”They say it`s the worst thing for an architect to be his own client,”
our guide notes, prefacing with irony our visit through Taliesin, the Wisconsin home that architect Frank Lloyd Wright built for himself just outside Spring Green, on a hillside overlooking the beautiful valley along the Wisconsin River where he spent much of his youth.
One need only catch a distant glimpse of the sprawling, multi-leveled structure through the trees that shroud it from the highway to be thankful that Wright had no use for ”they sayers.” Our tour, however, offered a rare close-up view, leading us up a steep, private road, past apple trees, grape vines and a garden riotous with wildflowers, into portions of the 37,000-square-foot house that has been acclaimed as Wright`s greatest achievement.
As assistant to Louis H. Sullivan, a prominent Chicago architect, Wright had a hand in designing several city landmarks. In 1889 he began working on his own, setting up a studio in Oak Park in which he designed his ”Prairie houses,” a revolutionary concept in architectural design in which buildings were made to blend naturally into the countryside.
This is the first year Taliesin has been opened to the public for interior tours on a regular weekly basis, and even at $35 a head, sales have been brisk. Limited to 30 people at a time, visits are offered by reservation only at 12:30 and 2:30 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays through Sept. 26 (though space is no longer available on Saturdays).
Visitors have been flocking to Taliesin from all over the United States and abroad since the tours began in mid-June.
”I think there is an increased awareness of Frank Lloyd Wright this year because of the reopening of the Guggenheim Museum (which he designed),” says tour director Terry Kerr, but she adds that the demand to see the house has existed for 20 years. ”A lot of people have been waiting a long time to see it,” she says. ”Now that it`s open, they`re coming.”
The 2 1/2-hour tour begins just west of Taliesin at the Hillside Home School, which Wright designed in 1902 as a country boarding school for two of his aunts, and which in 1932 he turned into the Taliesin Fellowship, a school for architects. After a 45-minute tour at the school, which still functions as the summer working headquarters for the Taliesin Architects and the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, visitors caravan 1 mile by car to the house.
Taliesin (pronounced tally-EHS-sen) means ”shining brow” in Welsh, the language of Wright`s ancestors who homesteaded this verdant area about 40 miles west of Madison. Built of native limestone, cedar and cypress wood, the house wraps around the hillside in a way that aptly fits its name.
Built in 1911, the house survived three fires during Wright`s lifetime and Wright used each reconstruction as an opportunity to redesign, expand, try out ideas. But he did not wait for disaster in order to change things.
”Wright was always changing Taliesin,” our guide tells us. ”Taliesin was his sketch pad.”
Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976, Taliesin and other structures on the 600-acre property are once again in need of major repair, this time due to aging. The $28 million task is being overseen by the newly formed Taliesin Preservation Commission in partnership with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.
It is partly because of this project that Taliesin has opened to the public. Officially, the tours are being offered in honor of the 125th anniversary of Wright`s birth (in 1867, though some reference sources put his year of birth at 1869), with proceeds being used for preservation efforts. Accounts in the Madison press, however, suggest the tours also help Taliesin qualify for public funding for the project.
When our group arrived at Taliesin, we were divided in half. One section remained in the garden for tea and cookies served in a shaded circle of stone built into the hillside just above the house.
The other half entered Taliesin, trading our shoes at the entrance for paper slippers that would carry us across Persian and Chinese carpets.
This level of the house offers breathtaking views of the valley, river and countryside beyond, with most rooms opening through glass doors onto open porches and balconies. One of the rooms leads to a narrow, cantilevered
”birdwalk” that juts out into space hundreds of feet above the valley.
We saw six rooms in this section: The enormous, formal living room, an explosion of space under a cathedral ceiling, holds Wright-designed furniture, artifacts, a grand piano and other musical instruments. The room frequently is used-much the way it was in Wright`s day-for formal dinners and receptions.
The Blue Loggia is a less formal living room that we viewed from its balcony doorway, as it contains a large Chinese rug deemed too delicate for heavy traffic. The Pink Loggia is a small, art-filled sitting room that leads into the Garden Room, another miracle of space overlooking the beautifully landscaped terrace.
Wright`s bedroom, now used to house guests, features a low overhang of stone ceiling that forms a natural canopy over the bed. Finally, there is Wright`s office at the far end of this wing, where the master could sit at his desk and enjoy a commanding view of his own handiwork down the hallway.
After a short period in which we were allowed to retour these rooms on our own, we switched places with the second part of the group and had refreshments in the ”tea circle” and a briefing on more Taliesin lore.
Then we visited Wright`s studio in another wing. A large sculpted Buddha sits on a low limestone wall just above the drafting table where Wright conceived some of his most famous designs, such as Fallingwater in Mill Run, Pa.
Weekday tickets remain
Reservations for the Taliesin House Tour are available by telephone only
(608-588-2511) between 1 and 4 p.m. weekday afternoons. Tickets are $35 and should be prepaid with MasterCard or Visa. There are no special prices for children or large groups. (Groups are discouraged, as remaining space is limited.) Saturday tours are sold out, but tickets remain for tours at 12:30 and 2:30 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays through Sept. 26.
Two other tours of the Frank Lloyd Wright property are available more regularly; neither require reservations.
A 45-minute tour of the Hillside Home School runs seven days a week on the hour, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., through Nov. 1. Fee is $6 for adults and $3 for children under 12.
Taliesin Walking Tours are at 10:30 a.m. Mondays through Saturdays through Oct. 3. Tickets are $15 with no reduced price for children. The 2-mile outing covers major structures and sites (exteriors only) on the Taliesin property.
Taliesin and Hillside Home School are 3 miles south of Spring Green, Wis., about 3 1/2 hours from Chicago.
