Speaker 1: There's always a backstory. I'm Patty Steele. Behind every big
Speaker 1: story are fascinating smaller stories, No doubt about it. Frank
Speaker 1: Lloyd Wright was a game changing architect. I don't know
Speaker 1: one hundred years ago or so, but in a moment,
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you why he was one hot mess.
Speaker 1: The guy built spectacular buildings like the kind of tornado
Speaker 1: shaped Guggenheim Museum in New York City, and maybe, at
Speaker 1: least in my mind, the most beautiful early modern home
Speaker 1: ever called Falling Water, built in a forest over a
Speaker 1: huge waterfall in Pennsylvania. I'm telling you, you look at
Speaker 1: it and you just want to exhale. Oh, it's incredible.
Speaker 1: But Frank has a crazy backstory and has nothing to
Speaker 1: do with architecture and everything to do with his libido.
Speaker 1: It's about Frank's multiple affairs, including one with a married
Speaker 1: woman and the mass murderers that followed. Yeah, Frank is
Speaker 1: an icon, but he's an icon who's also the ultimate
Speaker 1: narcissist and he defines the term hot mess. Okay, it's
Speaker 1: nineteen oh three. He's a young architect. He's in Oak Park, Illinois,
Speaker 1: which is right near Chicago. He's married, He has six
Speaker 1: kids at that point. When his wife brings him a
Speaker 1: client who wants him to build a house, Frank takes
Speaker 1: the job and he gets to know the wife really well.
Speaker 1: Her name is Mema. They become totally obsessed with each other.
Speaker 1: A few years go by and the passion only gets
Speaker 1: more intense, so intense that they both feel like the
Speaker 1: hell with the spouses and the kids. They just want
Speaker 1: one thing, and that is to be together. Now. The
Speaker 1: problem is it is he early nineteen hundreds, nobody, but
Speaker 1: nobody leaves their family for somebody else. But that's what
Speaker 1: they do. Frank leaves his wife and all those little kiddies,
Speaker 1: and Mama leaves her husband and two toddlers. Of course,
Speaker 1: Frank's business begins to dry up, so they decide they
Speaker 1: got to get out of town. They meet up in
Speaker 1: New York City and hop a ship to Europe. Once there,
Speaker 1: Mema works for a Swedish feminist, interpreting her books on
Speaker 1: female sexuality, and Frank meantime, takes a really deep dive
Speaker 1: into his passion for Japanese art and architecture, which by
Speaker 1: the way, actually helps evolve his exquisite style. But then
Speaker 1: after a few years he and Mema want to head
Speaker 1: back to America. He'd like to re establish his career,
Speaker 1: but Chicago is out due to their sketchy reputation, So
Speaker 1: they head to Frank's hometown, Spring Green, Wisconsin, and he
Speaker 1: builds them an awesome house. He calls it Taliesen, but
Speaker 1: the locals there aren't thrilled either. They call it his
Speaker 1: love cottage. Who cares, says Frank. In fact, he says,
Speaker 1: laws and rules are made for the average. Two women
Speaker 1: are necessary for a man of artistic mind, one to
Speaker 1: be the mother of his children and the other to
Speaker 1: be his inspiration and soulmate. Would a guy? I wonder
Speaker 1: how he'd feel if Mema thought the same thing and
Speaker 1: needed more than one man. Anyway, it's a beautiful life
Speaker 1: for a few years. Finally Frank gets a major job
Speaker 1: to build a massive three hundred and sixty thousand square
Speaker 1: foot entertainment venue in Chicago. It was called Midway Gardens,
Speaker 1: and it's really spectacularly beautiful. It's a triumph for him,
Speaker 1: but it means he spends a lot of time away
Speaker 1: from home. Now it's August of nineteen fourteen. Frank's in Chicago,
Speaker 1: Mema up in spring Green, and her two kids are there,
Speaker 1: spending the summer with her working at the house. There's
Speaker 1: a husband and wife, Gertrude and Julian. Okay, it's lunchtime.
Speaker 1: Mayma and the kids are out on the porch and
Speaker 1: six of Frank's students and workers are in the dining room.
Speaker 1: Julian serves the meal in the dining room and then
Speaker 1: proceeds to lock all the doors and pours gasoline around
Speaker 1: the exterior of the dining room, inside and out of
Speaker 1: the house clearly nuts. He heads to the porch with
Speaker 1: a hatchet flailing away. He slaughters Mama and the children,
Speaker 1: actually cleaving Mama's head into vertically right down the middle God.
Speaker 1: Next he likes the dining room on fire. Those inside
Speaker 1: tried desperately to get out, but remember the doors are locked.
Speaker 1: Then they try to jump out the windows, but outside
Speaker 1: is Julian with the hatchet chopping away. He kills three
Speaker 1: of them. The others had a different way and are burned,
Speaker 1: one of them dying a day later, so in all
Speaker 1: seven are dead. Only to survive. There's a frantic phone
Speaker 1: call to Frank in Chicago. He's in total shock. He
Speaker 1: takes the first train north and ironically runs into Mama's
Speaker 1: ex husband, also headed north to collect the bodies of
Speaker 1: his dead children, and they share a private compartment. Once
Speaker 1: in Spring Green, Frank buries Mema in a plain pine
Speaker 1: box in his family cemetery, in an unmarked grave. He
Speaker 1: actually throws the dirt into the grave with his bare hands.
Speaker 1: No one really knows why Julian killed all those people,
Speaker 1: because he died weeks later. Despite the tragedy, Frank rebuilds
Speaker 1: the house, saying in his autobiography Anguish would not leave
Speaker 1: Taliessen until renewal began. Talk about renewal, while he says
Speaker 1: in his bio that he grieved Mama's loss for the
Speaker 1: rest of his life. Within weeks, we're talking weeks a months,
Speaker 1: Frank had already fallen in love again, and over the
Speaker 1: course of the next decade or so, he married two
Speaker 1: more times. Here's what's ironic about his life. He literally
Speaker 1: introduced into architecture this sense of serenity and earthy beauty,
Speaker 1: raw wood, stone glass. But his life was red hot
Speaker 1: and chaotic. Do you think he was searching through his
Speaker 1: art for the piece he could never find in his
Speaker 1: personal life.