Building Taliesin

by Ron McCrea

  Whether or not she sees it herself we do not know and yet she plays it for us who stand in the Corner.

  There is an eternal Life, Growth and Motion in her and yet she does not advance.

  She changes ever, no Moment is stationary to her.

  She has no Conception of Rest and has fixed her Curse upon Inaction.

  She is Firm.

  Her step is measured, her Exceptions rare, her Laws immutable.

  She has reflected and meditated perpetually; not however as Man but as Nature.

  She has reserved for herself a specific all-embracing Thought which none may learn from her.

  * * * * * * *

  Mankind is all in her and she in all.

  With all she indulges in a friendly Game and rejoices the more one wins from her.

  She practices it with many, so occultly that she plays it to the End before they are aware of it.

  And most unnatural is Nature.

  Whoever does not see her on every side, nowhere sees her rightly.

  She loves herself and ever draws herself Eyes and Hearts without number.

  She has set herself apart in order to enjoy herself.

  Ever she lets new Admirers arise, insatiable, to open her Heart to them.

  In Illusion she delights.

  Whoever destroys this in himself and others, him she punishes like the most Severe Tyrant.

  Whoever follows her confidently—him she presses as a child to her Breast.

  Her Children are Countless.

  To none is she everywhere niggardly but she has Favorites upon whom she lavishes much and to whom she sacrifices much.

  Upon Greatness she has fixed her Protection.

  She pours forth her Creations out of Nothingness and tells them not whence they came nor whither they go; they are only to go; the Road she knows.

  She has few Motive Impulses—never worn out, always effective, always manifold.

  Her Drama is ever New because she ever creates new Spectators.

  Life is her most beautiful Invention and Death her Ruse that she may have much Life.

  She envelops mankind in Obscurity and spurs him ever toward the Light.

  She makes him dependent upon the Earth, inert and heavy; and ever shakes him off again.

  She gives Needs because she loves Action.

  It is marvelous how she attains all this Movement with so little.

  Every need is a blessing, quickly satisfied, as quickly awakened again.

  If she gives another Need—then is it a new source of Desire; but soon she comes to Equipoise.

  She starts every Moment upon the longest Race and every Moment is at the Goal.

  She is Futility itself: but not for us for whom she has made herself of the greatest importance.

  She lets every Child correct her, every Simpleton pronounce Judgment upon her; she lets thousands pass callous over her seeing nothing and her Joy is in all and she finds in all her Profit.

  We obey her laws even when we most resist them, we work with her even when we wish to work against her.

  She turns everything she gives into a Blessing; for she makes it first— indispensable.

  She delays that we may long for her, she hastens on that we may not be sated with her.

  She has no Speech nor Language; but she creates Tongues and Hearts through which she feels and speaks.

  Her Crown is Love.

  Only through Love can we approach her.

  She creates Gulfs between all Beings and all wish to intertwine.

  She has isolated all that she may draw all together.

  With a few Draughts from the Beaker of Love she compensates a Life full of Toil.

  She is Everything.

  She rewards herself and punishes herself, rejoices and torments herself.

  She is harsh and gentle, lovely and terrible, powerless and omnipotent.

  Everything is ever present in her.

  Past and Future she knows not—The Present is her Eternity.

  She is generous.

  I glorify with all her Works.

  She is wise and calm.

  One drags no Explanation from her by Force, wrests no gift from her which she does not freely give.

  She is cunning but for a good purpose and it is best not to observe her Craft.

  She is complete and yet ever incomplete; so as she goes on she can ever go on.

  To Everyone she appears in especial Form.

  She conceals herself behind a thousand Names and Terms and yet is always the same.

  She has placed me here; she will lead me hence;—

  I confide myself to her.

  She may do with me what she will: she will not despise her Work.

  I speak not of her. No, what is true and what is false; She herself has spoken all;

  All the Fault is hers; hers is all the Glory.

  NOTES

  * By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, translated by Mamah Borthwick and Frank Lloyd Wright. Spring Green Weekly Home News, August 20, 1914. An introduction to the same text published by Margaret Anderson in The Little Review, vol. 1, October 1914, 30, says it was “translated into English by a strong man and a strong woman whose lives and whose creations have served the ideals of all humanity in a way that will gain deeper and deeper appreciation.”

  And so, the story of Taliesin II begins…

  Racine Journal-News, November 17, 1914

  Figure 184. Taliesin overlooks its valley

  BUILDING TALIESIN

  Many thanks

  On February 11, 2010, I was searching the Internet for a link to the Taylor Woolley photos of Frank Lloyd Wright’s home in Italy when an unfamiliar site appeared: a collection of Woolley photos at the Utah State Historical Society that purported to include images of “Taliesen [sic] I under construction.” I asked David Rogers, a family friend in Salt lake City, to take a personal look. He called back excitedly to describe the construction scenes. That was the beginning of this book.

  Since my life’s work had been in newsrooms, I approached my quest for the lost Taliesin as a lead reporter and assigning editor. David was my first recruit. With the power of the Internet my investigative team grew to include a world-wide web of contributors across the united States and in Italy, France, Sweden, Finland, Russia, and Japan. I had read and written about Wright for some time and understood what I needed to find. My luck was that everywhere I turned I found people willing to go to extra lengths to help when they learned that the topic was Frank Lloyd Wright.

  The first thing to find about the Woolley Taliesin photos in Utah was what was in them. What were we seeing? The Utah historical society at the time could supply no information. But Keiran Murphy, the meticulous, keen-eyed historian of Taliesin Preservation, Inc., in Spring Green, Wisconsin, was able to identify each one and locate them in time, sometimes using clues as subtle as a vase of pussy willows.

  Nancy Horan, author of the best-selling novel Loving Frank, emerged as a great friend of this book. She shared her legible set of Borthwick letters—the other key primary source, which I mined for detail, chronology and leads. She also connected me with Claes Von Heiroth, the grandson of Mascha Von Heiroth. Mascha was the “Russian next door” who spent easter Sunday 1910 with Wright and Borthwick in Fiesole and wrote about it in her diary.

  Von Heiroth, who lives in Helsinki, asked his sister in France, Bianca Maria Andersen, to scan Mascha’s diary pages, which were handwritten in French. My friend Clare Mather, a professor of French at St. Olaf College, led me to Jonah Hacker, a graduating senior from Madison, who bicycled over to pick up the pages and did an excellent translation. From the state of Washington (Horan’s home) to Finland, France, Minnesota, and Madison—with a side trip to St. Petersburg, Russia, to pick up Mascha’s portrait at the Hermitage—it was world cyber-tour that yielded one small, charming, exclusive story.

  Fig. 185. Elaine DeSmidt and Ron McCrea at Taliesin. Photograph by Mark Hertzberg.

  Andrea Reithmayr, a librarian at the Ru
sh Rhees library at the university of Rochester, saw a letter telling me there were no files there for landscaper Jens Jensen, who had submitted a plant order to a Rochester nursery for Wright in 1912. But she knew better, and produced a sheaf of correspondence that included Jensen’s scalding letter upbraiding the nursery for pestering Wright for money just days after the 1914 Taliesin murders.

  Björn Sjunnesson, a Stockholm architect whom I had contacted after seeing his photo of Strand, Ellen Key’s home, on the Internet, made a special auto trip back to lake Vättern in central Sweden to photograph the Hiroshige print that was Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick’s Christmas housewarming present in to Key in 1911. This print, selected by Wright and in a custom frame of his design, has never appeared before.

  Other key finds made by Butch Kmet of Salt lake City and Whitney Harrod of Northwestern university are described in the introduction. The investigative team approach proved its worth again and again.

  PICTURES AND POSTCARDS

  This book contains more than 200 illustrations, and only a small number will be familiar to followers of Wright literature. The vast majority are original.

  Claes Von Heiroth contributed two rare, fascinating, and previously unpublished photos of his grandparents spending an alfresco afternoon in Fiesole with gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, and the Stein family.

  Elizabeth Catherine Wright, the architect’s granddaughter now living in France, contributed the charming photo of her father, Robert llewellyn, at age six. She and her brother Tim Wright both offered thoughts about the puppet theater Wright made for their father in 1911 in Taliesin’s raw living room.

  Carla Wright (no relation) shared her farm family album photo of gardeners at Taliesin in 1913, including Ben davis, the construction foreman whom Wright called the “Michelangelo” of cussers. She also contributed her pictures of a Wisconsin farm boy posing with Japanese visitors.

  Patrick Mahoney contributed his postcard, freshly purchased on eBay, of gawkers viewing Taliesin’s ruins. Brian Spencer contributed his scarce 1914 Midway gardens brochure. Colleen Flanigan of the Chicago Opera Theater put me in touch with dan Rest, who dug out his 1997 production photos of Shining Brow. Filippo Fici found the original poster of the 1910 Florence air show.

  Jim McIntosh of Lopez Island, Washington, a regular participant in the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy web chat group, provided his clean color rendering of the architectural plan and elevation of Taliesin I.

  Craig Wilson took stunning aerial photos of Taliesin from a radio-controlled kite. My wife, elaine deSmidt, spied the links among three of Frank Lloyd Wright’s photos of Jones Valley in 1900. Digital specialist Roger daleiden knitted together the panorama. Pedro Guerrero, Frank Lloyd Wright’s personal photographer, provided his well-known images of the plaque at Taliesin’s entrance and Wright in his drafting studio.

  At libraries and archives, Doug Misner, Gregory M. Waltz and Heidi Orchard of the utah State Historical Society gave me great assistance and permission to use the key collection of Woolley images. Archivists Margo Stipe and Oskar Munoz of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation provided everything I asked from Taliesin West, knowledgeably and promptly. Lisa Marine and Andy Kraushaar of the Wisconsin Historical Society Archives assisted with my visits and extensive image requests. Lorraine Crouse of the University of Utah’s Marriott Library fielded my numerous long-distance transactions and on-site visits from Butch Kmet.

  Other custodians of visual materials who helped were Mel Buchanan of the Milwaukee Art Museum; Heather Oswald of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio; Andrea Waala of the Museum of Wisconsin Art; Susan Augustine of the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries at the Art Institute of Chicago; Olga Novoseltseva of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia; Rebecca Fawcett of the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth; Debra Gust of the Curt Teich Postcard Archives at the Lake County Discovery Museum; and the staffs of the Swedish National Museum of Fine Arts and the Swedish Royal Library.

  In 2004, Harvard University gave me the rare opportunity to visit the Villa I Tatti in Florence, near Fiesole. The former estate of American art collector and connoisseur Bernard Berenson is now Harvard’s center for Renaissance studies. The welcoming staff allowed me to tour Berenson’s poetic home and gardens and work in the modern research library.

  No picture can substitute for visits to Taliesin itself. The Senior Fellows welcomed me there and showed me hospitality in the great tradition. I thank especially Minerva Montooth, Frances Nemtin, Effi Casey, Susan Jacobs Lockhart, Cornelia Brierly, and Victor Sidy, dean of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture. On the preservation side, Taliesin Preservation Inc., president Carol McChesney Johnson gave this book early and enthusiastic support. Facilities manager Jim Erickson and preservation program coordinator Sidney Robinson, who know Taliesin’s dNA intimately, were generous with their time and insights.

  PRODUCTION VALUES

  Having found a wealth of new materials, I put a priority on getting them into print quickly. I stepped out of my writing and assigning role and drew on my experience in news production to bring this book as close to being press-ready as I could make it. That meant assembling another crew.

  I was lucky to retain Earl J. Madden as the designer. His creativity, magic, and appreciation of the materials are visible on every page. What is invisible is his calm, professionalism, and patience. Thanks to Michael Kienitz for introducing us.

  For a general editor I called on my wise friend and former “green eyeshade” colleague on the news desks of the Boston Globe and Washington Post, Richard M. Weintraub. Rick asked the kinds of questions that rattle assumptions and send an author off to dig and rewrite. I was once his best man; now he is mine. Keiran Murphy was chief fact-checker. Barbara Walsh was the invaluable editor for Parallel Press.

  Several people read portions of the manuscript. They were Dave Wagner, my mentor in politics and history; former Newsweek correspondent Martin (Mick) Andersen; Michael J. Dorgan of the San Jose Mercury News; Cynthia J. Davis, the biographer of Charlotte Perkins Gilman; Barbara Miller Lane of Bryn Mawr College, an expert on Ellen Key; Florence architect Filippo Fici; D. Ben DeSmidt of Carthage College, our family classicist; and Nancy Horan.

  Laura Gottlieb came out of retirement to prepare the index. Richard W. Young of Quarles & Brady in Chicago guided me through the legal vagaries.

  Others who provided assists and advice were Bob Allister, Jeff Ballowe, Bill and Amy Dixon, Peter Goss, Dan Harrison, Richard and Reed Howard, Moria and Edward Krueger, Narciso Menocal, Jerry Minnich, Judy Schwaemle, Ben Sidran, Joel Skornicka, Susan Steingass and William Francis Nelson, Zane Williams, and Dave Zweifel.

  WAYS AND MEANS

  This volume is largely self-financed, something that would not have been possible before the digital age reduced the need for personal travel, accelerated research to warp speed, and made book design a cottage industry.

  The Evjue Foundation, created by the founding editor of The Capital Times, a defender and promoter of Wright during his lifetime, provided a grant. Several individuals also contributed, including one gift made in memory of Robert B. Graves, a tall figure at Taliesin who spent his last years restoring Wright’s 1957 Wyoming Valley School.

  I had two benefactors in the 1980s who prepared the way for this study by underwriting my research at the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and letters. The late Marshall D. Erdman, who built with Wright, and Yuzaburo Mogi, chairman of Kikkoman Foods, were the memorable gentlemen.

  This year marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of The Wisconsin Idea, Charles McCarthy’s distillation of the Progressive practices that gave Wisconsin its reputation as a laboratory of democracy. Key among these was the working partnership of the University of Wisconsin with the state to advance its prosperity and quality of life. I am grateful to Elisabeth R. Owens of the UW–Madison Libriaries’ Parallel Press, and Kathy Borkowski, director of the Wisconsin Historical Society Press, my publisher, for making Building Talies
in a beneficiary of this noble legacy.

  LIFE SAVERS AND GIVERS

  In 2006 I had a major health crisis that was resolved with emergency surgery and an organ transplant. I would not have lived to write this book had it not been for the skills of the medical staffs of Madison’s Meriter Hospital and the University of Wisconsin Hospital Transplant unit. I would like to thank Dr. Kevin McAllister, Dr. Stuart Knechtle, Dr. Alexandru Musat, Dr. Amish Raval, and Dr. Josh Mesrich. Also, Dr. Alan Kalker, Dr. Tony DeGiovanni, Dr. Robert Olson, Michael Gerst, blood donors, nursing staff, and the family of my anonymous organ donor, whose gift keeps me writing.

  I was supported through this by my family, friends, and colleagues at The Capital Times, who I thank again, in particular Jacob Stockinger, who is always good therapy. I thank Bob McCrea for his brotherly care and prayers, Christine, Jason and Jennifer McCrea, Benjamin DeSmidt, and Brad, Lesley and Holly Johnson.

  Elaine Harris DeSmidt donates her heart to me every day. The experience of her love enabled me to understand this story. This book is for her.

  Fig. 186. Clifford Evans (left) doffs his hat and takes a bow as his architectural partner, former Taliesin photographer Taylor A. Woolley (right) shares a dockside toast in Salt Lake City with two unidentified friends. Clifford Evans Collection, Special Collections Deptartment, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah.

  ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

  Page ii. Taliesin I plan and elevation by Jim McIntosh

  Fig. 1. Courtesy of Carla Wright

  Figs. 2 and 5. Courtesy the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University). All rights reserved.

  Fig. 5, 6. © Dan Rest

  Fig. 7. Courtesy of Anne Biebel, Cornerstone Preservation

  Figs. 8–10. Photographs by author