Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin

      I am a huge history buff. Where ever and when ever we travel, we love to visit at least one historical site or go on a tour of a famous place. Our spring trip to California afforded us a chance to visit the Hearst castle and on this trip I jumped at the chance to visit, arguably, America's most famous architects studio, Franklin Lloyd Wright's Taliesin. I won't go into alot of detail, but what a life this man led. Three wives, one mistress, the murder of said mistress and her children by a deranged employee, feast or famine in his business which saw him go from nothing to world famous and back several times and finally settling down with a woman 30 years his junior. This is a man, who never got an engineering degree by the way, who truly was larger than life. Oh and less we forget, Taliesin burned down twice, (once by said deranged employee), and then some nasty business with Frank's body being dug up, as he was buried next to the mistress and not the final wife, and his remains disappearing forever. Read the book, it's fascinating.

      Taliesin started as a home for Frank and his mistress, after he left his wife in the Chicago area with their six kids, (OK, he was a visionary but really, not a very nice guy). but eventually turned into an architect school where students had the privilege of paying to become indentured servants and learning architecture from the master (while working on his farm and building his houses for him). Enough talk, more pics.

                                          Eyebrow not top of head.

      You start your tour across the road at the visitors center. This is an original Frank Lloyd Wright building also. Originally a high end restaurant and bar, it has been transformed into a visitor's center,  gigantic gift shop (just like Disney except you walk through before you start instead of after you finish), and a restaurant/coffee shop serving expensive lunch food in a really cool setting. Dean was wise to call for tickets before we left the house, as tours on summer weekends sell out fast (just a word to the wise). Here are a few pictures showing the visitors center;
                                                    The Visitor's center

Stacked stone a Wright trademark

This beautiful set can be yours for $12,000

 

      Once your tour is called you are loaded onto a small bus for the long trip across the road . Some more interesting (or boring, depends on your point of view) facts about Frank and Taliesin. First, one reason Frank embraced the Arts and Crafts movement is long straight lines. Frank was only 5 ft 4 after all, (also the reason he insisted on wearing capes). Over the years Taliesin has been expanded to over 37,000 square feet and some students and board members live there today. They do not live in the main house, as this is a museum but in separate apartments off the main house,(must be fun, as Frank thought bedrooms and bathrooms were wasted space). Back to the tour, as you turn into the driveway, you notice a beautiful little pond and waterfall. Seems Frank damned up the local creek and built himself a little hydro electric plant, thus becoming the first house in Spring Green with electricity.

      Once you reach the top of the driveway you notice the house is not sitting on the top of the hill. That's because Frank believed houses should blend with the landscape, not overwhelm it. So his house is at "eyebrow" level not "top of head level". Of course, being he was not an engineer, the house is now sliding down the hill and costing millions of dollars to anchor properly, oh well can't win them all. Some pics of the house;

      By now I am sure you are all bored to death. So I will leave you with a few more pictures of the view, (Frank was a visionary, buying up all the land around the house so the view would never be interrupted) and a bit of the incredible Asian art collection Frank bought with his commission of the Royal Tokyo hotel (two full railcars sent back home). Unfortunately, you are not allowed to take photos in the house itself, that you have to be here to experience. If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend this tour, enjoy;

Frank was ahead of his time, these are parts of an old barn he reused as a decorative element for the house.

General Store Cafe Review

      This will be a quick review, mainly because we stopped here for breakfast, and I have sort of forgotten what we all had. Needless to say, this is a funky kind of place, part general store, part gift shop, and big part breakfast and lunch place. You stand in line to order, (and on weekends the line can be LONG), then get a country flag for your table and the server brings you your food, (our country was Wisconsin, go figure*S*).

      After all the food from the day before I wasn't really hungry, so I went with my old stand by, bagel, cream cheese and bacon (smoked in this case). Around the table, there was also a fresh blueberry and walnut pancake, an Italian sausage omelet and scrambled eggs with cinnamon toast topped with maple cream cheese, YUM!! Unfortunately, once again brain freeze caused me to forget to take pictures of the actual food. But I did get a pic of the building;

      This was a fun little place and appears to be a destination breakfast place, as Spring Green is kind of small and out of the way, but the place was PACKED.  Would I travel way up here for breakfast, probably not, but then again I am a very simple breakfast guy. I just can't eat a giant omelet or a huge stack of pancakes, give me some toast and peanut butter (Oh, not that this has anything to do with anything, but Dean made some INCREDIBLE homemade bread for breakfast, Thanks again). But, if you plan a day like we did and do breakfast, some shopping, stop at a nice park and then tour Taliesin (post coming soon) then it is a really great day.

On a scale of 1 to 5;
Food,                Quality means much more to us than quantity.

Beer and Wine,  Based on selection and pricing

Service,             Speaks for itself
Ambiance,          Does the look fit the food and pricing 

Price,                 And finally does the pricing equal the results we had.

Food,                     4  Everything was really good. Yes, it was breakfast, but suprisingly easy to mess up.

Beer and Wine,    0  C'mon it's breakfast, Geez I know its vacation but even we have a limit
Service,                 3 This was a tough one, as really there are no waiters. I knocked it down, not because we waited in line for a long time, that's because its popular, but because once we ordered it took quite awhile to get our food. Again, its breakfast so it should be quicker. Everyone was really friendly though.

Ambiance,             4  Great, its a funky old building with lots of rooms and a screened porch and an outdoor porch. Oh, and once a year they have a concert out back called Bob Fest, where all the bands play Bob Dylan songs ,how cool is that ?

Price,                     4 Once again, need I remind you, it was breakfast. But the price were very reasonable for the quality and quantity we got.

Overall,                3.75 A very good breakfast place (and I guess lunch is even better), if your in the area stop by, or plan a full day like we did.

      Finally, a small park we stopped at on the way to Taliesin. Right on the Wisconsin river, with some great sand banks. Looks like it would be a fun spot to go tubing or kayaking. Enjoy;