Building Taliesin Read online

  It is unknown whether Elgh returned after his weekend in Chicago, and if he did, for how long. No record has been found indicating when he left Wright’s workshop. But we know that Taylor Woolley presented him with a parting gift. It was an album of photographs of Taliesin in its natural world that Woolley had taken while Wright’s hillside inspiration was first coming together.

  * * *

  Spring Green Wis 2/4/12

  Dearest friend Nell:-

  Thank you for remembering me with two letters this week and also for letting me know that Edith is sick. I got your first letter Feb 1 and may never have seen the second one as the fellows went to town last night and got the mail and when I asked them if they had any for me they said no but after I got in bed and was getting ready to let the sandman do his work, I picked up my pillow with the intention of puffing it up a little and as I did so something attracted my eye. There it was your last letter with the news of Edith’s illness. It took me along time to get to sleep as there were 101 thoughts going through my mind. I wrote Edith a short note telling her to cheer up and try to forget her illness. I hope it will not be a repetition of what happened not quite a year ago. So let us all pray that it will not be and that Edith will be amongst us in a short time. don’t fail to telegraph me at my expence if things turn out for the worst.

  When I got your other letter saying that everyone was angry because I had not written. I had just mailed cards to Edith Esther, Yek, Bo. And Emil so you see I did not need to be shaken up but than I thank you just the same. That is the kind of letter I want to get from the dearest little girl in Chi. I suppose they were all pretty sore but then when there are but three draughtsman on the job and more work than 6 can get out in a year you can see what little spare time I have is devoted to getting a little fresh air and resting up as I am allway feeling tired. but then I can allway find time to write if I feel like it.

  Friday night the other 2 draughtsman and one of the carpenters and myself went to town: walked both way with the thermometer 20 below and with the moon in all it glory sailing over a cloudless sky. It was simply grand to walk down the road with only 2 farm house between Mr. Wrights place and town and about ¾ of the trip through land that is heavily wooded and low where the river washes over in the spring but there was one thing missing for me. (the other fellows were going to town to fill up as usual.) Can you guess? A pretty little loving girl with blue eyes? and brown hair? with a name that starts with N. also a fast horse and a cutter: then I would have been in my glory. Well Sat morning it was 34 below but I do not feel it half so bad as down in Chi. That sounds bad don’t it.

  I am going to leave here Friday afternoon at 5 P.M. unless I get word to come home sooner and will leave Milwaukee at 11.45 and get in Chi.-? anyway I will call you up sometime Sat morning and have a little chat with you. May I?

  I got discusted with reading the Bible to fellows that come in and oderize the room with the fums of whisky. I know that is the time to read to them but then you know how it is. I may get started again and I hope I do.

  This afternoon I was out with Fischer and Vaughn the carpenter and his wife and we tramped for 2½ hours up some of the bigest and steepest hills around here with the snow up to our knees all over and in some places you can drop out of sight if you don’t watch out. On the way home we meet one of the fellows that lives near here (or rather came up behind us) and he had a big bob sled so we all piled in and every once in awhile he would hit the horses and as some of us were standing up it did not take much to dump us out I fell out twice and managed to stand up the first time but the second time I went right over backwards and sat down on the spot that father generally uses the slipper on and was left sitting in the middle of the road. Oh it is great sport to be out where you can go sleigh riding and fall out without getting hurt. Has the Y.P.S. had their anual sleigh party yet or is the snow all gone[?] (7) I suppose you folks have been having rain or the like

  Don’t be afraid that I won’t come to see you if you are still in the cottage in the rear as I don’t care if it is a barn or a castle, that is not what I want, it is the girl. Give my regards to your mother and Sarah and also the rest of the family. It will certainly feel good to be in the city again.

  That card I sent you was not a picture of the Love Castle but a photo of one of the buildings that belong to the private school for girls and boys from 5 to 20 years old. Mr. Wright was the archi choke for it.

  Laff and grow phatt is right, I drink from 6 to 8 glasses of fresh milk every day and no coffee because the coffee is either rotton or the cook is no good We all think it is the cook. I told you the house was about 200 ft long which is wrong as Mr. Wolley the head man here said it is 335 ft long. See the cook just brought something that I guess is supposed to be butter scotch candy which when once in the mouth you need a crow bar to pry your teeth apart so as to bite again. She has been feeding us all kinds of sticky stuff to glue the meals down but this is the worst yet Oh for some home made bread that is not sour.

  The next five days will seem like five weeks as the work I have to do this week is finishing up a set of drawings that have been rubbed and rubbed until I am afraid I will wear a hole in them and then there is the thoughts of you it sure will be a hard week. When I get home ask me about the marit system we have installed up here.

  Well sweetheart I want to hear from you at least once this week even if I am coming home Sat. and you wrote 2 letters last week. Please keep me posted as to how Edith is getting on and if she is in bed next Sat I would like to have you go with me up to see her that is in the evening

  Remember me to all my friends and enemys and with lots of love to yourself, I still remain and allways will

  Your loving friend

  George

  Head draftsman Taylor Woolley took this photo in the work room at Taliesin I. George Elgh may be the draftsman in the dark shirt at right; he wore his hair piled high. Clifford Evans was the other draftsman working with Woolley.

  Courtesy George Elgh Descendants via Christopher Vernon

  Nellie Anderson Elgh and George Emanuel Elgh stand for their wedding photo on June 27, 1914. He had turned 23 on June 7; she was three weeks away from her 21st birthday. Two days after the wedding they left for Australia.

  Courtesy George Elgh Descendants via Christopher Vernon

  In the highest perspective photo ever taken of Taliesin I, construction is in progress in the fall of 1911. Soil has been piled up from trenching for heating pipes all the way from the edge of the men’s private apartment on the far left to the southern portion of Taliesin’s residential wing. At right, the retaining wall has been built and a number of smaller trees have been felled in the area of the upper garden. This photo was taken by Taylor Woolley from the top of the milk tower.

  Courtesy George Elgh Descendants via Christopher Vernon

  The Wisconsin River, half a mile from Taliesin, is covered with snow in the winter of 1911–1912, in this view from the area of Taliesin’s studio wing, with birch trees in the foreground.

  Courtesy George Elgh Descendants via Christopher Vernon

  Taliesin’s entry court is muddy, rutted, and incomplete in the winter of 1911–1912. The Tea Circle has been created at far left, but there are no steps leading up to it. The statue “Flower in the Crannied Wall” has not been installed. Trellises have not yet been built outside the drafting studio, right. In the far center, the rear of a buggy can be seen through an opening under the hayloft. In the foreground, an ax or trenching tool sits on a slab, the same stone on which draftsman Clifford Evans stands in Fig. 51 in the main book.

  Courtesy George Elgh Descendants via Christopher Vernon

  Taken at the same time as the previous photo, this photo shows the studio and residential wings in midwinter from the hayloft looking east.

  Courtesy George Elgh Descendants via Christopher Vernon

  A photograph taken from the terrace off the living room looks south over the valley and Jones Creek before it was made into the p
ond through the dam construction in early 1912. This photo was taken during the same session as Fig. 61 in the main book.

  Courtesy George Elgh Descendants via Christopher Vernon

  The outdoor terrace overlooking the valley, with its cantilevered roof, is seen from the living room through French doors. A cropped version of this photo appears in the main book as Fig. 59.

  Courtesy George Elgh Descendants via Christopher Vernon

  A photo from the terrace off the living room shows its commanding view of the valley and hills beyond, with Jones Creek cutting through the foreground. A pile of firewood appears to be stacked in the corner.

  Courtesy George Elgh Descendants via Christopher Vernon

  Notes

  1. George Emanuel Elgh was born on June 7, 1891 and died on February 22, 1954. Nellie Elizabeth Anderson Elgh was born on July 21, 1893 and died on March 4, 1978.

  2. Portions of the letters were published in Christopher Vernon (2013), “Out from the Shadows: George Elgh, the Griffins and Frank Lloyd Wright,” in Fabrications: The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, 23:1, 122–126. To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10331867.2013.793149. Caption information for the photographs in this section was developed with the generous assistance of historian Keiran Murphy of Taliesin Preservation Inc., Spring Green, Wisconsin.

  3. Spencer and Powers was a prominent Chicago architectural firm working in the Prairie style. Robert Spencer, the designer, had been close to Wright and shared offices with him and Dwight Perkins in Steinway Hall before forming the Spencer and Powers firm. Elgh’s reference suggests that he previously worked as a draftsman, possibly an apprentice, at an office well regarded by Wright. See H. Allen Brooks, The Prairie School: Frank Lloyd Wright and His Midwest Contemporaries, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1972), 90–98.

  4. Elgh knows Steinway Hall well. Designed by Dwight Perkins and completed in 1896 at 64 E. Van Buren St. in Chicago, the building was 163.22 feet tall. The 12th story was the top floor, where Wright, Spencer, and Perkins formerly shared offices.

  5. Elgh was not Wright’s only defender. Chicago landscaper Jens Jensen, in a recently discovered letter to Wright dated January 1, 1912, wrote: “I wish you a very happy new year and hope you will come out victorious of your present difficulties. Of course you can never expect to please ‘Society,’ but what of it! Society is rotten and those that follow it destined to oblivion. Sincerely yours, Jens Jensen.” Published with permission of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona.

  6. This postcard image appears in Building Taliesin as Fig. 43.

  7. Y.P.S. was likely a youth group, like the Young Progressives, or, within the Christian Reformed church, Youth Praising the Savior.

  CHAPTER 4

  LIFE TOGETHER

  “THE BUNGALOW” UNDER SIEGE

  Wright handed the Chicago Tribune the smoking gun. On Christmas Eve, the Tribune led with it:

  Spring Green, Wis., Dec. 23—Let there be no misunderstanding, a Mrs. E. H. Cheney never existed for me and now is no more in fact. But Mamah Borthwick is here and I intend to take care of her.

  —FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT

  “The above reply was received by The Tribune last night,” the unbylined story continued. “It is in response to a telegram to the eccentric architect that he authorize a denial of the reports that he has again deserted his wife and is living in a bungalow in Spring Green with the divorced wife of E.H. Cheney.”1

  If the account is factual, the Tribune’s challenge seemed to make it a moment of truth or dare for Wright. Like a statement in open court, Wright’s admission opened the floodgates to a 10-day torrent of sensational reporting, a raucous shivaree for an unmarried couple thrown by a crowd of Chicago reporters.

  The “Trial of the Century” involving another celebrity architect—Stanford White of New York, who was shot to death by Philadelphia tycoon Harry K. Thaw for his seduction of 16-year-old Evelyn Nesbit, “the girl in the red velvet swing”—had riveted the nation just three years before. With that in mind, the Chicago press might have hoped to whip up a circulation bonanza like the one the Hearst papers enjoyed—especially if Wright wound up in jail.

  The Tribune gloated over its scoop. “The spot is ideal for such a romantic liaison as Wright and Mrs. Cheney apparently have planned. Up to a time that a newspaper reporter called on them yesterday they were ‘far from the madding crowd,’ free from prying eyes or inquisitive ears.”

  The reporter arrived at the “the bungalow”—which he identified as being in Grant County and in northwest Wisconsin, both wildly off—to find “a man and a woman in the house.”

  The story continued: “The woman was preparing breakfast. The reporter said he had heard that Mr. Wright and Mrs. Cheney were living in the bungalow. He asked if this were true. Mr. Wright immediately admitted his identity. He was furious. He paced up and down the big room.

  “‘I’m Wright,’ he said, ‘but I won’t say a word.’”

  “’Is the woman living with you Mrs. Cheney?” he was asked.

  “’That’s none of your business. I won’t say a word.’

  “The reporter went away, but an hour later he called up the bungalow on the telephone.

  “’I want to talk to Mrs. Cheney,’ he said.

  “’I am Mrs. Cheney,’ a woman’s voice replied.”

  In Chicago, another Tribune reporter caught up with Catherine Wright at the office of Sherman Booth, who was serving as attorney for both Frank and his wife. “She would not believe, or at least admit, that her husband had returned to the woman with whom he had fled to Europe two years ago,” the report said.

  “’Mr. Wright went north on business,’ she said. ‘He built that bungalow as a home for his mother. If there is any woman there it is his mother.’”

  Booth interjected: “I will say that I accompanied Mr. Wright to the Union depot last Thursday night when he departed for Wisconsin. He was alone. There was no woman there, of that I am positive.” (True enough. Mamah was already in Wisconsin.)

  EMBROIDERING THE NEWS

  Next, a reporter came to the Wright home in Oak Park, where he encountered 17-year-old Catherine Wright, who “met all inquiries with the flat statement, ‘We have nothing to say.’ When shown a copy of the report exploiting [sic] her father’s latest fall from grace she seemed surprised and amused.

  “‘We have become hardened to the sensational features of this case,’ she said, finally, with a smile, ‘and we really don’t pay much attention one way or another.’”

  Catherine—whom reporters would now call “plucky”—said her father was building a home for her aunt Jane Porter at Hillside, and was often away on business. She said she did not know whether he would be home for Christmas. She added: “I rather think Mother will be amused over this occurrence. It really seems funny that this skeleton in the closet should be dragged forth at every opportunity. Just say for Mr. Wright and Mrs. Wright, and all the little Wrights that we don’t know anything about this awful story, and that it must be untrue.”

  “Threats of tar and feathers moved the sheriff to take the precaution of placing a guard. … The population of Hillside is made up largely of college students, and the sheriff says they are apt to ‘bust out any minute.’”

  Syracuse (N.Y.) Herald, December 26, 1911

  This last sentence has been cited by biographers as evidence of Wright’s heartless disregard of his children’s feelings. But melodrama is a hallmark of yellow news writing. The standards of journalism of the day permitted invention and embellishment. One handbook for reporters advised that it was acceptable to make things up, “as long as the imaginative writing is confined to the non-essentials and is done by one who has in him at least the desire to represent the truth.”2

  If young Catherine’s quotation is true, it might have been an attempt to stop the story, like her mother’s statement that if there was a woman at Hillside it had to be Frank’s mother. Wright said he
had informed everyone ahead of time of his new living arrangements.

  “SPIRITUAL HEGIRA”

  The telegram made it all moot. The Tribune headlines announced: “Architect Wright in New Romance with ‘Mrs. Cheney’ / Found at Spring Green, Wis., on Bungalow He Designed for Them Himself. / Woman Changed Her Name / ‘Mrs. Cheney Never Existed for Me, I’m Taking Care of Mamah Borthwick,’ He Wires. / Old ‘Spiritual Hegira’ Recalled.”

  Wright had once used the phrase “spiritual hegira” in a letter to a friend to describe his odyssey to Europe. “Heriga” means an escape to safety. It originally described the Prophet Mohammed’s flight from Mecca to Medina in 622 AD to escape his enemies. Now it was a headline writer’s toy, used repeatedly to taunt Wright, to suggest that his desire to quit a failed marriage, take up with someone new, and justify it as principled was something outré.

  It was there again on Christmas Day, when Wright decided to meet the press. “Spend Christmas Making ‘Defense’ of ‘Spirit Hegira,’” the Tribune’s headline said. “Frank Lloyd Wright and His Companion, Mrs. Mamah Borthwick, Interviewed. / ‘Law for Ordinary Man’ / Oak Park Architect Says He Will Care for Family Even if Own Absence Continues. / Wife May Welcome Return.”3

  “If the first Christmas of the second ‘spiritual hegira’ of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mrs. E.H. Cheney was not a happy one,” the story began, “that fact was not apparent to any caller at the bungalow in which they have placed their household gods, defying society and leaving Mrs. Wright at home just west of Chicago.”

  The Tribune reporter paused to twist the knife: “Apparently Mr. Wright did not feel any regret he was not present in the Oak Park house where his lawful wife and their six children were spending Christmas, and Mamah Borthwick seemed to have forgotten the Christmases of the past which she had spent with her husband and children.”