Although he disigned and built some of the most famous commercial and residential buildings in the world, Frank LLoyd Wright, a Wisconsin native, was really a homesteader at heart.
DW and I had the great opportunity to tour "Taliesin", in Spring Green, WI, where Wright started building his family home, near the family farm, in 1911. One of his main beliefs was the use of "organic architecture", where the structures blend in with nature and local building materianls are used extensively.
The original house had an attached hog house, stable and hen house (with tall south facing windows), before he decided farm animals next to the house, was not that great of an idea. He built and rebuilt parts of the house often, to change functionality or use. Everywhere has a spectacular view.
He did always have a lot of hired help to implement his designs, but gave thorough consideration, to everything from placement of the windmill and what trees are planted around it, to the layout of the access road and the best locations for the 22 fireplaces. He used old steel dairy barn stancions,to create ornamental decorations around the home exterior.
What we like best, was that a good bit of the flooring (inside and out) was simply flat limestone, mortared together, with some coated, with a smooth clear finish. Much of the beautiful furniture and woodwork is made from recycled hardwoods or scraps of plywood, that Wright got for free, from local mills. A lot of the internal doors are made from plywood, but you have to look close to tell. Most of the woodwork looked very elaborate, unit you got close to it, to see it was very simple cuts. We saw a lot of great ideas, for projects around our house.
The tour was a bit pretty pricey at $45/ea, but it was a 2 hour tour, verses the $12for 30 minutes in "Ripley's Believe it or Not" museum.
I want to die in a house this cool.
