Taliesin and camping with little boys in Spring Green

Gram Gram with the boys at our house

Our son-in-law, a builder, has been wanting to visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin.  So when their family visited, we arranged for the little boys’ first camping trip.  After we  packed the camper the night before, we realized Levi (age 2) had disappeared.  I searched the house for him and then looked outside.  He was standing on the steps of the camper waiting to get in again.

Tara, Stephen and the boys with our new rig.  Stephen loved driving it.

Basil and Levi had a great time being in the campground in the woods.   They ran around and around and around outside the camper.  They got to roast marshmallows at night and even cook their own breakfast of bagels and sausages over the fire. 

A great playground just down the lane from our site drew them often.

 Basil learned to putt a golf ball in the miniature golf course.

 Levi would rather use the putter to dig in the wood chips.

Taliesin was fascinating.  The house and studio wrap around a hill overlooking a valley near the Wisconsin River.  Our guide was a local farmer’s wife from a bit farther away.  Her husband and mother-in-law cannot understand why she “would want to promote that awful man.”  Wright was not well liked in Spring Green due to his arrogance and scandalous divorces and mistresses, not to mention his difficulty paying his bills.  However, his genius was universally recognized; his passion for bringing nature into his structures was magical.  Stephen and I did the long tour to see everything.  Tara, Don and the little boys did a short tour.  Levi was not impressed.

The cantilevered porches on the living quarters

The barns were important to the estate.  All architecture students worked the farm too.

The Romeo and Juliet windmill was contoured to withstand winds on the hill.

 

Stephen enjoyed the tour.