Frank Lloyd Wright’s Welsh grandparents bought a large parcel of land out here in Wisconsin, and his mother asked Frank to come back from Europe—where he was philandering with the wife of a client—and design a home here. He did and named it Taliesin (say ‘Tally-Essen’), which as I said before, means ‘brow’ in Welsh. To expand on that, it really is named after a 5th century bard of early Britain whose works were partly preserved in a Welsh book, so it takes on the meaning of ‘high-brow’ or ‘highly cultured, scholarly and well-versed in rare interests’. Wright obviously identified with the term positively, as he used it to name his most personal home, where he chose to live longest. In an amusing letter on display in the visitor center, Wright claims to love Wisconsin in part for the lack of ‘high-brows’, although he notes that Wisconsin does have several people who are ‘educated beyond their capacity’.

Unfortunately, his mistress and two of her children moved into the house and were killed in a fire started by a servant, who poured kerosene on the floors, locked the doors and dispatched all but one fire survivors outside with an axe. Wright rebuilt and lived here with his third wife (his second OD’d). The room above was built for a photo shoot in the 1950s, and shows the wooded hills and river valley that reminded his grandparents of Wales. Wright also built a high ‘bird-walk’, or narrow balcony jutting straight out, with phenomenal views that defines the home from the road below. The house is filled with Japanese influences and Asian art. His many students lived and worked in the barn they helped redesign and build, and a few still live here today.