WEBVTT - The Backstory (Replay): Mass murder at the home of an icon of tranquility 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:04.760 There's always a backstory. I'm Patty Steele. Behind every big 0:00:04.800 --> 0:00:12.920 story are fascinating smaller stories, No doubt about it. Frank 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:15.880 Lloyd Wright was a game changing architect. I don't know 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:18.360 one hundred years ago or so, but in a moment, 0:00:18.400 --> 0:00:21.680 I'm going to tell you why he was one hot mess. 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:25.880 The guy built spectacular buildings like the kind of tornado 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:29.040 shaped Guggenheim Museum in New York City, and maybe, at 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:32.440 least in my mind, the most beautiful early modern home 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:36.120 ever called Falling Water, built in a forest over a 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:39.680 huge waterfall in Pennsylvania. I'm telling you, you look at 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:43.440 it and you just want to exhale. Oh, it's incredible. 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:47.199 But Frank has a crazy backstory and has nothing to 0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:50.760 do with architecture and everything to do with his libido. 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:54.920 It's about Frank's multiple affairs, including one with a married 0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:58.800 woman and the mass murderers that followed. Yeah, Frank is 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:02.920 an icon, but he's an icon who's also the ultimate 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:07.440 narcissist and he defines the term hot mess. Okay, it's 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:11.440 nineteen oh three. He's a young architect. He's in Oak Park, Illinois, 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:14.639 which is right near Chicago. He's married, He has six 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:17.280 kids at that point. When his wife brings him a 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:19.800 client who wants him to build a house, Frank takes 0:01:19.800 --> 0:01:23.040 the job and he gets to know the wife really well. 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:26.959 Her name is Mema. They become totally obsessed with each other. 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:29.720 A few years go by and the passion only gets 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:33.160 more intense, so intense that they both feel like the 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:35.959 hell with the spouses and the kids. They just want 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:38.680 one thing, and that is to be together. Now. The 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:42.000 problem is it is he early nineteen hundreds, nobody, but 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:45.440 nobody leaves their family for somebody else. But that's what 0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:48.800 they do. Frank leaves his wife and all those little kiddies, 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:52.320 and Mama leaves her husband and two toddlers. Of course, 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:55.960 Frank's business begins to dry up, so they decide they 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:57.960 got to get out of town. They meet up in 0:01:58.000 --> 0:02:01.120 New York City and hop a ship to Europe. Once there, 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:05.000 Mema works for a Swedish feminist, interpreting her books on 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:09.440 female sexuality, and Frank meantime, takes a really deep dive 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:13.880 into his passion for Japanese art and architecture, which by 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:18.040 the way, actually helps evolve his exquisite style. But then 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:20.320 after a few years he and Mema want to head 0:02:20.360 --> 0:02:23.360 back to America. He'd like to re establish his career, 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:28.040 but Chicago is out due to their sketchy reputation, So 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:32.400 they head to Frank's hometown, Spring Green, Wisconsin, and he 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:36.000 builds them an awesome house. He calls it Taliesen, but 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:38.720 the locals there aren't thrilled either. They call it his 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:41.880 love cottage. Who cares, says Frank. In fact, he says, 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:45.320 laws and rules are made for the average. Two women 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:48.720 are necessary for a man of artistic mind, one to 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:50.880 be the mother of his children and the other to 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:54.840 be his inspiration and soulmate. Would a guy? I wonder 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:57.080 how he'd feel if Mema thought the same thing and 0:02:57.120 --> 0:03:00.080 needed more than one man. Anyway, it's a beautiful life 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:03.240 for a few years. Finally Frank gets a major job 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:06.800 to build a massive three hundred and sixty thousand square 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:10.760 foot entertainment venue in Chicago. It was called Midway Gardens, 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:14.680 and it's really spectacularly beautiful. It's a triumph for him, 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:17.400 but it means he spends a lot of time away 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:23.480 from home. Now it's August of nineteen fourteen. Frank's in Chicago, 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:26.600 Mema up in spring Green, and her two kids are there, 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:29.520 spending the summer with her working at the house. There's 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:33.320 a husband and wife, Gertrude and Julian. Okay, it's lunchtime. 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:35.840 Mayma and the kids are out on the porch and 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:39.560 six of Frank's students and workers are in the dining room. 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:42.720 Julian serves the meal in the dining room and then 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:46.280 proceeds to lock all the doors and pours gasoline around 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:49.120 the exterior of the dining room, inside and out of 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:52.520 the house clearly nuts. He heads to the porch with 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:56.520 a hatchet flailing away. He slaughters Mama and the children, 0:03:56.880 --> 0:04:02.320 actually cleaving Mama's head into vertically right down the middle God. 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:06.760 Next he likes the dining room on fire. Those inside 0:04:06.840 --> 0:04:10.320 tried desperately to get out, but remember the doors are locked. 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:13.200 Then they try to jump out the windows, but outside 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:16.880 is Julian with the hatchet chopping away. He kills three 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:20.080 of them. The others had a different way and are burned, 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:22.560 one of them dying a day later, so in all 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:31.159 seven are dead. Only to survive. There's a frantic phone 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:34.560 call to Frank in Chicago. He's in total shock. He 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:38.359 takes the first train north and ironically runs into Mama's 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:41.520 ex husband, also headed north to collect the bodies of 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:45.440 his dead children, and they share a private compartment. Once 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:48.800 in Spring Green, Frank buries Mema in a plain pine 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:52.640 box in his family cemetery, in an unmarked grave. He 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:56.240 actually throws the dirt into the grave with his bare hands. 0:04:56.880 --> 0:04:59.920 No one really knows why Julian killed all those people, 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:04.640 because he died weeks later. Despite the tragedy, Frank rebuilds 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:08.520 the house, saying in his autobiography Anguish would not leave 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:13.360 Taliessen until renewal began. Talk about renewal, while he says 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:16.880 in his bio that he grieved Mama's loss for the 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:20.440 rest of his life. Within weeks, we're talking weeks a months, 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:23.400 Frank had already fallen in love again, and over the 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:25.880 course of the next decade or so, he married two 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:30.080 more times. Here's what's ironic about his life. He literally 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:34.760 introduced into architecture this sense of serenity and earthy beauty, 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:39.159 raw wood, stone glass. But his life was red hot 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:41.839 and chaotic. Do you think he was searching through his 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:44.560 art for the piece he could never find in his 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:56.960 personal life.