The good, the bad and the strange!

June 24 - This morning we were blessed with a beautiful day! The sun was out but not too

hot and the weather was just perfect. Once we had our first real Sunday breakfast in a while, which was waffles, fruit and bacon, we got on the road for today’s adventure. We had figured it would take about an hour to our first stop, House on the Rock. However, along the way we saw signs for a National Landmark called Cave of the Mounds. Since we had time we thought we would take a little detour and check it out. If we had the time and had brought jackets, we would’ve gone on one of the cave tours there because I love caves, however, since it was such a beautiful day and we did not know what to expect we did not take jackets.

Entry to House on the Rock

We got back on the road which was only about a mile and headed to the town of Spring Green to see this famous House on the Rrock. I’m not even sure how to describe it. It’s deep in the woods and you cannot see the house exterior. Since its beginning a number of buildings have been built to house additional exhibits so when you go you decide whether you want to see everything or just specific sections.

The House on the Rock was started by Alex Jordan in 1945. He

One of the living rooms

had no experience in architecture or design but new he wanted to create a place to retreat to on weekends and be able to invite friends to.  So what started as a house with no bedrooms or bathrooms became a compound of numerous buildings, that is broken up into three sections for touring purposes. Based on our time because I had a tour for myself of a Frank Lloyd Wright house in the afternoon, we optioned to do two sections which should  be about two hours.

Typical artwork

The first section is the actual house he started.  It’s got the most peculiar lay out because it’s not really build as a house but is built into the rock so there are trees that go through the ceiling. There are low ceilings where you can barely stand and it is multiple layers.  I guess they are floors because there is no direct path for anything. He never married but had a long term girlfriend and they each maintained their own homes but came to this house for the weekends. He managed to sell it to someone he trusted to

In the center of the house

continue what he had built and add to his collection of museum quality pieces although some are a bit off-center. He died just a couple of months after he completed the sale. It’s really an unusual place and I would highly recommend it to anyone in the area. Probably my favorite thing was the very last thing we got to see.  It was the most humongous carousel. I believe it was over 129 different animals on it and all these lit up chandeliers but you could not ride on it.

Once we finished our two hours of walking 2 sections, we drove into town. About the only place we could fairly quickly get a meal was Culvers. There was a street festival going on and Culvers was packed but since people ate and left we managed to get a table.

From the bus window "Taliesin"

I had a reservation for the 3 o’clock to tour Taliesin. Bill is not interested in that type of thing and that’s fine.  He brought a book so I told him he could go into the visitor center where it was air-conditioned and read his book and have a soda. Each tour has a maximum of 18 people and they take you on a small bus up to the house which sits on an estate of about 1000 acres.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s design style remains

From this view it does not look
 like 3 stories

the same in all of the houses that I have seen so far. Being only 5’ 4” he did not use tall ceilings in most of the common areas, but only in the rooms where he wanted to impress people. His studio has huge peaked ceilings and his favorite color is Cherokee red. He uses that all over and he also sneaks in squares. You can go in just about any room that he designs and find little square objects and they are usually painted Cherokee red.

We got to see the studio, the main floor of the house and a lot of the grounds but they are still using the dormitory area for students still enrolled in his architecture school.   I believe it is still being overseen by his last wife. Since she was about 30 years younger than him she is still alive and well. Also some of the staff lives in the upstairs of the main home where there are extra bedrooms. The kitchen in the main house is very tiny and you can’t even bring a tour group and there it is that small.

The drive home was uneventful, which is good thing.  We had our leftovers and just relaxed a bit.