A Late Summer Evening at Wingspread

© Mark Hertzberg (2023)

I do not always edit photos immediately after taking them. This happens, and then that happens, and, well, sometimes photos languish in a “to be edited” folder on my computer desktop. A bout of insomnia early this morning led me to finally tackle some photos taken at Wingspread on one of the last summer evenings last year, September 15. I was meeting the team of a strategic planning group that I was going to address the next morning when I took these photos, and that presentation was top of mind for me. Then I got caught up covering the fall elections. And then we took a trip to Oaxaca and Puebla. And then, well, you get it, stuff comes up and photos get forgotten.

It is also a challenge to find fresh photos of a location you have been privileged to photograph many times, but I found a handful of photos to share with you.

Frank Lloyd Wright designed Wingspread in Wind Point, Wisconsin for H.F. Johnson Jr. in 1937, the year after he designed the S.C. Johnson Administration Building in Racine for Johnson. The 14,000 sq. ft. house became home to The Johnson Foundation in 1959.

Wright in the Abstract

Photos © Mark Hertzberg (2022)

I had to edit 34,575 Frank Lloyd Wright building images (or 185.62 GB) down to 30 photos for an exhibit.

Here’s the backstory: Lake Forest (Illinois) College, my alma mater, honored me with two concurrent exhibits this month for my 50th anniversary Homecoming. Rebecca Goldberg, Lecturer in Art and Director of the Gallery in the Romanesque Durand Art Institute building, initially asked me just to include a handful of my Frank Lloyd Wright work in an exhibit of my career in photojournalism. I found it hard to edit the Wright work down to just four or so photos. Fortunately there was enough space in two galleries to mount two separate exhibits, each with 30 prints. I decided to pick mostly abstract interpretations of Wright’s work than show perhaps predictable building photos. My selection is below, in alphabetical order of the commissions:

Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, 1956

Florida Southern College, Lakeland, Florida, 1938

Florida Southern College, Lakeland, Florida, 1938

Florida Southern College, Lakeland, Florida, 1938

Guggenheim Museum, New York City, 1943

Hillside Drafting Room, Taliesin, Spring Green, Wisconsin, 1933

Hollyhock House, Los Angeles, 1919

Imperial Hotel entry way, Tokyo, 1915, as rebuilt at Meiji Mura near Nagoya, Japan

Lindholm Service Station, Cloquet, Minnesota, 1956

Marin County Civic Center, San Rafael, California, 1957

Marin County Civic Center, San Rafael, California, 1957

Meyer May House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1908

Meyer May House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1908

Meyer May House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1908

Price Tower, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, 1952

Price Tower, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, 1952

Price Tower, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, 1952

Romeo and Juliet Windmill, Taliesin, Spring Green, Wisconsin, 1898

SC Johnson Administration Building, Racine, Wisconsin, 1936

SC Johnson Administration Building, Racine, Wisconsin, 1936

SC Johnson Administration Building, Racine, Wisconsin, 1936

SC Johnson Research Tower, Racine, Wisconsin, 1943/44

Taliesin, Spring Green, Wisconsin, 1911, 1925

Taliesin, Spring Green, Wisconsin, 1911, 1925

Taliesin, Spring Green, Wisconsin, 1911, 1925

Taliesin, Spring Green, Wisconsin, 1911, 1925

Thomas P. Hardy House, Racine, Wisconsin, 1904/05

Wingspread, Wind Point, Wisconsin, 1937

Wingspread, Wind Point, Wisconsin, 1937

Now, as for those 34,575 images…if I had time to go through them, a good chunk could be deleted. But who has time to do that?

Hours for the gallery…the show runs through October 30:

https://www.lakeforest.edu/academics/majors-and-minors/art-and-art-history/art-galleries

Keep scrolling down for previous posts on the website…

I want to book a tour…

© Mark Hertzberg (2022)

You plan your Frank Lloyd Wright tour. You reserve tickets on-line. You tour. You shop for souvenirs in the gift shop. You post to social media. You go home. Then it’s on to planning the next Wright visit.

Visitors to Taliesin framed by the windows of the original drafting studio, 2018.

But a lot of strategizing and work behind the scenes went into your one or two-hour visit. It takes a lot of planning and, of course, money, to steward a public Wright site. Wright tourism has been redefined in the two years since the world and the World of Wright were enveloped by the pandemic. Virtual visits, something almost unheard of two years ago, are now common.

Wright tourists are on a self-guided audio tour in Oak Park in 2005.

Are tours being monetized to pay staff and help maintain the property? What is the best way to enhance the visitors’ experiences while maintaining the integrity of the site? Is the site accessible to people with disabilities? If not, how can that be accomplished? What needs to done, now, to offer remote access to Wright sites?

The Hardy House, Racine, in 2013: weather can always be a wrinkle in travel plans.

The biennial Wright Sites Directors’ Summit co-sponsored by the Johnson Foundation at Wingspread, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, and the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy addresses questions like that. The 2020 meeting was to be held at Wingspread March 16, just as the world shut down. It was, of course, canceled. The event returned to Wingspread on March 14 this year, with 32 organizations and sites represented in person, and two remotely. The theme was Building On Our Strengths. (One of the participating organizations was the National Endowment for the Arts, founded at a Johnson Foundation conference at Wingspread).

This was the first Summit that Mary Beth Peterson, Board Vice President and Director of Tours and Volunteers at the Laurent House in Rockford, Illinois has attended in person. I asked her for her thoughts about the conference. Her enthusiastic review follows these photographs of one of the work sessions.

 

Amanda Thurmann-Ward gives conferees a tour of Wingspread.

Anna Kaplan, Graycliff, Derby (Buffalo), N.Y.

Mike Lilek, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Burnham Block, Milwaukee

Dave Zaleski, Wyoming Valley School Cultural Center; Carrie Rodamaker, Taliesin

Gregory Wittkopp from Cranbrook (Smith House), Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

Karen Ettelson, Glencoe, Illinois Historical Society (Sherman Booth Cottage)

Ahnquajj Kahmanne, Frank Lloyd Wright Trust (Chicago, Oak Park)

Libby Jordan, Rosenbaum House, Florence, Alabama

Mary Beth Peterson, Laurent House, Rockford, left; Libby Garrison, Marin County Civic Center; and Tami Stanko, Affleck House, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

Kathryn Hund, Cedar Rock State Park, Lowell and Agnes Walter Estate, Quasqueton, Iowa, left; Peggy Bang, Wright on the Park, Mason City, Iowa; and Heidi Ruehle, Unity Temple Restoration Foundation, Oak Park

Tiffany Wade, Price Tower, Bartlesville, Oklahoma

Vivien Lasken from Fabyan Villa, Geneva, Illinois, left; Tiffany Wade, Price Tower; Kathryn Hund, Cedar Rock State Park, Lowell and Agnes Walter Estate, Quasqueton and, foreground, Ahnquajj Kahmanne, Frank Lloyd Wright Trust

Stuart Graff, President and CEO, Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation

Zaleski, left; Rodamaker; Graff; Don Dekker, Meyer May House, Grand Rapids, Michigan; and Marta Wojcik, Westcott House, Springfield, Ohio

Bob Bohlmann, Bradley House, Kankakee, Illinois, left; Justin Gunther, Fallingwater; Barbara Gordon, Executive Director, Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy; and March Schweitzer, Unitarian Meeting House, Madison

Volunteer docent James Wardrip, center, tells visitors about Jacobs 1 in Madison.

Links for the sponsors of the Summit:

https://www.johnsonfdn.org

https://franklloydwright.org

https://savewright.org

This year was my first year to attend – in person – the Wright Site Directors Summit Meeting at Wingspread. I did have the opportunity to attend virtually in 2021. The meeting far exceeded my expectations on all accounts. It was my first time to stay at the retreat center at Wingspread. From the moment I arrived, I felt that I was at a 5-star resort. The rooms were large with a breathtaking view of the landscape, a comfy bed with the finest of linens, and a spotless bathroom filled with spa-like bath products. The staff were all friendly and accommodating and everywhere I looked I was greeted with surprising amenities such as a kitchenette full of complementary drinks and snacks of all kinds – yes to Oreos as a bedtime snack! The living room area of the retreat center offered a large fireplace with an evening fire, books of all genres to enjoy – if only there had been more time – a bar for evening socialization with new friends, and a beautiful eating area with three walls of windows looking out onto the serene landscape at Wingspread. This meeting was my first time to tour Wingspread and the opportunity to enjoy fine dining in its Great Hall each evening was a particular highlight of my stay with each meal being my favorite meal. For all these reasons, I left wishing for one more day to relax and enjoy it all.

Of course, the real reason I was there was to learn and to connect with others in the Frank Lloyd Wright world of public sites. This, too, exceeded my expectations. The theme of the Summit Meeting, “Building on Our Strengths,” offered in-depth presentations on board governance, fundraising, identifying government opportunities, programming, and preservation documentation. These are all topics of extreme interest and importance to all of us working as executive directors or lead volunteers for our own Frank Lloyd Wright public site. The material for each session was informative and well presented. In addition to all I learned, I enjoyed connecting in person with so many whom I had only met virtually during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. I immediately felt welcome and at home with these new friends.

As I left the Summit Meeting, I felt extreme gratitude for the opportunity to be there as a representative for the Laurent House and for the time I spent with other like-minded site leaders and friends. I also left in awe of the extreme generosity and hospitality of the Johnson Foundation in offering this tranquil place to the Frank Lloyd Wright public sites community for no cost. My only regret is that I must wait two years to do this again.

Mary Beth Peterson, Board Vice President and Director of Tours and Volunteers,

Laurent House – Rockford, IL

 

 

Revisiting Wingspread, Cameras in Hand

Photos © Mark Hertzberg

One of the joys I have in visiting buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, cameras in hand, is noticing new details, no matter how many times I have been at a particular site. Sometimes it is a question of different lighting at a different time of day from my last visit, other times the photo comes from wondering why I had not noticed something before.

I had the pleasure of being a presenter at a dinner at Wingspread last Saturday to benefit RAM, the Racine Art Museum. It was the first social event held there since the start of the pandemic. I was there to give my “Wright in Racine” presentation, but I got there early enough to meet Marcus White the new (a year ago) president of The Johnson Foundation, and wander around looking for pictures. We gravitated first to the famous “crow’s nest” with its spiraling metal staircase. It is a feature that delighted H.F. Johnson Jr.’s children Karen and Sam when they moved into the house in the late 1930s.

I have climbed the crow’s nest many times, but tended to take pictures at the top, never looking at the stairs themselves. Last Saturday I was mesmerized by the stairs:

Marcus White turned the tables on me and took pictures of me at work.

I found new things to photograph upstairs on, and from the second floor, as well:

One of the first floor fireplaces is framed by the wood of the balcony

Late afternoon sun skims across the floor outside the master bedroom.

This mother is sitting in a planter off the second floor. Karen Johnson Boyd once saw a photo I had taken of a goose looking into her father’s bedroom, and said H.F. would have liked that sight. Below: the sun highlights an Administration Building desk chair and a desk lamp in Karen’s bedroom:

When I was writing my “Wright in Racine” book, Karen told me that it was sometimes a challenge sneaking past her father’s bedroom when she wanted to go out at night. One of the guests at the dinner told us that her father dated Karen in high school. One night they wanted to go to a party. He found a ladder in the carport, raised it against the cantilevered balcony outside her bedroom, and off they went to the party. That is the cantilevered balcony Karen had asked Wright for, like the one off Wright’s old office at Taliesin (the better known “birdwalk” balcony dates to the 1950s). Wright had told Karen that one day she would have suitors standing under the balcony, wooing her. Indeed!

Had I not been directed to a parking area other than the one I thought I should go to, I would not have seen the sun highlight the crow’s nest when I returned to my car. Note to Marcus…this is why that 300mm lens is in my trunk, ready for action.

The other speaker at the dinner was Bruce Pepich, executive director of RAM. He gave an illuminating talk about the work of Frances Myers, a Racine native, who was a distinguished print maker. Karen Johnson Boyd commissioned a series of prints of Wright-designed buildings. You can see them, and read about them, here:

https://racineartmuseumstore.org/products/frances-myers-frank-lloyd-prints

 

 

Bill Boyd and the Keland House

(c) Mark Hertzberg (2020)

Karen and Bill – August 16, 2008 at Lake Owen, Wisconsin, their summer home

One way to become steward of a home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright is to marry into it. That is how Bill Boyd came to be a steward of the Keland House in Mount Pleasant (Racine), Wisconsin in 1982. He joked with me that he was accused of marrying his late wife, Karen Johnson Boyd, for just that reason. She and her first husband had commissioned the house in 1954. Bill, who was properly called Dr. William B. Boyd, and WBB to those who worked with him, died peacefully Wednesday December 16 in his beloved Keland House after a short illness. He was 97. His dear Karen had died in the house in January 2016.

The Keland House, May 14, 2018

Bill told me that he had never seen a building designed by Wright until he came to Racine in 1980 for an interview to become the second president of The Johnson Foundation at Wingspread, the Johnson home that Karen grew up in. Wingspread was designed by Wright in  1937. The interview, with Karen’s brother, Sam, the president of SC Johnson, took place in Wright’s landmark SC Johnson Administration Building (1936). Bill summed up his initial reaction to Wright’s architecture in just three words, “I was smitten.”

Wright presented a Japanese print by the famous woodblock print artist Utagawa Hiroshige to H.F. Johnson Jr. when the family moved into Wingspread. The print hangs in the master bedroom in the Keland House:

Bill missed an immersion into the World of Wright in the early 1950s, when he was studying for his Master’s degree at Emory College in Atlanta. He had applied for a position at Florida Southern College in Lakeland. Dr. Ludd Spivey, a teetotaler who commissioned Wright to design the college campus in 1938 (10 Wright-designed buildings were ultimately constructed), was in Atlanta. He invited Bill to a lunch interview. Dr. Spivey said, “Before we begin, I must ask you if you drink alcohol.” Bill replied, “I enjoy a drink now and then.” The interview was over. Bill was on his own for lunch after Dr. Spivey rose from the table, and declared “There is no point in our going on any further.” I told him I was glad he enjoyed a drink “now and then.” If he had gone to Florida Southern, I said, he may not have come to Wingspread, and I would not have met him.

August 14, 2008, Lake Owen, Wisconsin

He had a distinguished career in academia, though not at Florida Southern, of course. He was President of the University of Oregon for five years before coming to Wingspread. His academic career is summed up in the obituary he asked me to prepare with him five years ago: Dr. Boyd, who earned his Ph.D. in Modern Diplomatic History from the University of Pennsylvania in 1954, was awarded five honorary degrees during his career. He was also a member of the Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Alpha Theta national honor societies. Between 1954 and 1980 he served in the Humanities Department at Michigan State University; then as Dean of Faculty at Alma College; as a Dean and Director of the Honors Program at Ohio State University; Vice-Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley; and as President of Central Michigan University prior to his appointment as President of the University of Oregon in 1975.

He was not a dull academic. On the contrary, he had great joie de vivre.

August 10, 2016, on Lake Owen

A Navy veteran of World War II and the Korean War, he grew up on the water near Charleston, South Carolina, and loved sailing both on Lake Michigan in Racine, and on Lake Superior in northern Wisconsin.

Karen and Bill on Lake Owen, Wisconsin, August 14, 2008

When the producers of the movie Animal House sought permission to film on campus at the University of Oregon, he gave his consent, recalling what he regarded as the short-sighted decision by the administration at UC-Berkley denying Mike Nichols permission to film The Graduate on their campus. His only proviso was that the school not be identified in the film. The famous scene with the horse in the president’s office was, indeed, filmed in his office. Karen once told me that her favorite scene of any movie she had seen was the food fight in Animal House. I profiled Bill and Animal House two years ago:

https://racinecountyeye.com/dr-william-b-boyd-and-his-connection-to-the-movie-animal-house/

Bill wore his Oregon Ducks hat when I profiled his involvement in “Animal House”

Bill had a great social conscience. He told me that he was angered by then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan’s attempts to stifle free speech at Berkley when Bill was the school’s Vice-Chancellor. At the press conference October 12, 1974 introducing him to the University of Oregon community, he said demonstrators outside were “ill-mannered … but manners are not the most important thing in life,” adding that sometimes “passion and tremendous concern for social justice” are just as important.

Buffy Sainte-Marie performed at the festivities surrounding Bill’s inauguration as President of Central Michigan University in 1969. The event was remembered 50 years later in a story online: Not often does a university president offer students an afternoon off from classes to attend an “informal ceremony,” a reception, and a concert performed by a legend of activism and folk music. Fifty years later, the Boyd inauguration is remembered as a notable moment in the history of Central Michigan University, when the students, the trustees, and the President opted to forego pomp and circumstance in favor of “a ‘swinging’ ceremony.” From:

http://www.clarkehistoricallibrary.org/2019/05/fiftieth-anniversary-of-president-boyds.html

He spoke with pride of clandestinely delivering what would have been deemed subversive material to a Jewish “refusenik” in Moscow during a conference in the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

He was passionate about Racine’s Kids First Fund. Wrote Marge Kozina, I have been very fortunate to have had the wonderful opportunity of working closely with William Boyd (Bill) for many years when I was executive director of the Racine Community Foundation (RCF) and Bill was a board member. He was the leading force, along with several others, in helping create and grow the Kids First Fund within the Foundation. Bill’s dedication and leadership in the early years have benefitted thousands of students and hundreds of teachers within the Racine Unified School District. He is deeply committed to enhancing the lives of others through education. Bill Boyd is one of the nicest and caring gentlemen I have ever met in my life.  Both Bill and Karen, each in their own special way, have made enormous efforts to bettering our community.  

September 27, 2018, hosting a special dinner cooked by Wright aficionado and master chef Steven Freeman. It was a joyous evening, marking Bill’s first meal at the dining room table in the Keland House since Karen’s death almost three years earlier.

Journalist Clay Eals, who covered the University of Oregon for The (Portland) Oregonian newspaper, quoted part of Bill’s presidential inauguration speech in the January 18, 1976 edition of the newspaper. His remarks seem prescient today: A changed set of American expectations about life in the third century of the republic, the constricted state of the national economy, and the fears of a student generation viewing an anxious future from a normless present all pose challenges to the existing shape of the university….As usual in human affairs, discriminating judgments are required if human intellect and imagination are to prevail over temptations and anxieties.

In an email sent after he learned of Bill’s death, Eals called him “a reporter’s dream.” He included a clipping of a story about Bill being interviewed in the middle of a scandal in the athletic department. He opened his briefcase to refer to some papers only to find a pair of pants inside. “I’ve been trying to get them to the dry cleaners for a week,” he said. “And I haven’t had a clean shirt for days.”

Eals wrote to Bill in June 2020, including a copy of the last story he wrote for the newspaper in June 1980, a story about Bill that he wrote in longhand in his car, literally the night before leaving on a cross-country bicycle trip. Among my favorite news sources was you, and I had many occasions to cover stories in which you were an important, if not primary, source. Your cool informality, sense of humor, and way with words were most impressive. Seemingly effortlessly, you set people at ease.

Ellen Brzezinski, one of Bill’s nurses, sent family members and Eals’s letter with this note: Mr Boyd got this letter in the mail today. I read it to him and barely made it through without crying.  What a tribute!

Roger Dower, one of Bill’s successors at President of the Johnson Foundation, noted his lasting impact on the institution: Bill had a diverse and sharp intellect, but also a deep passion and caring for improving the lives of people nationally and in Racine. His programs and conferences at the Johnson Foundation on the critical  role of quality education for all children, placed that topic squarely on the national and local agenda. The Foundation’s work on K-12 education, under Bill’s direction, remains as influential today as it was in the mid-1980’s and remains a focus for the Foundation today.

Bill believed deeply in the power of convening small groups to solve big problems – the principal activity of the Johnson Foundation at Wingspread then and now.  With his usual eloquence, Bill frequently said, “ while small group meetings may seem like frail weapons to take on the daunting challenges of our times, just properly used they can slay dragons.”

Bill gave me my first extensive tour of the Keland House on November 1, 2002. He saw this nuthatch through the window, when we paused on the steps, and remarked, “This is what I love about living in this house.”

In January 2019 I photographed this silhouette of the birds outside as we had lunch together in the family room.

Stacy Owens, Bill’s lead nurse, told me that Bill died peacefully, and that “he saw Karen just before he died.” Rest in peace, my friend. The world is richer for having known you.

I leave you with a photograph I took of the refrigerator at the Keland House when we were getting ready to enjoy Steven Freeman’s dinner:

 

 

 

 

 

Rainy Day Post #3 – A Wright Potpourri

Photos (c) Mark Hertzberg (2020)

I have promised you one more “rainy day post,” cleaning up pictures that have been waiting on my desktop for the right context to post them in. This is a smattering of photos of Frank Lloyd Wright sites I have visited in one context or another since July 2018. While I shoot literal photos of Wright buildings (“head shots” we called them in the newsroom), I also look for photos of details of Wright’s designs. I am generally not sharing interior photos of private homes. I try to avoid looking at other photographers’ interpretations of Wright buildings before I visit them so that I see the structures through my own eye and lens, rather than possibly copy another photographer’s vision.

The photos are in chronological order, beginning with a wonderful trip to the Detroit area that July two years ago. We were with our good friends Bob and Jeanne Maushammer from Virginia. Jeanne’s exposure to Wright began when she was a teenager, hired to babysit at the Thomas P. Hardy House in Racine for Schuyler and Peterkin Seward, stewards of the house between 1957 – 1963. The Maushammers dutifully chronicle their Wright adventures in a well worn copy of William Allin Storrer’s The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. I will copy and paste Jeanne’s recollections of the Hardy House from my 2006 book about the house at the end of this blog post.

Our first stop was at the Affleck House in Bloomfield Hills, where Dale Gyure graciously gave us a private tour:

We were fortunate to next get a private tour of the Melvin Smith House. The light was not as subtle as the architecture in the early afternoon:

Then we were off to the Turkel House, lovingly restored by our good friends Norm Silk and Dale Morgan. Jeanne has wonderful stories of having seen the then-distressed house ca. 2004 right after a questionable tenant had been evicted. We had bid on a dinner at the house, to benefit the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy. Norm went above and beyond shopping for us in a Middle Eastern market, and we had a lovely meal in the garden. The Maushammers, Cindy (Hertzberg), and Norm:

We planned to stay only a couple of hours and not overstay our welcome, but we were like family enjoying the house in the living room after dinner until past 11 p.m.! The light was harsh when we arrived at 5 p.m., and I wondered how it would change through the evening:

Our next adventure was when Bob and Jeanne treated us to a stay at the Palmer House in Ann Arbor:

I was then on tour in familiar territory in Wisconsin, helping lead tours for Road Scholar, first in Racine at SC Johnson and at Wingspread. I have visited and photographed these wonderful spaces umpteen times, and always look for a fresh way to see them:

I climbed these stairs at Wingspread countless times before seeing this photo:

I was then taken, again, by the fixtures at the Annunication Greek Orthodox Church in Wauwatosa (suburban Milwaukee):

After touring Racine and Milwaukee, we take our Road Scholar guests to Madison and Spring Green. First, a detail of the ceiling of Jacobs 1:

Then, a light well in Anthony Puttnam’s interpretation of Monona Terrace:

The trip culminates at Taliesin – of course – after seeing the Unitarian Meeting House in Madison and Wyoming Valley School, with lunch at Riverview Terrace. Our introduction to Taliesin is a pause at the dam:

I finish with Jeanne’s recollection of babysitting at the Hardy House and a “selfie” there:

(From “Frank Lloyd Wright’s Thomas P. Hardy House,” written and photographed by Mark Hertzberg, Pomegranate: 2006):

Jeanne (Weins) Maushammer, who baby-sat for the Sewards, recalls growing up nearby. “The house was well-known to everyone in the neighborhood.  People would go to the 14th Street public beach there and see the house just a short distance away.  It did not look like a private residence.  Visitors from outside the area – even across town – would see two openings that could easily be mistaken for bath house entrances, and try to go in to change their clothes.

“Sometimes when you were driving around with out-of-town folks, they would ask ‘What is that?’  They did not recognize it as a house, because it was so different from the other homes around it, and because it was next to the beach.  Neighbors knew what it really was.  The Johnson Wax complex was down the street from us, so the Hardy House seemed to be appropriate.  My folks often told me of their witnessing the construction of the Administration Building and of seeing Frank Lloyd Wright.  The Johnson buildings were understood and accepted by visitors, but not the ‘beach house.’

“My friends and I used to go down to the beach all the time.  We could not get close enough to the property to get a good look at it.  We always had to look through the trees.  We could not see how it blended into the hill side.  That added to the mystery of it.  From the street, all that people could see was just that box.

“I knew it was a Frank Lloyd Wright house before I first went inside.  What I did not realize was how he proportioned houses to his small frame.  I remember thinking when inside for the first time:  ‘I am 5’4” but wow, these doorways are low.’  It was dark and raining that particular day, so I did not get to appreciate the house’s real beauty.  After I had been there several times and had a chance to explore it, to stand in that living room and on the balcony, and to take in the view, I realized it was incredible.

“My husband has never seen the inside of the house, except in photos, but in our wildest dreams we would like to buy it and come back to Racine.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photographing Wright, redux

(c) Mark Hertzberg (2019)

Note: My photos of Minerva and Charles Montooth are the post below this one.

This is the final installment of my 2019 quest to find new photos as I visit buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright that are familiar to me. I visited them five times accompanying Road Scholar trips this year:

https://www.roadscholar.org/find-an-adventure/22976/architectural-masterworks-of-frank-lloyd-wright

I have posted earlier photos on the website since May. Have a look, and let me know what you think!!! The photos are in the order in which we visited these sites…not all the sites visited are represented on this post.

Wingspread, Wind Point (Racine):

Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Wauwatosa:

Jacobs 1, Madison:

The Unitarian Meeting House, Madison:

Wyoming Valley School, Spring Green:

Taliesin 3:

The original drafting studio at Taliesin:

Midway Barns:

Hillside Home and School:

Michael DiPadova continues reconstruction of the Tea Circle:

And, finally, my friends, I leave you with two more “selfies,” one at Wingspread and one at Taliesin!

Wingspread Pool Rebuild is Finished

Words and photographs (c) Mark Hertzberg 2018

The newly-rebuilt swimming pool at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Wingspread (1937) is filled with water from a nearby fire hydrant Wednesday May 30, 2018. The pool, which holds an estimated 114,028 gallons of water, was an original water feature of the house. It had deteriorated, and was rebuilt because of its architectural significance to the house. It will remain as an architectural water feature, and will not be used for swimming. It measures 26’ wide and 96’ 4” at its longest dimension, and slopes to a depth of 12′. The original diving board will remain in storage because the ornate stand has been lost and there are no drawings from which to replicate it. The only known record of it is this undated low resolution photo, provided courtesy of The Johnson Foundation, and copyright by them:

The pool deck fireplace regains visual prominence as it is no longer obscured by vines:

New mechanical systems have been installed nearby, underground:

Wright designed Wingspread as a home for H.F. Johnson Jr. and his family in 1937, the year after Wright designed the landmark SC Johnson Administration Building in Racine, Wisconsin. Wingspread, situated in the nearby village of Wind Point, was given by the family to the newly-created Johnson Foundation in 1959. It is now a conference center. National Public Radio, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the International Court of Justice are among the notable entities that evolved from Wingspread conferences. One of the founding meetings of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy was held there, as well.

Wright Sites Meeting at Wingspread

Photos (c) Mark Hertzberg, 2018

Three dozen representatives of Wright sites, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, met at the Johnson Foundation at Wingspread in late March for a “Wright Site Directors Summit.” Topics included creating Wright mobile apps, presenting sites in 3-D on tablets, strategies for innovative branding and marketing, and accommodating guests with disabilities. The three-day meeting was sponsored by the two foundations and the Building Conservancy.Libby Garrison of the Marin County Civic Center tells how their mobile app was created.

Michael Ditmer (Still Bend) and Heather Sabin (Monona Terrace) confer. Ditmer is the new president of Wright in Wisconsin. Mike Lilek, left rear, of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Burnham Block talks with John Waters Preservation Programs Manager of the Building Conservancy. Kathryn Burton (Gordon House) is also at the table.

Stuart Graff, President and CEO of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, contributes to the discussion after a presentation. Jim Ladwig, center, (SC Johnson and Son) and Don Dekker (Meyer May House) take notes and listen.

Jeffrey Herr (Hollyhock House) and Carrie Rodamaker (Taliesin Preservation)

Mike Lilek of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Burnham Block in Milwaukee.

“The House,” built in the mid-1950s adjacent to Wingspread, became the home of Mr. and Mrs. H.F. Johnson Jr. before they donated Wingspread itself to the newly-created Johnson Foundation in 1959. It has more space for conferences than the Wright-designed Wingspread. It has been said that Mrs. (Irene Purcell) Johnson was never comfortable in Wingspread because it was designed for another woman…Johnson’s wife who died during construction. National Public Radio, the National Endowment for the Arts, the International Court of Justice – and the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy – are among the entities that evolved from Johnson Foundation conferences. 

Photographing Wright

Photos (c) Mark Hertzberg 2017

I have been accompanying a Road Scholar architecture tour in Racine, Milwaukee, Madison, and Spring Green. Below are some photos I’ve shot during the tour, as well as some photos from a shoot at SC Johnson Tuesday:

The ceiling in the entry way of Wyoming Valley School, Spring Green:

Classroom window mitre at Wyoming Valley School:

View of the Wisconsin River from Riverview Terrace Restaurant:

The Ceiling in the Assembly Room of Hillside Home School, Spring Green:

Taliesin, Spring Green:

Unitarian Meeting House, Madison

Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, Wauwatosa:

Wingpsread (H.F. Johnson Jr. Home), Wind Point:

SC Johnson Administration Building, Racine:

And, finally, one that did not work out…I needed a photo to illustrate Wright’s use of light in the Great Workroom…I did not want the typical documentary photo. I borrowed a fisheye lens from Nikon. I have given it a trial run with some people via email, and they have given it a thumbs down. I am inclined to agree with them. But I had to try it. Here is what that miss looks like: