It wasn’t what I expected

Taliesin West

Outside the Drafting Room of Taliesin West overlooking the triangular pool.

I loved Taliesin West. We all did. Our visit was Friday with our son and his fiancée.

It wasn’t what I expected. It was so much more. I felt like I was in the presence of genius — which I was. I loved the use of space, materials, and the different feel from one building or room to another.


“Taliesin West is a look over the rim of the world.”

– FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT, 1943

https://franklloydwright.org/taliesin-west/

We did an hour-long self-guided tour with an app called Smartify with our own phones and earbuds. I appreciated the detail of the information. I could picture the people living and working there.

The tour took us from outside to inside Frank LLoyd Wright’s office, around the property to various pools and patios to inside a gathering room, dining room, cabaret where they watched movies, inside the drafting room and inside a Kiva. The Kiva is a round dark room, that feels like it’s underground with phenomenal lighting. They watched movies there and used it for storage when they returned to Wisconsin for the summer.

From the Taliesin website:

Wright’s beloved winter home and desert laboratory was established in 1937 and diligently handcrafted over many years into a world unto itself. Deeply connected to the desert from which it was forged, Taliesin West possesses an almost prehistoric grandeur. It was built and maintained almost entirely by Wright and his apprentices, making it among the most personal of the architect’s creations.

https://franklloydwright.org/taliesin-west/

Where have you visited that the experience outdid your expectations?

looking through the door of Frank Lloyd Wright's office.

Looking out from Frank Lloyd Wright’s office.

A whirlwind week

Olive the cat getting out of my way as I clean house.

It’s a busy week or two. We returned from a trip to Mexico. I wrote about that HERE.

My son and his girlfriend are visiting from the Bay Area. We are gong to visit Taliesin West later today. It will be a first for all of us. That’s the winter home of Frank Lloyd Wright. We’ll be going on a self-guided tour. A coincidence is that a friend of mine from playgroup days in Palm Springs is a director of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. What a small world! I found out from a friend in Palm Springs that our mutual friend had moved to Arizona a month or two before us. I wrote about coincidences recently HERE.

Next week, I fly to Seattle to visit my 90-year-old mom. I meant to visit for her birthday last March, but we were in the throws of Omicron. Both my daughter and husband got it. What weird days those were. I was taking care of my daughter — without being near her. We would wave at each other through her apartment window. I’d go to the laundromat and grocery store for her and leave things on her front steps.

When my husband had COVID, I moved into our Casita. It has a kitchen, so I cooked him chicken soup with lots of garlic and onions. I’d leave it outside the front door and text him. I was close if he needed me, but I wasn’t in physical contact.

I now have an aversion to flying. We have taken trips by car, which I’m comfortable with, but I haven’t wanted to get on an airplane. I can’t stand the wait at the airport, the crowds, being on the plane. COVID ruined flying for me.

Did COVID change your feelings about flying, too? Or did it affect you in other ways? Did you or your family get it?