and has begun filling its world-class landmark role as The Historic Park Inn Hotel, with 27 rooms, a restaurant and a conference and events center. Great find Elaine!

    Happy trails,
    Barb