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Frank Lloyd Wright, Architecture, and History
Murder and Mayhem at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin
While Frank Lloyd Wright is considered the most prominent American architect, his Taliesin estate is clouded by a tragic past
Warning: This story recounts a gruesome mass murder.
When I was a teenager, before school I waited for the bus near what locals called the Plunkett House. Judge Warren Plunkett, his wife Eleanor, and their children occupied the house at the time. Its first owners built it near Turtle Creek in Austin, Minnesota.
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) designed the house for Mr. and Mrs. S. P. “Pearl” Elam. Mr. Elam operated a jewelry store on Main Street in Austin from 1933 to 1974. The Elams occupied the house from its completion in 1951 until they sold it to the Plunketts in 1959. As the story goes, Wright stayed in the house with the Elam family for a time.
Later, I took Architectural Drafting I and II courses in high school. The teacher, Mr. Kay Hompe, instilled a reverence for Frank Lloyd Wright’s work in his students.
With an interest in architecture, I visit Wright-designed buildings on trips around the United States. Also, when I lived in Scottsdale, Arizona, I sometimes rode my bicycle up the hill to Wright’s Taliesin West.
On a recent springtime getaway, my wife and I visited Abraham Lincoln’s house and tomb in Springfield, Illinois. While in Springfield, I saw the Dana Thomas House, built in 1904. Wright designed the Prairie School-style structure for Susan Lawrence Dana.
On our way north, we stopped for the night in Madison, the capital of Wisconsin. There, we watched a thunderstorm roll over Lake Monona from the terrace of the Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center. Wright had designed and proposed its construction in 1938. But the…
