Mark Heyman Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

University of Illinois at Springfield
Norris L Brookens Library
Archives/Special Collections
Mark Heyman Memoir
H516. Heyman, Mark
Interview and memoir
3 tapes, 225 mins., 65 pp.
Heyman, a student of Frank Lloyd Wright, discusses his interest in architecture
and his experiences as fellow at Taliesin. He recalls meeting Frank Lloyd Wright,
his apprenticeship, conditions for students at Taliesin in Wisconsin and Taliesin
West in Arizona, fellow students and their projects, famous visitors to the studio
and Wright's reactions, and design theory. He describes Wright as an employer,
teacher, and architect.
Interview by Cullom Davis, 1982
OPEN
See collateral file
Archives/Special Collections LIB 144
University of Illinois at Springfield
One University Plaza, MS BRK 140
Springfield IL 62703-5407
© 1982 University of Illinois Board of Trustees

Preface
This manuscript is the prduct of a series of tape-recorded interviews
conlhscted by Cullcm David for the Oral History Office, sargamn State
UhiversiQ on Mar& 3, 1982. Margaret Reeder also transcribed the
tapes and Kay Wlsh edited the -ipts.
Mark WByman dwelaped an in ar&itecture ale -1- by
a Queena, New York lumberyard atd mill. He read archi-
magazines, visited exhibits ard taok a wurse on archi-
criticism at New School in New York City. When he ran across an
autobiography of Frank Uayd Wright, he disccwered the availability of
an architectural fellmship whim wild enable him to work direcUy
mdar the hstruction of Mr. Wright.
In his mmir, Mr. Neyman vividly d l s his vieme workby
personally with Wright at Taliesin in Wi~~xrnsin arrd Taliesin West in
Arizona. He sensitively describes Mr. Wright as am employer, friend
and fellcrw man,
Readers of the oral M r y mir ahadd bar in mbd that it is a
transcript of the spaken mrd, a that the in~iew~r, narrator and
dtar sought to m e the informal, cwnrersatimal style that is
hherat in sud.1 historical soumes. Sarqamm State University is not
responsible for the factual accuracy of the mir, nor for views
wpresssd therein; these are for the reader to judge.
The mnuscript may be read, quated and cited freely. It my not be
rqmducd in whole or in part by any naeana, electronic or rdmnical,
without pemclssim in mi- frm the Oral History Off ice, !kmgamn
State UhiveniiQ, Springfield, Illinois 62794-9243.

Table of . C mtmb
Getting hb the Fell&p ................ 8
Meeting Frank Lloyd Wright ................ 10
Going tc~ Arizona ..................... 16
B59ckmcking ....................... 21
Life at Taliesin-Wimin ................ 22
Taliesin West ....................... 29
Wright's -don to Visitors ............... 43
Farmus Visitors ...................... 45
Codes of Behavior at Taliesin ............... 48
mjor Projects ...................... 50
The Unit System ...................... 52
Addm Design ....................... 54
Heritage Henridan Fbmiture and mcher
FabricDesigns ...................... 56
Dxy Wright Hem ..................... 57

Mark Heyman, springfield, Illinois, March 3, 1982.
Cullan Davis, mi-.
Q: mk, we are go- to be qlorh~ your associatian with Frank
Lloydwright. so, let me begin by asking, do yxl recall whm ycu
first heard about Fhnk Uayd Wright?
A: I sllpp3se I hearrl about him uhen I was in high school or allege,
but I didn't get really interested in him until the late 1940s after I
had returned fmn World War I1 ard I read his autobiography.
Q: Why did you read the autobiography?
A: That I don't lacrw. It was just me of the mrmber of books I was
reading. I was interested in architecture Kd in cities, amog,othw
thinge. I was a vcaacicus reader, a he naturally would fall m
there.
Q: Olory. let's go backmrds and as you reflect an your badqround
prior to being an apprentice or a fellar, m t aspects of your
uptrim~ing or education or parental influmas or any other influence
do yru view contributed to your h&mst in M LLayd Wight?
A: Well, I sqpose that it W d have to divide irrto two things. To
thefactthathewasaneteCt. Alrlthesemrlthing~~~dhm
interest in him ard the way he ap33roached architechre.
Q: It was me of the th.
A: Right. When I seriously becmrre interested in him I was wer
hty-five. It Is just spculaticn on my part as to the early
influmas, but I they are worth nmticnkq. I don't recall
when I was gmwm up any specific interest in axhitect=ure. As I
said, I was a vary big reader ao history and cities ard architecture
were~inpl~Subjects~~thatIreadabart. Hwwer, when1
kcam dirmy swans, ahall we say, of Wright's philsophy by reading
his autobiqraphy slrl then reading uther bmh by him in the fifties,
nar I ~n see it as I lmk kick that I had an early predisposition,
shall we say, to his ideas. In the first place, for whatever
reason, my parent& sent me to a progressive private school, the Dalton
Schml in New York, where we had no classes. We had mthly
assignrents each teacher had a mcm for one subject d it was
cutfittedlikealibrary~wewerefreetogo~dowhatmwanted.
We had no grades. So that in elementary school (which I qleted in
six years bgause the wasn't the usual gradas) I had an ummml
a t i m ~ c perhaps h influenced me with respect to Wright s
approach to the Taliesh Fellmship, JBumticn for Architecture and so

on. I did go to a cmventicnal him sctlool in New York City, but it
was kind of l* an interim wid in my life. I went for four years.
It was an elite public high -1, Stuyvessant High School. It was
one of two (out of fifty) at the time that was a magnet school. You
had to be selected frnm all aver the city to go to it. So, there were
a lot of bricjht kids there. I can recdll it very distinctly.
A l ~ t h e t e a ~ w e r e ~ i n g ~ t h e ~ ~
int~~sting, it ms very strange tomebecause I mnanbw the first
few days or we&s when the blls rang and we went fm roam to
and we had hawork ard so an. I had no hmmmrk in the other school.
So, for four years I did that.
9hen I went to college for years, k t that was under the cloud
of the war ard I wasntt too interested in it.
Q: Where was that?
A: City Uhiversity of New York, then called the City College or tha
college of the City of New York. I majored in several things (laughs)
always thhkhg I was going to leave very shortly. I entered when I
was sixteen. I was eightem as a junior aml then I was ahcut ready to
go. I was in the R.O.T.C. so, for that zmson, they called me up at
the end of my junior year. It was just a month after ny
birthday. So, that kind of was l h an odd education, my high ~ c m l
and college which were rather traditi-.
A: Incollege, I flittedabout hthings to-. Iwas
hasically in social science areas, ad I ultimately capleted a najor
in PIsychology by q junior year. I had saw c~ursesthat1
WDUld have been taking senior year. I ~as=dwards, but I
hew I wasn't go- to be there another year. So, I avoided the
requkd courses and finished my major. Eut I took cclurses all wer
the place. It was a very traditional high-pmemd -1. It was
highly selective in adhnissicns at the tb. Tday it has open
admissions.
Q: id yau do any serials of design or arckibchre or
engineering?
A: No. All I CM say is I WBB inbuilditqs, but just sort
of the abuve avenge laymants in- in hil-. So, m
spcific architecture.
ThmIwasinthewar. IwasintheinfarrtryandthenIknrsinthe
air fcrw ard I became a navigator. When I gut art, I didn't
what to do and I worked in the family business, which is manufacturing
jewelry, for five years, nut really feeling that I Monged there.
IXzrirq this tb, I becama interested in ar&iteckum. I did a lot of
travelw all over the Unitred States in major cities iurl a lot of
smaller cities M y
by train and aubmbile. Airplanes unrren't yet
too aepenaable, I did a lot of reading. I also at- the New
School for Social ReEiearcfl in the evdq as a notion of getthq a
college degree. They, by the way, were uppes divisim as well as
m t e sdml. I had Brace Irallm in philosophy. I had Freida

WLzndsrlich, wars a forrrrer mmkr of the Reichstag before Hitler, in
political scienoe. Kallen was an Amewican. I took an ar&itectural
aqxeciaticm or critid amme because I wa~t tha interested in
bwldhgs. So, for five years, I periodically wmt to the New S&ool.
Q: Was this fmn the mid-forties to mw 1950 or when?
A: I wuuld say it began arcrund 1949 ard continued until the early
fifties. I also took a very interesting axrse with Alexei Brodwiclh,
&o was then the Art Director for Harper's Bazaar, and it was a
workshop in graphic arts. Students viere n-cstly in piblicatiwl, in the
mgazine field because he was a very pmdnak art director. And then
I took it again when he enghsized phutqmghy. It was a real
workshop. We didthhgs. I one of the assicjrfmzb. He
said, l%ymbolize New York graphically. I cut aut a lot of portraits
of people! £ram magazines, mtly ~ife and magazines like that. There
were mugbly a h t two by three either a-le heads or two
heads. And then on a long pie of Mamdte, I made a shple
-per aut of strip of paper and I pxt these pi- in the
windows so vbn you lmhd at it, you weren't sure exactly what you
were looking at. It was a grid, a vertical grid, It looksd 1- a
very tall skylxrapper with all of these faces lmkhg out an3 that was
New York city. He thought that was pretty good. I did too. He was a
very hbxesting teslcher. He -oped a lot of photogmphers.
Iwing Penn was ane of them, and I think Richard Avedon, who did
mostly from fashion but still they became. . . . By W s time I was
very interested in etechm W I was twmty-five yeam old. I
decided Wt the manufacturing jdry W ~ was not s where 1 was
going to be although it was very niae to tnwel a lot and I enjayed
sarme aspects of it. I thought of beax&q an archi-, hut I didn't
want b go back to college, As a matter of fact, after I left the
ice, which was November, 1945 tbme or four mnth after the war
ended, I wat back to allege, to the in upper Manhattan,
Cwnrmt A m , at the main camplus, I went to the Registrar's Office
and I stood at the grille and I asksd them abut ny record ard then
when they pulled out my,tmn~mipt, it dawned on me that I wwld have
totakeallof thereqund~thatIhadmissed, inorderto
graduate. He bldme, Well, look you haven't tahm this ccrurse or
that came, a year of this and so forth & so m.I1 Ard then I
looked amud and I had just been a lieutenant in the army and there
were all of .these youths stadq annu& I just walked away £ran
that. I~I~dclwntothecafeterhardIhadahotdog. The
afeteria in the anpus is very fanwrus & acted as an irrtelleztwl
center of the college. That's where mkhmnst to me there wens a
bunch of sbhrb, ncrw famw so~i~logists and intellectuals who had
been there when I was a student-Nathan Glazer, Daniel Bell, Idmg
Kristol. The people I saw in the cafeteria wsre the future axredims
1i.h ZeroMoetel arrdotherpeoplewhowere Mintraining.w They
actually m studerrts, Sa&&y mght to do a study of this. As a
matter of fact, Bell or Glazer wrote a pi- ahrt the cafeteria in
the Nm York Tims recently. So, I went dawn there to have a hot dog
and of cc~uge=of these %hildrenfl were standing amml and it
wasn't very funny.
Q: Did ycsz knm arry of these figures?

A: No. I bewthe d a n s , There- seveml alcwes and there
was a table in each aim. It wm sort of a gothic lxwmmt, little
stained glass w k h s near the ceilirq, There wwld be these big
tablw and benches araud the alcoves. I me alcwe was for
the Socialist Club and then there was a cammist group, ard of caurse
theywereateachother~sthmats. Ardthenthereweresameother
leftist kkds of groups. h there were ardians, so an alcwe was
left for m. I disthtly rmmhr -Id stad un the table
and read the dcs in the Daily Nws with political -tiom
satirizing the politic^, very much l h lXmz&uq is .today, but
this was an oral thing. It mnimls mae of Mrt Sabl. But I do kmm
Zero Wetel was there. I didn1t3nwrwhh. Or ma* I did, but I
didn't )acxJ his name. I renmbr reading interviews with him early in
his career am3 people would ask me bhere he went to school and how he
got his education d he said he went to City College. In answer to
the question, What did ycru major in?'' he wwld say, ~l~-.ll I
don't know if he wer graduahd or not. Eht there were people like
that. Ard they wens very politically attuned. Cclmedy then was
political. Ycru satirized the political leaders, whether they were the
mayor, the governor, or the president. I used to sperd all of my th
.ulere wtween classes.
Q: Did ycru have a hot dog on the day that ycru decided not to .
. .
A: Well, the food was pretty bad. We always felt that it was safe to
eat the hot dogs, Wch was maybe wraq. Dca't forget that it was a
non-residential canrpys. We all carrre by sulmay to the college. So,
yw had all of W hcrurs to kill classes. You could have a
nine olclodc class and a t%o o'clock class. Of axme, there was a
library, but hm rraxch could ycru take? The =feteria was kh-d of a
social and intellectual center, pecple who hutq ararrrl the canps.
There were abut 15,000 people on so, there was a lot go. on.
Q: 1 it. I think you were leading to a point there when yau
werrtba~totalk~hawyauhad~t~pi~~mycxlr
college and then decided against it.
A: Well, I was working in the family biness for five and I
was pretty unsure. I didn't want to be there, ht I didn't knm where
I wanted to go. So, I decided not to go back to college to became an
architect because I wasn't that sue of it. I said, lWell, look. I'm
here. I don't like colleqe. I didn't like it I was there. I
wasn't too cited abaut ~t. I MXZldnlt go back when I returned f m
the amry and nm I've dcme wen mre. I'm too old. I'm too
esrperienced," not )awrwirq that I would go hck to college wha I was
w-swen. [The University of ~ l for a mister's ~ degree ,
in city pl-.] Anymy, when I was twenty-five, I was too old. I
wasn't mady. I didn't go [to a] school of arddtectUre or find out
what theym doing. I sald, 'Well, I'll get intobuilding. Haw
will I get intobuildFng? I didn't knmanybodyor knmanything." I
found m ad, I guess I was loow at jnbs in the Times. That is
andhx part of my ectucatim. % New York Times, whinread avidly
s h I was about faurteen or fifteen. In -, so reading the
classified ads was just a matter of reseamh, seeing what kird of jobs

there were. But arryway, I said, Wall, this is a good place to look. l1
They have jobs. AnI them ms a job for a clerk in a lurker yard in
Queens for thirty dollars a week. I dmve out and I got the jab.
That~hclWIgot~tarted. 1~r)cedforthreeyearsin~l~
yards ard mills. Thay bth had mills Wch rrreans they made finished
wOadwDrk. That's wixdaws, doors, and mldinqs. The first one sold a
lot of lumber. The semml oste did nrrore millmrk. In the semml one,
attheendof threeyearsi-111954, IwasthenaWof aminor
executive. I was maMng a hundred and twenty-five dollars a week,
which was okay at that point. I had, by this tinw?, becorme a
draftsman. Self taught. I had a friend who was going to the Yale
School of Ar&i-. He and I were wahrs of a sail- club on
Lorq Island. On city prcrperty, withcrut arry mmy, m built a buildand
lockers and a pier, which was an esrgherirg feat, using an
ordinaryga-rder~hoseto~holesinthe~~wa~todropin
telephme poles to support the pier. Worw with him and the
fellam, I gained vience in both archibzhral draw* and
ccmstructian,
In the two jobs I had, I dealt with builders, a little bit with
archiw, m e y ~ ' t m a t ~ i n t h e ~ b u i l d i n g ~ .
Therewere~yafa~architectswhodidthosetracthauses. The
buildhp wxe pretty cut and dried, very much 1i.h mitt, Levittown.
In fact, the secaxi firm I worked for, their mjor custarrer was the
largest captitor of mitt. It was Morton Emthem. They built a
thausandtobmthmsanihaesayear. ~siswfienNassauCounty
wentfmmapotatogrcrwingcauntytoasubwb. Nm, ithastwo
million people. Arryway, these farms wsre just being turned into
housing develqmmts, prabably Eour to six houses to an acre. So, I
S3Bcame very familiar with that kind of cmstructim ard would go out
inthefieldandinqectthelmil~andmsetthelmilders, the
various contractors, -ctors, craftmen. In the mill I did a
lot of schedUm. I did scarre draft-. I handled cc~nplajnts. I was
rn the telw.
-
For ample of years I was a salesran, go- out and
selling the jobs and so forth, brirqing in estimtes. That is hm I
got into building,
Q: Where you living?
A: First, I was living in Manhattan with my parmts and then I lived
in Lmg mch, New York with nry parents. They built a house.
Q: Is that an Lmg Island?
A: kmg Island, yes. It was equally distant frwn Queas Village,
whkhisinQueens,~these~yards~closetoeachother.
They were ampzkitors. I ramkc ace when I was a saleaman, I drove
25,000 miles an Lorq Island. I was just: in a car all day long going
f m jab to job. After thq m sold, I mild go arrd service them,
watch the cmstrwtion and take are of problems.
Q: Did your job include arry sort of actual construction work
ycslrself? Or carpentrywwkycrurseLfl
A: No.

Q: No work? None?
A: I was a white-collar wrhr in the mill. I used to go to the shop
end of the mill which was noisy arrd full of mt. I neva mrked
any of those big madhes. I worked machines 1 h that
el-. But these were career mill hands. I was a White collar
man in the mill.
Q: Okay. where do rn go next, then?
A: Well, I was there frm 1950 to 1954 ard in N- of 1954 I
j oined Taliesin.
Q: We've got to -lore wkLat took you fmn the mill to Taliesin?
A: Okay. well, I was worm inardammd cmstmction &then I
was =ding a lot about architechre. And be* clcm to New York
city, mere m w i t s and other wen-, so I became self+dwatd
abaut etecture. And again, I was continuing to take ccxlrses at
the New -1. I don't -the particular cmrses, the
one I rHentimd about architechmil criticism. I was readhq dl of
the ard.li- myazines. I was pretty well informed abart what
wasqoinganinaxchl~historyofar&i~. mdmn
awchLtecture. And I knm a lot about Wrqht. Of m, I hadntt
seen arry of his kdldirqs. I hadn't seen any real draw* of his,
except for Emrall -ions in -i& pub1icatia-s.
I think what finally triggered it was the 1954 Wright -it an the
site of the Guggenheim Museum, Wch wts then an empty lot. The
Guggddm 3322ilditmg design had been drme in the middle forties ard of
course it wasn't built until the late fifties. So, they had this
empty lot for a long time. And this little hause, a very -ive
house that was used as a tenrporary museum. I think I've been in it.
As a mam of fact, I recall a Emncusi Wit in it. I was very
much interested in Brancusi. In any -, on that err& lot-nuw I
suppose it was Wrightls idea. but at that tine it pmbably was
ammmed to be -imts idea to have a Wright exhibit muse he
was then negotiating with the city to get Wrightt s design hilt, which
violated a M of cedes. The war was hlved arrd then after the
war, there was a shortage of materials. I don't knw the whole
history. I thhk there war. saw curatorship debah. He had a very
dgmatic wmm, Hilla m y , who was the curator. By the way, they
started the collection with . In any case, I donlt -what
Cuggenheimls art interest uw- net him and dmlt knm very
much abart him.
Q: He had a collectim with
A: And today the Guggmheim Museum is averloaded with his work.
They've been selling mne Kandinakyls because they have no man.
W a
abut her frcxn might. In (~ly case, the building took a long time to
get built for a variety of mascm. I ~np3pose at scme tines
Etassenheim lost interest inthepmject in aperid of over fifteen
years. HisintereStsnusthavewax~dandwanedwith~lofthe
Reby was not ecamtric, but she was an um.mal prson. I heard

pmblms. The hasic pmblern was that the building wmld not be
pemdtted by New York City cdes.
So, he had this qky lut. It was paved with aqhlt, as I Ite;me;mber,
no par-. There was a mane fence arrxard
-
it on Fifth Avenue in
the eighties, So, I assume it was Wright's idea, but it came out in
the publicity that -im irrvited him to have an exhibit there.
well, the exhibit was this: it was a pavilim designed by Wright.
It's ale of these buildings of Wri*tls that telnprary. I
haven't seen arry of it, but he did one in California for
mother exhibit, made of pipes an3 plastic and it was a very
interest- builaing. And umkr this buildkq, it was clpen m the
sides-it was just a yxwilian-was an &it of his work wfiich he had
put together and I qpae it had been in mtrope. It was the met
marvelous exhibit of blownup drawirqs, pksatosraphs of buildings, @
thenthey~booksof~tsofdraw~thatyaucouldleaf
thmqh with stools so that you a d sit at the tables look at
than. It was light ard airy and had models of buildhqs.
-
There could
have been abcrut eight or ten mcrdels, rrrarvelous models, very urrusual
models that canre apart. And then in the back off the east side of the
lot-in the back tamds the apartrmk buildirq-he had designed a
-bedrocan brick and Udan hmse, whim the law cost
hcruse whichhe started to build in the 1930s1 a one story ranch house,
a large liv- room with a high mil* and what he called poll-.
A big living roam ard then a lcng tail, which had a hall or gallery
dam me side and a k i w then three bdmam ard a bathman off
of this lcavg hall. It was built c~aplete with electricity. I don't
think it had a heating plant in it. Of mume, that wwldn't have
been visible. I rembr clearly that it didn't have plming in it.
It had all of the fixtures, but ycxl axld turn m the fa- in the
kitchen and laothing caxe &. were just sittirug -. I
mmmkr distinctly the water c l e had- you lifted it up, it
was full of cmcrete. And a sign that said, "Do not use." (laughs)
So, .ulere was no wmrkirq plumbing in the hmse. Elut for all intents
and prposes, it looked like a caplete house. And the mly thing
miss- was the Kaperty because wfien you looked out the living ronm
which faced east, with its glass doors and trellis overfiead, there was
mttmfeetof ~ardthantherewasabanhowallandthat, of
caurse,~tobethelawnthat~dhavehadtog~to~~
Avenue, ten millim dollars worth of real estate. So, it was just
jamwd up there. But that didn't seem to be distracting because the
interior was mamelaw. An3 then later in the fifties, a cmple in
Carrtan, Ohio saw this house or saw a pblicaticm of it, muse this
&it was widely plblished with pbtqmphs and said to Wight,
That's the house ke want." Mr. Wright &an@ it a little and pt it
on their slcphq site ard it was one of the houses I later visited.
So, I saw this hcruse, again, abut six years later in &&on, Ohio.
Tlmre were two other Wright clients in carrtan. rillis -it and the
publicatim of it mgembmd a client in Ohio and it was about a
thirty-thausand-dollar house, a mcdest house for the time. In any
case, this -it and sitting at the drawings and tusning the pages
of xeroxed drawings I cwxld see all of his work. It was by decades.
Then, I reread his autobiography. I dm't think I mned it. I didn't
am a copy of it. Well, I lmught a mpym I joinedm. Wright.
So, anyway, in 1954 that &it sort of made all of at I knew ahh

him much more clear. was nobdy there [at the &it] I knew.
I'm sure there were SCZE amices there running it, 3x1t I didn't
talk to myhdy.
A: I can cmly rermber be- there twice. I &ly only had to be
there cme, because I must have spent most of the day or half a day
looking at the draw*. It ms just sinply that I was
thrcxlghmyh~tourrderstarrdwfiatthiswas~. Andthenthe
~itwassowelldcnethatfmsaoehodylihme, itwasauhole
&cation in a half a day. I think I visited again, but the second
th it was just to cnnfh what I saw. But I mnmbr sitting on the
stools ard looking thmugh the dmdngs--~ was too much to look
at, Wisly. Wlt it was well done ard I can the models and
where they sat and I can scare of the big drawings on boards
that were mered over with plastic and the pavilim with its
translucent roof. The whole thing was very striking and, of ccrurse,
it was -ti& for me, and for many people as well. As I
recall or I read fllbsequently, it received very good miam. It was
the first the Wright had an -it liks this in New York. Ycru could
md abcrut his work in architechxal jcrurnals, but here you could go
andsee ' . The miterial in this exhibit was later kept at
Taliesinzof it was stored and Wen used when another exhibit
was-. ItwmttoEuropearrdtocalifarnia.
The autobiography had a section abcrut the fellowship. The
autabicqnpby was pblishd in 1943. He started to write it h the
late -ties arrl was an edition published before the
fell-p, but I haven't seen it. lhen in 1943, the dtim I
read-4nae the fell-p started in 1932-had a story abcert it and
later events. So, then the fellmship became clearer muse it was
ratherpoeticinthebook, butthsmed.lanicsof itmthxe, but
then I began to understarrd, "Yes, ya~ aauld join itts and I could join
it and I wanted to.
Q: All right. Hm did yau go abaut do- it?
A: I W a letter to Frank Lloyd Wright, Spring Green, Wisconsin.
I knew fran the autobiography that they spent six nmths in WisconSin
and six m&hs in Ariz-, to thie weather. Thrsy started
this in ths middle Mies Taliesin West in Arizona was hilt.
Ardsothis~inthespringormmnner. Itwasthem. So, I
wrote a letter to Erank Uoyd Wrimt, Taliesin, Spring Green,
Wisconsin. Spring G m has a poplatim of a thousad and I figured
I didn't need an address. The little bit I knm, yau just had to
write to Frank Lloyd Wright, Wkamsin. I wasn't quite sure, but that
would have gotten it. So, anyway, I wrote a letter and it just must
have been me or two -. I fmm the autobiography
that them was sue U of an application or form. I asslrmsd there
would be. I got no answer. And then I wrote anather letter, a few
weeb later, three or so. The sarru; letter. More or less, the
s2~lle. I didn't say, l1Please anaer my first letter. It I just start&
all aver again. And I got no -. Then I figured, Well, they get
a lot of letters. They lost my letter.'' I didn't kYlcrwwhat to

figure. But I wanted to go. So, and this I ratmbe clearly, I made
it my Ws- me day to get a lot of quarkrs when I went to work
fm Lrmg BBa& to Queens Village. I didntt want to use the telephone
in the office. I didn't tell -what I was do-. There was a
phone booth abcrut or bloc3cs away. So, at lunch haw, I went
mtto~phonebooth2mdthenIr852chedinnrypocketardtookout
all of these m. I didn't knuwhmnuch it would cost. It
prabablywas aknrttwodollam. .I didn't knmhawlaqthe call would
last. I had a lot of quarters. I put than rrm the &elf. I didn't
-the mmkc so, I got 1 9 distance. I had no prablm getting
Frank LLoydWrightls narmber. In any case, they rang the mrmber. The
mrmber rings. A voice amwered ard I said, ''Hello. I'm W k Heylllan
fram Lmg Islard and I havewritten a letter toMr. Wright abcRlt the
FellclWshi~.~~ And the voice says, Wark. Yes, Mark." It turned out
to have been Gme Masselink, was Mr. Wright's secretary, one of
the senior apprmtices. Arrd here, what surprised me was that he
called me by ny first nmne. Well, later I lmew that he nxd all of
the mail. And whether he nry narc or mt, that's haw he
would react. I have a sense that the mil was rawer amwered flrcan
pople who hquired. lhat may have been the case at scarre tb, but it
seems logical for them not to, because that was a vewy goad smeahg
&ice ta see *Is scrims. So, as smn as su&xdy calls, then
you're =ious, ym see. And he said, Wck. Yes, Mark. Yes. Yes.tt
And I said, Well, I wrote this letter.f1 I explained the mle thing
whia he didntt have to hear. He said, 'Well, Mark. Mr. Wright will
be in * Plaza Hotel next week. Why don't ycru call him up then and
see him." And I said, 'Whm will he be in the Plaza He said,
'Well, hets go- Thurday. Hetll be w. Hets gut an appintmmt
with -erh~im,~~ and he tells me this whole string of events and I
didnwtknuwwhat it-all*. AllIwaslistenirrgtowas~
Lloyd Wright wuuld be in New York, whim was twenty miles away. And I
said, TUl right. All righLtt And I said, ~~Dmnk yau, Mr.
Ma.sselink.It [Hetoldmehisname.] HthenI-tohavea
date in New York m miday night. I druve to New York and I
thengoingtoa~boothdcdlling~~lazaWoteldthe
aperator be- very busy =id, ''Yes. Hello1 Plaza Hntel. Yes. And
I said, Wrank Lloyd Wright.t1 I felt a little Pluury there. Vmnk
Uoyd Wright. Just amimte.tl M then the @me rang, and thevoice
said, llY~.*t I said, '1 wmld like to speak to Frank Lloyd Wight.lt
Anl the voice said, llYes.lt I mid, I*. Wright." He said, *tY~.ll I
- said, "1 spoke to Mr. Masselink last week and he said for me to call
you ycxl to the He said, Van you ccme in tamrrr~~
at ten o'clock?11 I said, I1Yes. Mr. Wri#ktq He said, ''All right.
up.
~hextrao~IgotbackinmycarandI~to~ttan. I
lnusthavehenthereanhcxlrearly. Iparhdthecar. Iwalhdover
to the Plaza Hatel. Let's see. I think I had to go to the desk to
find cut where his roanwas. I guess they just gave it to me. It was
221 or 1h that. I'd never been upstairs in the Plaza or
even in the lobby.
Q: were you nervcrus?

A: Well, I txm into the rn and we memed alone for an hour, but
he talkd for fimminutes of that hour. I was happy. I had a roll
of draw* with me. I didn't knm Wt to bring, so I had drawn a
hause--a ranch -a plan and fur elevatims. So, it was two
sheetsafdrawingsazld1justheldthatthhg. Ili~tahimfor
fifty minutes and he scRvdad l h his books. I was listening to all
of this stuff frcm the scrurce, yau lmm. I -It nemws, but it was
m l y a very feeling & it got so I forgot all about
jo- the fellarship because he rws abmt philosophy and
~~ and then during the th I reallzed what I was there far.
Wlt I thought to nryself, "If hews nmx going to aak nre any questions
or say arrything about me, you bow, after a th he will be very buq
and that will be the end and 1'11 leave. M 1'11 say, 'Okay, I
never got there, lxlt I had this -ience.'l1 I didn't knm what was
going to happen. well, the point is, pople were walking in and out
of the rcum ard I didn't knuw W they were. ?here wexe telephone
calls. He ms in New Ycak for business. He didn't give me the whole
hcrur. So,otherthingsweregoingm. Thenroststrlkingthingthat
happened-thatam-indsatdcrwnandapenedupa
~~dMdit~Mofherlike%sandreadit~itwas
-New York n o r scane other paper similar to that. And after
sale, she put it dam. And then I began to mize, well, Frank
Llcryd Wright h have a wife ard this is Mrs. Wright. And the31 it
dawnedon~~s~thisQnallladyinthedarkwhnhad~the
doorandwhanIhadignoredwhm1~~. Wright. AndIhadthe
eerie feeling that I had insulted her because I hadn't talksd to her.
And that's why she held up this paper. She was acting as if I wasn't
there. I didn't lackJ she was doing Uh deliberately, -use
I was too interested inMr. Wright. Wrt that was the case, I fcmd
autlater~I~herinAlriz~.
Q: Did you ever have the feeling that ywr relatiomhip with her had
gotten off on the wmrg f&?

one was Gianpem, both Italians. And all of a sudden, I heard
lrGiampero, can you give you, Mark, a lift to Arizona?If
Wright this?
A: I aft lacrw. They all lmew Zmd I was the only
stmqer there. Nobdy had said, ItAre you jrrterested? What can yau
&?If I had this roll of drawings, you ]n#rw, and I am glad I nwer
apened them. (laughter) It was a good drawirq, Wt I m m it ~ just
had nothing to do with anything, you kncrw. The carrversaticm seemed to
getammdtomewithalloftheecrtherpecrpleardwerythirrg, Haw
was I gohg to get to Arizona? And ~iampwo had an MG, a tcm-seater
open -it thirq. Giampero was a nice lonking fellow. He spb
with a slight Italian accent. He Mxlnded very educated to ne. I was
a little hesitant abcut driving in an E to Arizona. I didn't know
him arxl here I just walked in, yau knm. An3 I wasnft ready to leave
the nmct day or he was leavirq. So, I said, I%. I can get
dam there by myself. So, thank yau very much.11 So, appomtly, I
-a=.
Q: No diw=ussim of terms or -ti-?
A: No. Well, I think sormbms alcq the line Hr. Wight had
said-he was talking abcnrt the Felluwship to nre I h e w all of
this. He said, 'We work. We do all of the mairkmane and you are
like the firqers an ny handtw and he descrihd haw he had worked with
Sullivan. It wasn't very specific. It was very @dlecal. I
sul?pose I m t have said the right things. I am sure that if he or
Mrs. Wright didn't want me, theymdhave eased- out, &dl&,.
Wright, maybe behind the -, was m y
partly lis- to
ne or to my mctions. Mr. Wright talked-he was then eighty-five-he
talkedtasomanypecple, ~~raarry~popletjhon-ayormay
nothavewarrtedtocume. ArdIlatercald~hcrwpqlerected
to him. Yau could tell a lot very quiddy, even if they said little.
Whatever they said indiwted where they stood, how mch they knew, if
they asked an intellegent questian, even if they said, ftYeslf in the
right place or in the wmrg place, whether they were nenrcrus or not.
Ycru couldn't pqdmmlyze the people, but yau didn't need much f m
them to get their mctim.
Q: Ycxl~thenthatyaurpexfomance~~yc#2a~le
that day that you hadn't been a-le before that irrterview, but
smehhg you did or didn't do durirg the interview . , .
Q: How does Mr. Wright judge pcple in a ccmwmatiun like that? ~y
what they said? Or did he look at m? Or hw do yclu feel he was
j Wins people?
A: I dmft laclw. All I can say is that, having seen him, for five
years deal w ith all I& of mle, clients who were a variety of
people. They wwmlt all in me mold. They were all highly favorable

with to his anAitectue, ht they m still different types
of pople. I saw him M with clients an their hausesf so I knew huw
he dealt with clients. I saw him deal with media people, sum he hew
and same he didn't Inrcrw, tmqh guys like Mike Wallace, you lacrw, and
friendly types lib the editor of the lbdism paper. Then I saw hjm
deal with architects used to cam -, very favorable,
sane critical, scarre skptical. There were many who just sjlrrply didn't
like his work, but had to see it. Who knew he was important, but
~~eren't very ' of it. Ardthesewere~~pmmhent
etects. -wwia,lwR1e. I ,
with the public in lectures arrd questions ard answess. I srpw him deal
with tourists, people vho visitad Taliesin, lay pople. I saw hm he
dealt with peaple wfio ware either ard.tects or clients. And I saw
him obviously deal with us and with his persmal friends. So, I knew
him pretty well. I d d just simply say that with pople he didn't
knuw, he was very wive, very quickly. I wuldn't say he was
right all the the, but he was quite capable of lMkirrg up his mind as
towherehestoodwiththemwithhafewminutes.
Q: well, how in that intenriew with you, if he was talking with you,
duminatirq the comersation, h m was he judgbq you?
A: Well, this is a good questim. (laughs) I can't answer. As a
matter of fact, a part of the amqkmce deal, ard it's mentioned in
the autobiography, I urrderStmd *s before a I think he nmtioraed
it--p a m always on trial. Yau carrre ad we'll see. So, wen if he
is a good judge of character or a good judge of who should be
admit-, if he is wrong, it is easily settled. And I am sure he was
wrong rrrarry times. But, he simply had been do- this a lmg t h and
he wasn't going to b o the interviewhq pcple. He was an
amhit. This is not a college Where you select the pople, you
~ a w . Aml if they don't work art, I dm't know if ycxl could tell
ahead a time so well. It is not d y
the adjustmnt of the pemm to
the life, hrt it is the interpersanal adjusbmrt amrq other people
and that is unpredictable. We m a tight camunity with all Mnds
of relatiomhips ard so forth. It was like a family. An a e d
family.
Q: Did you 3maw anyme d was associated with Wright at that time?
A: No. I didn't lcncrw anyone who was or had been. And I made no
effort to look for aqhdy. I don't laclw hcrw I would have found
samebdy unless the nsurre had pppd up. And I suppoee I wouldn't have
thought that kould be relwant because when you read his autobiography
and you are interested, you feel irmaeaiately a relationship. It is so
vwy
like a client. There wvxe many clients who read his
autobiography arrd they wmt crut and saw me of his b d l w d said,
''1 will have Fsank Llqd Wright and else ard I don't care if he
is dif f icat or he is said to be difficult. I need him. And that is
the way I felt. Not that s mly, but I wantd to be there.
Q: Do you recdll in that first: cwnrersaticm with him any discussion
of the pavillicm exhibit that you had sean?

A: No. Wemay havementioned it, hxt he didn't care wk&s I mw it
or not or where I gwt my widence. I man, here was a rrran with a lot
of books atYl was farmus for fifty or sixty years and I ray have knuwn
his mrk only E m hearsay or £rm -. It didntt make any
difference to him. He never asked to lodk-I had W roll of
draw-. A couple of tires I was waderirq what I was going to do
wia it. P;nd of course was no opemkj in this haur of
philosophical disassim abmt great anAite&re. I was thhkhq hm
thequalityof thedrawiqgotworseardworseasIlisteraedtohim.
(laughs) Why shaw Frank LJayd Wright an amateur drawiq? He rawer
asked to see it. Arrd I thhk if he had seen it, even if it was rnuch
better than it was, it would have made no difference to him because
his effort--as a matter of fact, I cmld see that- I got cut to
Taliesin was, you lacrw, we are starting fram scratch. He had people
WhOwere~more~tedinarthi~tkranIwts. Iwas justan
average self-buqht draftaman. I muld do clean lines ard I hew structure a little bit of typical hawes, you knm. AmI it was an
accepkible hc#lse, but when you get into great architecture, this means
nothing. A lot: of people joined him with graduate degrees in
architecture with three or fmr years of ~imce. He WdnW t have
cared &cut their dmvjrrss either, I don't m. As amatter of
fact, I think a lot of tha had a lot of -1- because they had a
lot to unlm.
Q: H w did the mmematicm erd?
A: 1tendedthatXwasnot:goingwithGiampero. Andthentherea
lot of people standing up. %here nust have hen three or far
others. ~astheywa.eccanirrgin, Iwasonmywaymt. Iwas
standixlg up. More came in and the whole thing was all of these other
puple said, ItHello! I baventt seen yoY" and all this, And they were
in between Wi-in and Arizma. It was just the friends and fdly,
you Icrmw, rn I didn't belorrg there. I dontt nnmhr what I said to
. i t . I said, 111'11 see yau in Arizona,t1 or
Wright was busy with these uUmr people. So, I just left the Plaza
arri that was it. I just knew1 was
-
going. I nwan it was clear. It
was an amazing hmsition in that bar, it was m y an bar, I
dan~t~theexactth, h t I ~ ~ c x t t s i d e ~ t o
door never havhq seen Frank LJqd Wright, mer having seen Mrs.
Frank Llm Wright, nmx having arry of the apprentices, nwer
having heard Frank Lloyd Wright, never having heard him talk to me for
an ha, ycru knew, and all of this kind of thing, then going
through all of that and then being a part of it. Qm I left the
door, Iwaspwtofthewholet%bq. (laughs) Itwas weird.
a k
Q: E b t you had made the psychological carmnitment to go if a-
long before the ap-?
A: Yes. Right*

Q: --nine, had a -3 good job, did yau have raisgivbqs about
that kind of a fateful ccmmi-?
A: No, I was eager. As I say, it took all of these years or study or
hbmst in the exhibit at the Gqqmheim site. It was just internal.
1wasgoingtotryi.t. Ifwbatwasgohgontherewasthat
interesting, that was balere I bmild go. mt was better than going to
school in a school of architecture.
Q: You wanted to becarae an architect?
A: Yes, at that pint I did.
Q: &td in addition to Wright, this was a way to achieve it
Wch was other than kind of formal, cmmmtianal arddtecture schml?
A: Even strmger, I beliwe, since I had had three of practical
experience. I mrked m this sail* club, This frierrd of mine wfio
worm cm it was at the Yale -1 of mtectur@, occasionally I
talkedtohim~twasgoirqonthere. Imusthavemadalotabout
archi- in schools of ardxi-. I hew that I wmld not go
to a -1 of architecture to became an architect. Ym WdnWt.
You can't naw, lXZt Y[XZ muld at that tb agprentioe yourself to
variouar&iectsardthen&Hyscrme~onthesideardtakean
exam after eight or nine years. It deprxls an the state. So, it was
theoretically possible, it -It jwt me going to Wright and not
going to school as against going to a school of etecture. There
was no choice. I was ncrt go- to a school of archi-. Wzt to
go ta Wright was, I Udnlt say go* to the best em, but
goingtoanar&ibctwhereitwasgohgtobetheri~t
e>q?erience--then I knew a good deal abcxlt his -techre. I must
say I learnsdn~~&morewhen~ joinedhim, hit 1-1 hadabetter
understadq than the average qpmntice came, I was older.
~0f~carnebecaUseofthe~ma. They-moreintereEttedh
the nmae than in the reality. And, of cmxse, they learned very
&My. Yau had to. Also, becaw of my history or w h a w it was,
I was very apen to his ml-y ard his m. I cauld see m t when
Igot&thereul@fhtthreeW0ewtycsu~, Iurrderstood
mmythhg, not~butIurde&md~x~nyappmmti~
didn't knm why we were wedhg the beans or what it was. I
understood it. I laean, I felt like I umkmbod it.
Q: Mhom did ycxl first tell that'yau -
going to be with . . .
A: I dm1t ramnber, b.rt I do rmabr going and seeing my boss. I
had to leave in about two meb. It was a little vague as to wfnen you
were suppse to be there. Finally, w5len I got dam there I realized
they all dribbled dckJn at differentr times. And mly Mr. Wright was
,jrrrpOrtant. The draw- had to get dam there before he got there.
He would go to New York sa whm he got dam to Alrizma, amythhq
would be set up. Zltld he wmld be able b vmrk the next day. Them
was a big nechmical thing, apenirrg up a big hmsdmld and all of
that. The 'Iwuseww held fifty people, ycxl see, with all the cooking
and cleming and -, and the drawings, particnxlarly. But I
hadtheirrrpressimthat~~le£t, Ihadtobethereinabmtt~~

we&s. I didn't, bzlt I thmght so. So, I had--and I thaught I could
tell my ---I was a little bit afraid of tell- him. There wasn't
much rmtice. But anymy, I want'& his office and I remaher it had
a glass door, a double Fbmh glass dloor that was be- his office
and h. He ws an actmdy sucmssful man, but .Ule huilw looked
very ratw. He had kdlt this bhms and just maintained the
old--it was a crmvertad house, and added on to it. We were all in one
added-, sothese-~doorsthatwmtcutside. H I -
in this section-I dealt at that time with the technical problerrts of
proltuctim, shipping schedulm. It was a very cmrqlicated thhg. 1
was on the telqhans, so, I was right cutside his dmr. I rmmbzr
looking~the~dwrsandsay~, 'WhenIamIgohqinand
tellhim~thatheisnotgo~togetupsetor~?~~ Arryway,
I went in and I said, !Mike. Itve got ' totellyou. Iam
going to join Frank Uoyd Wright,I1 or =like that. I don't
think he knew I was irrterested. He was a very nice guy, but he was
just all oriented to his bus-. He just listened and I said,
tWell, I saw him on television, you haw, sahrday" and dl this kind
ofthing. Hehadara.qhideathatthemwassuchathing. I
explained it to him. He said, Wkll, if I was twenty years ycsunger, I
would do it, too.'' (laughs) And that was it. I don't
tell* other people.
Q: Yw were still livhg at ham at the *?
A: Yes.
Q: HcJw did your parerrts react to it?
A: IguesstlIqlcnewIwasintereEsted. Atthispoirrt,wellIwas
twmQ-nine, I mean, I could go anywfrere ztrrd travel and do anything,
so it was just re do- it. had stare of who he
-. I man, a god of wha he- going off the
hardle wm place.
Q: Let's place this. This -
the miq of 19543
A: Naw that I think abaut it. !Chis wts the fall mly. It nust
havebeenbeca-Iwmtinabcolttwoweeb. Igotduwn, Ithink,
early in NcJvemkr.
A: It mt have been OAdxr. It was nice weither. I this
because of going outside to the telephone and going to the Plaza and
so forth. I didntt have a coat an. But it mst have been a mild
mtoblx.
Q: Before arriving and discuvering that ycru were do- fine, did you
have same misgivings about age ok lack of architecrtural training and,
therefore,
-
being at a di-tage in wanparim with the other
fell-?
A: No. In the autabiqraphy, Wright descrb that were people
who frcan high school. As a naatter of fact, I gut there of

the forty apprentices, me had ben there a year and he had graduated
fram high school and had bean there a~ year. So, I knew there was a
range and a variety of skills d pople. And there were gmduate
architects and engineers and so m. The pint was the way it worked
was you did ht you ccruld arrZ I was very goad at mill work. Aside
frcan drawirq this house, I ktm~ mill work &details. I understood them.
Asithulzedaut,~IgotintOthedraftirrg~it~~t~
or four rrmths after I was there, they pt me an a house and said,
llHere, you'll joh ~ick Stadlamn ard Raj Aedri,I1 and there was one
other, Ihg Po. I was the junior person. All three of them wen2
graduate architects, me with years aprience, a new
apprentiae, believe it or not. One an Inhn, who graduated frm
-lard, Bcanbay. He was fmn KaaE-nnir. M ~ing Po fmn China
would have bean at Talfesin for ten years. So, here- are three
pople--you lmm, I had to tell them h t I could do. By this the, I
had looked at drawkqs. I had even copied drawings, nat traced them,
but put them on the side and done a whole set of drawings by drawing
them all wer again here, nut ' atd not doing
the proper way, but 1- andwguest?Arrd I had
reprduced one *le set of a hause [the Txrvuess Hause], which
inpressed sarntbody because it was kind of borirq, but I did it. In
qmse, =indo~thatIddsee~Icxruldfithd
there's a sheet, generally me sheet in Wright Is set of millwork,
wintlclws, doors, and details. One sheet of elevations zttld the windm
schedule ad then ycsl have the shest with all of the details. m, I
began to mdadzud what of quite unusual millwork details he
used, but because of my badqmmd I couldn't do it or urderstanl it.
SO,wZlen~~gQttOgetherandthqvJer@alreadydrawingthe
house, do* the work. I dm't 3mmhm it came abut. So, I had a
blank sheet of paper and then I did the millwork--four elwatims and
the millmrk details of the R a m hase in Connecticut: aml worked
with these three other people. Arrd you have to work very clcsely
because yuu can't do lit by yourself. It has to fit in. So, that is
hclw I s m , you see. So, I was a junior mabr of four, but
I had a specialty and I was good at it.
Q: Let's get back to ywr caning to TdLiesin West. On ymr trip
west, did yau see any Wright buildings?
A: Oh, I flew.
a: oh, ycxl flew.

~ ~ ~ ~ t ~ e n r a n i n g ~ I ~ y a d t h e r e a n d j u s t t o ~
Fksnix was like, must have been 1946, 1947, I went aut to see a mvie
andthedmrmantoldxe~~faurlt~nrie~~. Hetookmeup
thestreetand~nrethisrme, thatone, andthearrxlndtheblock
ad m s one. And that wis all the theatres in Fhombc ard each of
than had double-feature wsterm. Arrl the other thing abcot it was in
the Adarrrs Hotel, wfiichwas a big -ry labby with columns d
leather chairs at battam. I don't )olcrw it was built. I sat
d m and in the chair back of mne I had to hear this m t i m with
these guys with MI me with a biness suit ard the other one with
work cl*. It turned art that one of the fell- was hirirrg .Ule
othertowork~~1his~. Immbrthatthe&arywasdollars
a nonth with roam ard board. So, that was *t I knew about
Well, so I was getting there in 1954, nut later and I knew
PhOMiX had gram a little. Arryway, I telephoned the Westward Ho,
this other hotel, for a mematian. So, I got off of the ahplane
an3wmttotheWestwardHoandgatarmm. Ihadtmbags. I
roughly had an idea of mt to br-: worklathes and tools or
sarethhg, I don't knm. It was sort of poetic what yclu had to bring.
You had to bring ahammr arrdycxlrparrts, yuuknm, ard shoes, Well,
anyway, I had two suim with stuff I tho~~@~t I needed, and one
gadsuit. IcheckedintheWestwardHoarilI~putt~nry
b a g s d a w n i n t h e r o c a n ~ g o i q ~ t h e t e l ~ ~ ~ ~
apeninsupmetel~bookandloakingfor~~oydwri~t. I
didntt -where it was. I knw it was in the desert, &then I
lmked under Wright atd thE?re was Frank Uuyd Wright & I dialed the
rarmber. Thw sclmebody says you Iacrw, and I =id, ''1s this
Taliwin West?t1 She said, 'What is it yau wmld like?It I said,
Well, IamanapprenticemdIhavearrivedhere~I~dlike
saanebody to pick nre up or hm do I get cut to Taliesin?I1 She said,
Well, 1'11 give than the message. I &dl Well, who are ycr~?~~ And
she said, This is a mn& radio amwzing 'Xhat was the
anly way you cmld get them. So, I said, glOkay, here's the =sage.
Thisbmynzmre. ThisistherocmnImninandI~dl~toget
pi- uptt She said, IwYes. That was normal. she understood
that. But shemt witha lot of randrers, you see. So, I unpacked
ny bag. I don't how if I unpacked it fully. I expcted maybe
theytll call n~ up and will pick mz up. I ms checked into
the hotel. Well, anyway, nabody did and I stayed ovemight and the
nextdayIwasupearlyand~~~andcameba&~
lonked at the bx, ycru knmr, and mitirrg for thee rnen and nothing
ha-. So, abut tw~ olclock in the aftemom I called this lady
and I said, "1 called you psterday abcert being pickad up. It she said,
ItI gave them the mge.lt I said, 'Well, what do I do nckJ?" She
said, lWell, I gave them the message d I w ill lewe another -gel
YOU m, for ym." Well, it tumd out I stayed there three days
befom anythFng h a m . It ms bm nigh- and three days. ina ally,
a message cane im and said, tg'Ihis afternoan scmme will be
Saneone will ccane and pick you up.w1 Ard so I pa- bag and didn't
knuw ha! I wwld recognize them, but I sat in the l-. Anpay, it
turned art to be a tall gangly guy driving a blue Vo- W,
which ms rare in the Wted States. And it was quite clear he didn't
Wong there, yau Inmw. He said, twYau're Mark Heynuan.*I I said,

llYes.tl He took the bags arul3 he drwe me art. It took about forty
miraztes. We went aut to Taliesin. Theywens just too busy or nabOdy
was in tmn or saethiq. I was sitting .there. I wasn't going to run
away.
- A: Yes. YUI came up to it as typical of laarry of Wright's buildings.
I learnedthis laterm, thattheyare&Illallerthanonehmginesthem
to be. Nuw, with Talisin West there is a specific for that
because in UE major @ahgraphs of it thsre is a kirrd of a flaw of
steps leading up to a large Mder with ~ame Wan carving cm it, a
very colorful voldc rack that just sat thsre. It is on this
platform and it leads irrt0 the drafting rocan, Well, s w , one
thhks of thern as ordinary steps. One didn't have a sense of huw tall
things were or wen what they were. It was a very unusual building, a
whole set of buildings in the desert. So, there is no way to get the
m e . Well, illusim is that these are step mt one normally
takes Wch are eight or nine inches high. Well, they are
three-arrd-a-half hchs high, yau see. They have very 1- treads,
whi& makes them cumfortable, so that olhe can walk up them. mt when
yourjeethisphotogrm~, ycxxseethe&estepsandycluthink~boulder
wouldca~uptoyoureyes,yausee. Actually, itcazuptomy
waist. So, that whole builduq, yau, see, if you look at it a you
think the sea ref if teas^, ninem&eshighthenyaugeta~
of hcrw big the building is. Well, are f i- steps, only
three-and-a-half inches high. That's a scale device. It does a
r - of ather thiqs, but: it a influeme ane's perceptim of the
building. So, werythirrg 1- smaller and after a while, you get
used to it ard then yau say, 'Well, it's the right size.I1 That was
the first prception.
Q: IEclw far away fram the mzlin -was this tent?
A: Between a five minute and a fifteen minute walk.
A: Well, thefifkenmhmtecmesmildbepeqple~wantedtobe
that far out, yau see. They thought it was too crmded. -
wlere
onlyabautthirtyterrts. Themwxeseveral~inthecc~llplex.
Most of them were for married apprentices and older apprentices. The
atherslivedinthese.tentsandtheyw@respxraadouthabcRzta
hundred&eightydegrees, soyauwmtoutonpaths~the
desert, and then the little Wte pyramid sat out there.
Q: You had a single person tmt?

A: Ewrykdy did. Thq wtxe nine feet by nine feet. Maxy of
them-& later on I did- hilt on elaborate bases of ammete
and stone. I4r-d so it made it a little bit more interesting with
patios and fireplaces. But, basically, you start at with a slab with
a pyramidal tent. Saane people lived in the saxre tent, year after
Y===
Q: Did pur arrival include any sort of formal meet- with m.
Wricjht?
A: No. He wasn't there. He was in New York. I thhk a few days
later m. ard Mm. Wright arrived. There was no formal meeting. I
was working. I was doing
-
thhqs. I was already fitting in, you knw,
working with gmups and I dm% mmmkc what it was, amstmcticms or
what not and getting things ready. Feople wxe working and I was just
the newest mmber. Yau just fitted in. It was go-. It was an
ongoing thing. Yau just in d you joined it. I remnhr wha walJdngdmntothedrafUngrocmn,Mrs.~rightwa~tcaniqthe&her
way. She ms warhq very colorful and -ing clathes, eic,
ycru might say, folld by sweral ather people. I sort of introaUcwd
myself to her and she said, WI, yes, Mark." ?ird then she said, Wh,
ymwresodifferentmthereinthedesertthanyau~inthat
horrible plaae in New York, It or scarrething like Umt. You knm, that ts
it. There any irrtroductirm. I don't renmbx t\ihen I first saw
Mr. might or wfiat the occasim was, lxlt I had five years of
exprim with him.
A: No, mly as yc~z gut to do different things. For example, there
U d be mirrt;enance assigrrments which went up [a a bulletin bard]
aery mek, like or cleaning whims or SO m. There were
Eieveralm. --big-1ikKcmkhq. C1eaniqwindcrwswas
anly a Saturday job, but there was a whole series of big ones which
yau got wery X mmbr of wdw. So, when that came alq, [it] would
ba explained or you aaksd -. was very helpful.
Sqpse there were *nine paple and I was the fortieth, their
interest was to make the next fit in. So, it just mlled right
. It was much mre family-like than it was organizatim-like,
although it ms forty people. Yau knew wfien yau got there that it had
beenrunningwithoutyou, sotherewasnonewclassandyau~
urmsual-you had to fit in quickly ard so you tried.
Q: Was arrything abut that work ruutim or aqthhg else a letdcrwn
for yau?
A: No. Yau were tOO hq learning r w things. It was very sharqe,
yc~zknm. I]CHRWitwmldbe~orunusual, butycruarel*
new day, wen just the way of operation and what it
is. Of cmrse, it was all very -it- because you were
do-, it was for Frank Uoyd Wriwt and his architecture. I m you
are c l e the wjndcrws. This is Franlc Uayd Wright's drafting man.
The should be clean. 1 nrean, it is quite logical. It was
seamless. It wasntt all 100 prcent enjcryable and thme wre problems

and so m, but in the beghmhq if ycru are askirvg abaut-did I have
any aversim to m y of the activities-no I w antd to urdemtard and I
would like to do it. I enjrryed, when I was working in these mills [on
bmg Island], to go aut on jab sites so I liked cmmtmction & I
lilted that kind of thirug. It wasn't just office wrk, you see. We
wore blue jeans and work bocrts all of the th. We wore these wen in
the drafting rocan, ycru see. So, we mre ready to go aut and pick up
mdw or hmmr saw ard so m. S a e t h the routine was very
irregular. I m3an, it wasn't mutine. Smam waild say, llLook, we
can use sogne help out here. We've gat this big truckload of rocks and
at least tm of us got it art here and we are tired. Ocrrtle m you
guys, helpu~s.~~ It isvayhardto describe. Yrxl askabaut any
problms. It was just sinply learning mre things all of the time and
dobqmore, andmore hbwestmthirrgs. I ~ veryquicklythat I
was i m p o ~ that , maqbdy was ' . Fkmk Uoyd Wright had
no enpl~ees, had rm staff. He us. We WED= his staff,
qlcryees, his family. AIld so his wrk was carried at by the forty
of us ami we felt ram hprtarrt. He treated us that way, He
didn't make great speecbs of praise, but yau krm that ycxl wtxm
workinganddoirrgsarrreiraportantworkincarryhgmthis
arc hi^, designing d dealing with the clients, ~ldirg,
htaver it was. So, ycru krm, ycru kere highly mtivated, &&
carried a lot of peclple thmqh when they had psrsmd difficulties
either wim p~sople at Taliesin or wrtside. They knew the importanoe
of what they were doing.
Q: We I l l get to that later. I think that probably does it for today.
A: Okay.

Q: Letts first backtrack for a xaent, I W-taltl that you have
the actual date of the pavilian exhibit in New York that you attended.
A: I faund out that it was in 1953. And if ny mry serves rre
right, I nust have seen it in the sumtrrar of 1953. As I didn't join
the Fellawship until N-, actually going to Arizona in NWof
1954, I suspect: there was six nmrths behem the time I first
c\lrote to Taliesin and at I gut to meet=
-
Mr. Wright atd join the
Fell-p. So, I must have been thinkirvJ abaut that exhibit for at
least six or eight months before I decided. Now, I also recall that
inthatth, asItoldycxl, Iwas interestedinbecmhgananhitect
and I ms working in this mill do- draft* lxxt basidly
mting pdxtion and so on. I did an ad for an ar&itect
in Lmg Island who wanted an assistant and it turned out to be a
one-man office and he wanted to hixe ne on the spot. I said I had to
think abaut it. The salaIywas, I think abmt half of what I was
earning. It inms a very Enmall office, Wt it wculd have gutta me 100
percent into architecture altlmqh I don't knm what kind of
architecture it was. So, I was thinking of ming jabs. I rmember
that W i e w very dearly.
Q: Okay. I11 short, l3e experience wasn't quite as campressed as you
had remrhrd it, at least it's clear that ym were thhkhg in
1953 axl 1954 about beccaning an architect rme way or the other. And
Wright I s pavilion had inspired yau to apywoach that.
mce
mdel.
~dhaveknumalotabutthat, htatleastwhileIwasworkirgin
the mill I dealt with plans frm a lut of different etects rts I
1emedalotmoreabrtamhi~thanI~dhavem.the
constructicm of just one hcxlse.
-
A: Yes. I also had gme into lmhrhg and raillwork because I wanted
to get into architecture thmqh mnstmckion, so while I was happy
do- what I was, I was still try- to work my way wt. As a matter
of fact, I offered a jab as an assistant cmstmctim
W- on a large housing project on bxq
-
Island. And that
was W of like, I Uwught, Well, is this a mwe up or out or closer
to architecture or not." I decided it wasn't. Btxuse I W d have
thmbenlookingatths-hmsef-, atleastforayear
because they built four or five huMmd of the And I
Q: A parerrthetiad question here. In to vhat extent if
at all do you thhk you were affectd in your mkrests in
construction and your oipportunities in constmction by the pst war
building ban?

United States and in Africa and EurrJpe ard nry intemst in cities and
mtecture was &Mated by that as well. So, I really mlt
separate aut all of those different things.
Q: Well, let's cret now back to Taliesin and rather than thinkincr in
k m s of * yaur f ikt -iences in Arizona, let I s try to captureatbe
sense of a typicdl day at Taliesin. What was that day like,
rcetine?
A: All right. Form to describe it amcmtely, I wouldhave to
make it e im W i m i n or Arizcrna because there is a slight
diff-.
Q: Okay.
A: Let's go to isc can sin. Well, the first thing is that isc cons in is
the Taliesin, wh.id.1 is the mrd used in several senses. Ona manirq
Was in talking abut the fellmmhip and the prrrperty or the site it
used, spread out, There was Taliesin itself-that is the buildirug,
Taliesin, which started in 1911 was rebuilt sweml t-. Where
PW. & Mrs. Wright lived, guests lived-it was a well-huwn hildhq.
It was gensrally not apen to visitars. It has a magnificent living
rocan, but in the hmmation of it when I was there in 19501s. It had
sweral strhqs of rocans, a few of them caurverted frrraa various farm
uses. Onewasad.lickencoapathadbeencanvertedtofwtrm.
If yau didn't know [you CCOZldnlt tell], but the coop had four
magnificmt apprentice m. So, there are a lot of roams there that
guests slept in and also apprentices, rrrarry senior appentices and
others. It was a good place for apprentices with wives and dldren.
Then at Hillside, whi& was abaut three-quarters of a mile away, &ch
was the old Hillside Hame Whml that Wright designed for his aunts in
about 1903 ad to which he had added a drafting man in the 19301s
kkn the FdlQwship started. There mre eight ap~rerrticels roams on
tach side of the draft- m, so sixteen apprentices lived W.
Then Uuxe was Tanykri, wfiich was a hmse Wight designd for his
sister, Jane Ibrtar. It must have been before 1911. Them were
sevemlbedrocnrsinitand~qqmnticesstayedther?easwell~
s a regular ~ ~ guests. Mrs. Barney, Wright's youqest sister [Maginel],
wuuld rwnnally stay there. M s was in the ammw, of caurse. So,
those are three hnldbqs. Then there was Aldebaran, which is a star
or a ccmstellatian, which was Wes Fetersl farm, which originally had
a Lloyd Jones1 farm, whi* Wes had mndeled hto a residence for
his -, and sweral apprmtices lived .there. And then there wem
a few little buildings like huts and cabins. It would be had to
describe it all. [Them wmld] have to be a plan. Well, I lived at
Hillside and me swmer I lived at Aldehran. I guess I was far
summers at Hillside and me sumrm=r at Aim. Well, we woke, I
thinkthebreakfastaxkwuuldwakeus, e w t d d h i t agaq in
Hillside. I don't knm hcrw people vmh up in Taliesin. 1911 sure they
had alarm dm. Well, anyway, breakpast was served at Hillside,
which meant that those pqle who were half-a4le or threeof
a mile away had to make their way to it. So, the first ordew. of
business was gather- in the Hillside dining ram.
Q: At what tinre?

A: Maw --thirty. I dcnlt &ly -1. -18 would a
in. Them muld be fifty or sixty pwple set up for that. After
b ~ w@ wwld ~ . . . ,
Q: Was this cafeteria-style or were yau sewed?
A: It was half ard half hatuse it depended upon what we were at-.
weld pick up a grapefruit or omrqe juice ard coffee ard things like
that. Arvclthenwe~dsitdmnardthen~wascookirmgwhethex
it was, I say, pancakes or scrambled eggs or scmwWrq of that nab,
whythen~theysaw~pupleintherwmn, theywmldcookupa
batch and than ~~anwrme wwld bring thm out m a plate. So, it was
very informal. There were a qle of -1e u b were assigned to the
kitchen. This was om of the rwtathq ass~grrmsrYts, but they were a
small rmmber. Now, the rest of us, we wwld go back to crur mums and
get ready for garden. GaEkl was farming or landscapirrg, ard it was
y . I recall the petunia patch. There was an acre of
petunias in a triangular shape in the valley where three roads came
together. Yaut d drive off the main road to go up the hill to Talisin
and that's what people saw. It was kind of like a sign. I1Ym go
drive dcrwn to the petunias ard then yau turn up the hill an3 youlll
get to Wiesh1l That took a lut of weeding. But then we had
vegetables, potaW, squash, and stra-ies, d there was a
vhyad as well. It was abQut an hour or so of work before it got too
hut. We-&WwewiWlthehaesarrd ' , txa~tirnes
harvesting the stuff, but mtly rreeding and-ting. That was
called Itgarden. And when that was over, you'd geraerrPlly have to wash
up a little bit, but we'd go to our general assigrrmenrts. We were
either doing, as I told yuu before, large-scale mahbmme, for
exarrrple, like dxqphq or w were doing mnstmction or in the
draft* man. lIhese were the basic assigmnents. Most of the peaple
were in mnstruction and in the draft- mum. So, we were always
wearing blue jeans arrd work shoes, clothes, sa that ycru could
very easily mwe frcm one to the other. But basicaLly, the people in
the draft- roam had to have clean hands arrd rrrore or less clean
elm, ?hey were wrking at drawings, l?mik Llqd Wright's
drawhgB. Ard the rest: of us WZe pretty gnlqy lookirrg because we
were hauling rock, do@ mrk, hamwing nails ard all of
that kind of thing. So, we did basic assignments Wch we
'
sbyed on for wt3akEi on end,
an the pmject, until lunch.
I'm just going to give you t-e thmqh the day. I think
therewasagongforlunch. lherewxeallkirdsofgmrg~i~~
so on, but arryway it wa~l araurd m. And then we wmld go back to
Hillside and have lunch. And then after l-, w Id go back to our
assigmmt. At faur or fmthirty, there was a break. There was
tea. lhere was a tea &. In ~rds, that was me of the
ma-assi-. TheperslnrhowarldbeateamokWd
-
mrk m othsr thugs, such as in the drafthq rocan or cmstmction.
Wztwhenteatinrem, Illleanthq'dhavetobereadyforteaand
smethhq to eat with it for fifty -1e. That was sexved in various
places near kitchens, of came. If there a lot of people at
Hillside, that Is usually where it was, at Hillside. mires it was
at Taliesin, would ta)re it cut in the field. So , wery+dy
would break at fmr o'clock for tea. I gather that might did m e in
his Oak Park m o in 1893, so it was a 1- cusbn. So,

when I gat there in 1954, it ma tltea,'l It wasn't thought of as
Eylish tea, but it ws really high tea, because the tea mok wmld
bake. I m mmbr me a mice bahd EWed Alaska me day. But he
had to do it five days a mek, so ycxl cauldntt bep *that up. He did
it in little f l m pots. It was hxedible. But usually it was just
sam kkd of biscuits ard jaraatxlthhgs like at.
After tea, m t of us muld go back to crur assicgmmts, particularly
the people in the draft- rocm. In saw heavy ~0118~ion, we
probably had had mmgh and peqle had to just recover their energy.
In mild cmstructian, whe a d hep on go-. There was a lot of
free time, of caurse, ard irrdividual decisiwls. And then just to keep
the schedule going, this is during the weeklay, was
six-thirty or seven in Hillside. Anl after that, that was the end of
the workday, so to speak. Ncw, at Wisconsin, MP. & Mrs. Wright would
generally eat in Taliesin, which ms three-quarters of a mile away.
So, ~ w a s s a m e c o l e c n r e r ~ ~ ~ f o r ~ a t - d m a y b e ~
guests they had, NW, thatls the basic five-day sc3ledule. On
Saturday and m y ,
it was a little bit different. On Saturday,
scanetimesthedrafiing=k&d-and~kthe
construction wmk, hrt we had weekly majntemme assigmmks. I
usually did grass cutting so that the lawns had to be m. There
vas a lot of it. Usually, were visitors Saturday aftemom.
Hillside was apsn for a small fee and so there wmre apprentices who
.took visitors. So, we wuld kirrd of see civilians, uther people
walking
axrl they had to be sham the right places and not shawn
into peoplels rams and so an. On Satxiday wenhq arrd Sunday mmbg,
we dressed up, the msn worts suits and white shirts, ties and good
she=. Ard the wmen dress& appropriately. So, that was Saturday
and SIunday evening. On Sa-y wenirrg, we had a big dinner. In
~iswnsin, it could be in Hillside or it could have been in the living
roam in Taliesh, which is om of the mst magnificent moms that
Wright ever designed. It was a variaticm of the original 1911 m.
It got better, of course, ea& th he d d
it. Weld sit arr#ud on
the built-in ~~ and saae other chairs and then eat off of
little tables that held tvm plates. These were little -ar
tables that Wight designed that were hidden all aver the place and
s m stored ~ elsewhere. It was interest- to see sixty people eating
in~liv~m~itwasaverylargeroam~saffletimesmld
have guests d clients d w m. Weld ei- eat in the living m
at Taliesin or in the dining rocan at Hillside. Tha -Id have
entertairnnent. It wwld either be a film or rausic or EKlmething of
that na- or a dance. There was a danoe grwp at Tdliesin. At
Taliesin in the living roan, weld have just music because
-
you could
have naxsic in the living roan. At Hillside, we had a mter and we'd
walk to the theater and then have a film or music. It was a theater
Wright designed and we built. had been sweral Uters, me
desbmyed by a fire. Thase Satwday d andy nights
gala
Werrts, rn wms all dressed up. m i - who had been assigned to
theseoccasiansdidthe~andtheserv.-insbeca~m~waited
rm, so to speak. H [they] decorated the roanrs wim bqhs of trees
thattheycUrtduminlAewds. Thatwasdnnewerysaturday. And
[they] polished aru3 the Elm. Climb mild be there and
distmguiahed guests and people fram Sprw Green and so on, aqhdy
v h ms hitad and somtimes five or six people, warretimeEi m~ or

two. There wem regular visitors in the m, like Mrs. Barney, ard
old clients and old frieslds of the Wrights, who -It with us all
the time. The dtor of Capitol T- [visited], for exanple,
other people frraa Madisan, faculty mePabers ard so an wermlt
clients of Rights, but were fans of his, old, old associates who
fought his battles, faafplt with him the Nlic battles. And M y
wasrather~andmMalotmore~istsdvisitors~Wd
cum-. SaneofusmiLdleamarddriveawayanddo~
things, taks tripe. Saaneth these trips were to see Mr. Wight's
houses. Scmneth a few of us wrkd in the drafting -, ~~
we read the newspaper. It was a day off so to speak.
Q: Was any ritual to a q of the m s ?
A: I1m glad ym said, I%iRiazal. It I mish3ecl dewn:ibm one meal.
Saturday night atxi Sunday night were fornral. 'Ihsre was no ritual, but
it was formal and it was quite decurative arrd I1an uxxisian.ll As a
matter of fact, it was d l y very hpresive to the people who were
there forthe fbxt the. I missed one& that had, yaumight say,
a ritual, afl it was SLnday nrorning. Although we ate breakfast Sumlay
mrning at Hillside, it ms a little later than usual. It was abut
nine olclock, I guess. We did dress up for IAat breakfast. Well,
when I took cut ny one suit for Saturday night, I laew I wmld rn it
m y m0mh-q for breakfast. Thm I &d dmqe back to blue jeans,
until m y night. Then I pt the suit away for five days. Well,
arryway, m. Mm. Wri@t, ard the pqle fma over at
~alie~tin~~dcxraecrverarrdso~wasths~medL(~~~id
of Saturday and M y night wha
-
Mr. & m. Wright sat with us and
ate with us. And then when ~3 mre finishsd earn, Mr. Wright would
talk. That was usually tape knk Wm tapes are at Talisin
and not publifihsd or aqbbq. Wrt he a d just talk informally to
us and ramble, start off with event that ocaured or an
nbc3ewation or pie of mlosophy arrd he talked for fifteen or
minutes and then held f indlly say, Well, that I s it1@ would get up
arrl leave. He might say, '"rcu can go art d then he warld tell
us what to do. It was albAys very mteresting. That was Sunday
m0rnh-q. I heard five years of thcse Sllnday mdrq talks.
Q: Any nemrable mes that occur to you?
A: They blend in with what he said in the drafting rocmn, ht he said
walkingamlnd. ~ ~ ~ S e t ~ a n d I ~ s a y ~
saidthem~towhathesaidel~. Idorecallmething
because I have a tape of it. He rspoke of the Iao-JTse a@mrh, 'Ithe
&ity of a buil- is not ths fcmrwalls arrd the roof, but of the
space within.I1 Held pick up a glass that he just used at breakfast
and heVl say, The Theity of the glass was a t is hide, not vhat I
am holm in my hard.11 Held quite fnqumtly, wfirn he wis travel^,
he qui* frequerrtly ccme back and use these SLlrday mo- to tell us
abcRlt an incident that ommd elsewhere. I1I talked to these
archi- in Lce Angdes and they -t thisIf1 and then held m e
on to his philosc#dcal-archi- point. I noticed that when he
spoke, he was -w, I mean he was say- held said
-fore. I spke to apprmtioes who had been fifteen years and
theyld heard it before. But he was polishiq it and polishing ard

polishing, so that he wrote wmething, that's the way he wrate
it. ~erep&edthe~incidsntsa~~Iheahuffledthemardsom.
Hethaghtoutlmdinasense. Isuspctthatonlysecadsbefamhe
startedtotalk, wmldhethinkofwhathewasgohgtotalkabout
because he had lots to say. He didn't have any trouble thhkim~
aloud. He was talking to a knam audience. The press mmtt there
d so it was quite friendly.
Q: Was it strictly a mrmologue?
A: Yes. Verymrelywmldhe&sa&dysamething, Wewerethere
tohearhim. Hewascaaroll,hewastalking, andwewantedtohear
him and that was it. He talkad for fifteen or twenty or --five
minutes. It was very inthte. was nathirrg religious abcrut
this, be- M y 11y)rd.q. It was just to talk abcPxt architechre
and philaqhy.
Q: Did it to ycru that the dresshg up for Saturday and Sunday
dinner sewed a special ~wrpose?
A: Yes. It got us art of wrk clothes! This was before blue
jeans wms mar in the United States. we wem dressad lFka worlcman
all day I-, all week long. Evan when clients came, they would
gmemlly see pecple in the drafting rocan with Umee blue jeans, When
clients wmld CXXE or m visitors, and -Id see thirty, forty
people working at boards
-
in the draft- rocaa ard mst of them were
work clothes. Now, sac mre slack. ocrasionally but
ev~~alrrmoEitready, ymknw, togetupintarmrartesandgo
out and haul sms rocks or help with smethhq physical. So, I don't
say it looksd bad. We careful about hm we looked, but it was
nice to get into a regular suit ard a white shirt and tie,
rather than mrk boats. I rean, .after all, it wae a ccanbinatim of
blue ard a t e collar work. For these few ocmsions
--
because of the
climate in the t w places--mild ~
in Wiscrmsin surmrrer atxi in Arizona
w h b ~ - I had the need for just me suit.
Q: I guess what I'm driviq at is a q of the elemrents of this
routine day reflected a particular philosaphy, eclucatimal philosophy
or work @lilOsophy on the part of Mr. Wright or -?
A: Yes, well, on the face of it it's obvicms in the sense that it
ccrmbind because we rotated these assigmmb. We basically worm in
the drafting m ard did cmstmction. 'Ihere was a lot of
cmstru&ion go* on both at Taliesin and at Taliesin West. Nm, we
also did cmstmctica off the site, but I'm talking abmt life at
Taliesin. So, we did bath of these Then we also did these
mintmawe things, like gardening and amkiq. m day
in wismmin ccoking d y occasimly ycu sre
assigned to it. Anather of the ma- assigmmks was sherpping,
like drivirrg irrto Spring Green and buying thbqs, ycru see. So,
there's the philosophy. That's the philosophy of Talisin. Itls a
ammal life. You share in all the work as much as ym CCOXld ard as
far as ar&itecture is cmwmd ycru do work-im. Ym work
withthethingsequdllyasdoingthedrawhgs, sothatisbasedupon

the phile. Over a pried of th one has a mix of different
kbds of activities,
Q: Were there tires yau wordwed why you, a gram man, wanting
tobecorreanar&itectwasspmlhqyaurtimemakingsbcrppingtrips
into Spring Green as part of it?
A: As a matter of fa&, I didn't have the shcllJpirrg assignrent in
Wisconsin. I had it in Arizona and the dif ferencrr is that--well,
there were tw differences. One, in Wiscmsin there were two places
to go; to Sprirrg Green, which is abut five miles asmy and the other
one was ~~, which is a big city, abcrut w - f ive miles away.
But in Arizona, the sh0pph-q was in Phoenix, which ms twmty-f ive
miles away and that was a 1 9 trip, particularly cm partly unpaved
&--the last few miles of rpad. And I did have that assignment in
Arizona. I had it for a at a t h
and everyday want to the
wholesale vegetable markt early in the m*. We b-t scarre
vegetables dmm frm Whmnsin, lxzt in Arizona we didn't have enough.
So, I had to go dam to the farmer's market at six olclo& in the
mmirwJ or six* the gr~aery stores went to the wmlesaler
ardwehmght matesof lmandcratesof thisandmtesof that.
And then a m that, or on wrne other trim go dawn later in the day,
or m &her days, and buy lumber materials. Naw, that was a real
&re and I fourrd that wek, when I had that assigrmrent, arrl I only
had it a few th, that ms that was really like K.P. in
warfly. mtwasthenrostbothersaae~tome. Onthecrthw
hard, that was rare. I m I did that rarely.
Another-le. 1-Ispntabcrutamwithanother
apprentice in the hsemmt of the theater in Hillside finis- it and
putting in a ba- and paneling the walls. That was for w.
~thqgattothetheater, ~warrtedtousethelmtor1egandgo
dmmtothe-. Iremnbrwe~dmtreatdum~alanefor
all mo- & thAn all aftenxxrn ard it ms very difficult
crmstruction. It was a mmreb buildhq and there was plbirrg d
you would have to get l3m rimt matmials and so on. just
right. It was done very niaely. We did a nice jab. The other
apprentice was vary fastidius. But me -, what are yau doing
this for? well, I was leamhq about consmcticm, but we wlere
isolated and it wa~l a little bit like Siberia. Wzt these tasks
. ~ofthet~we~~in~apenandmwleredo~
cmstmxtica?, not of prtting in a lavatory, but of entire buildings
that ware designed by F!mnk Uayd Wright and he'd am mxrd ard look
a t w h a t w e ~ d o i t q a n d h s ~ so~were d ~ ~ ,
participath-q in the mmhwticm re-design of his archiwhichwasvery
ediucatiandl. So, I had no qualms abart that, even
carry~cnltthemirnrtedetails. Thedmvingswereusuallyvery
because he wuuld be there wary day. So, that when yau ame
to do sawthbq, ym had to hkpmt it like a craftmm. This is
reallywhat~didwhenf wntauttovmrkmthehmsein~icut.
I skippdmewinter inArizona ardwmttotmrkas a laborerrma
house m Cmmecticut for which I'd dme the worm drawings with
-others. A n d t h e m t h e ~ ~ ~ a n i n g ~ t o ~ m e a n d
saying, '~doc~ledothis?~tdo~dOhsre?It~'tahcrwmthe
yau see. h-d thAn I'd irrterpret it or if it was tao

difficult, then3 ws an apprentice supervisor ami he'd call up
Wiscmsin and he'd dape it out. Wrt a poht is, by working on
ccmtructian when not ~nrery dstail is spcified and emnot be, it
isn't even in a major lwilding, but in the hmse it certainly isn't
because it's nat wmth it and it's hard to figure cut all of the
possibilities. !Ihen figuriq cut t3e best way to solve the problem is
ar&itectue, wen thcxagh yau are do* it with a hmrnrer and a saw and
a brick and so m. Hcrw do yau turn the m? What do you do here?
The draw- doesn't shrJw. It says, tl%r typical detail. '' Well, how
do we interpret that typical detail? So, we did this in Wisconsin and
Arizona an the -an of lxlildirqs for the two places. And
these aremagnificent works of ar&i-. They are not just
osdinary Frank Uoyd Wright buildingEt, so that the cmstmction was
reallygettirrgintothegcrtsofthings. AIdIccRlldseethatwhenI
get in the draft* rocan and start ' since I had
worm out in the field, then 1 m, '-1- the way you do
it. Or this is a bettesway of do- it.'' I'm t2llking abart carrying
out the m c m .
Q: Okay. What abcnrt ths mine in Arizcm? Hm did that differ?
A: All right. We didn't have a garden. The mica1 layuut was
different, the cmnp itself, the drafthq rpam and the di&q roam atxi
Mr. ardm. Wright's quarterrs. -was a small apPrerrtice court
where Senior a-i- or mrried lived. Mast of the
apprentices lived in nineby- m d a l tents set out in the
desert a five to ten lninute walk out. One differenoe was that there
wasagaq. Immbrthiswasmatmer. Anditwouldwakeusup
or the sun wmld wake us ~p. Weld go into this 1- rn arrd there
were showers, and where m kept aur clothers in l-. We didn't
-
kaepthemintheterrts. Mthenwe'd~anigotobreakfastand
thenthesanrr;kirrdof &iredur~thswsekocr=urredinAriza~.
-
[In Arizona], theme was no grass cutt obviously. There was
water@, hmwer, vhere rn had a few "4 1 ttle lams. The &ldi.qs
quite different. The climate was different. The day -ture
was abazt the sanre, ht the nights rwdl coldEc. It was winter
&we liVBd interrts. It was verydry, of caurse. So lawdry dried
very fast. Hut the major diff- btwen these bm in cxlr life was
thatPhoerllixwastherearrdRmmixwsagreatattraction. on
Saturday or Surdays -1s wmld go to -, my a d leave the
amp. Afewpopleweredo~thhqsatcampardpeople~wantedto
k=p an working on drawimp, they aaild keep on goq. But for sane
-orathart Iguess~use~~~lycampingoutthere, I
msan, wewmelivinginthesetentsandthmgoirvgintothesecluster
buildings. Them wa~in't a lot of places yau could go. You wuld walk
wt in the desert and that was nice. Ycu ccruld hike in the desert.
Wzt h W isamin, there t#re a- and acyles of [land] had been farms.
&me was be- farmed. It ms a hwlic rural ernrirPrnnerrt and the
attractim of Madha wasn't very great. For same reason or other, I
think it's [Madism] the sarrre as was, Wt it didntt
seen to be that attractive. I mmly went to Madison, ht I wtmt to
Phoenix frqmntly. Rmenix was a g m&q city. It still is, but
thenitwasgrdngveryrapidlyardthaewas~emtheway
to w, which was little--=, it's a rich man's enclave. wlt
then it was just hmhq. I man it still had the -ive -can

estaurant a d also a bar. I saw sam mie actors in it. I forget
the nmne of it [mu Belle]. So, it was a mixture of things. It had
no traffic lights. A sign said, l%cath%de, where horses have the
right of wiy.l1 Nau, of coume, it is a -1y expmsive place
andhorses can% get -there, yauknm. Wzt in w -, that
was a little place to go to for a variw of -, but Phodx was
more lin turn, ahall w say, with where Im rn than was Madim. I
mezlnthsrems1110reinternrsof ard.litectu~arrdmre~m going an. There was theater and so on. Arrd also it was a sunmr
reso*, Rmidke Valley. !them were all kindEi of wents and pople
cmnirvJ and also sare of than came to Taliesin, partimarly the
mnrie pople. For two reasam: Anne Baxter is Wrightls grarddaughter
and -y because Wright ws a fan of the mi-. By the way, we
had these mcnries, me a week. So, we had fifty-two H011- films a
year, or foreign film.
Q: These- first-run films?
A: Well, they wmmlt first m. They were
-
classics. I ramhr
seeh-qthelistthatwe1doxderthemEran. GemMasselinkdidthe
order- and he didn't warrt to cbcee all the the, so he
discussed it with several people. Mr. Wriw and sweral of the
apprentices 1- llstagecx>ach,@l so that up wery W years, you
knm. He liked Marlme Dietrim. So, they m bath old and new
film. Isuppose--thm. Irt3allydm%hmwhattherate
was. And, of clxlrse, he had a lot of cmnectims with Hollymd
~AnneBaxter~utherpeaple-mObler. Hedidahwsefor
Amh Obler, who was a director ard his sm [Uyod] did a lot of hauses
for Hollywod mle. And later Wrist did a house for milyn
MonrQe ard Arthur Miller [which was mt built] . So, I don1 t &ly
)CII(JWhuwthefim~,mI~Seeingthel~andwe~d
chcDs@ arrd that was it.
Q: Hclw did holidays dmqe the wine?
A: Well, there are two mjor hkemqtiom in the year and .that was
the nwe the bm places and WIS a lot of logistics
irnrO1vadthsrebecausethe~operatingoffi~hadtocl~ardthe
othercmhadtoopen, wthedrawhqsarvlotherthingshadtogoina
truc;kandthecrtherplaoehadtobenrads~. Usually, -was
wmzbdy living in both places when thq were IgF311PJtY.11 Rrt there was
abigjobingettiqitready. InthefiwyearsIwaswithMt.
Wright, I think moist of the tirrvj he wald go on a trip, a speaking
trip or samzhhq so he wmld go off for fmr or five days so that
v h a he got dam to the other place, it m d be apen. wianally,
he w@nt to New Yorkwhen the -h axl &her things [in New York]
were on the fire. In the transition thatls when he intervid me in
Novenbr and he said, "The FellckJlship is m the way to Ariz-. Whtm
can you go?: He had left Wiscunsin for New York and than he was going
to shm up ~1 Arizma. Ard I got to Ariz- before he did. I don't
know where else he mt. He may have traveled s a other ~ ~ places. He
did same of his lecturing in those htervals. So, those mlt
holidays, but they wwx major events in the year.

A: It had to do with the weather and it had to do, also, with the
mrk that = be* dme, pxdcularly the drawingrs. If sme drawings
ne&edtobedme, Imsan, whenwewereclosirqupmeplacethere
would be this hiah so that you'd lose the. Naw, it generally was
arouti-ard the wea- had a lot to do with it muse Wiscmsin
wuuld get very cold ard it didn't have an adequate heat* plant. I
think amml Cktcbar 1 and April 15 wwe the two da-, I don't
d l
the exact dates. Atd eveqone didn't pick up on me day.
There was a stream. But the logistics had to bs worked out and that
was the imp* thing.
Q: What was the span of th btwem, yw knm, a normal opemtim in
one and a no& crperatim in the other?
A: Completely mmd?
A: Yes. A acuple of w. Rrt there wwuld alwys be a foreign
apprentice -Id go back to Eurcp or samething so there might be a
month before he &wed up. Rxt it was a ccuple of weeks. There might
be a week before the drafting rpan because that was basically in me
trudc. 'IZla~thatwem2being~rkedrmandthen~'dgodm
thereardthenscrrrebodtywaiLdhavebeendmntherestraigh~out
the draft- rwm 90 that it was in, let's say Arizrma, there was no
dust h it. A big jcb to clean
-
that up. But as smn as Mr. ami Mrs.
Wright-up, ~wasrwataldcleanandreadtytogo, soit
was a cmple of web.
Q: Wiously, there wasn't large caravan, bu2= were there
caram?
A: Well, historically, there wtxe. [Wintering in] Arizona started
before Taliesin West was built. Wright had a camassion for a Dr.
Chandler, a dentist. in -er, Arizcma. And than he had anuther
desert cmudssirm, so he took his Fellawship dcrwn there in W early
Uies, lxztTaliesin~~dybuiltin1937~1thinkinthe
-
earlythirtiesmthqwentto [anrotelin] merardthenhe
also built another cmnp which cnly lasted one year, Ocatillo. It was
a very distinguished pi- of architectum, [ht] nothing exists. It
was a zigzag 1- wall that went at different angles, qpmmtly
to kep art desert animals. We didn't see mary, ht mybe where that
was, wEcevEr@. Ard then inside- tent-like onwmdm
bases. That was Ocatillo. Wl, when Ocatillo was in existence and
whentheystayedinamotelin~er, Ibelievethqtmveled
in a caravan with Mr. Rimt arrl there are pictures of that.
ArdIthjnkwhenTaliesin~wasstarted, theymighthmecxmt~
that, butshortlytherea~I~thatitwasm3rel~wfienI
was them in the fifties bhm it [the caravan] was stnq out because
the g3?cup got largest and the buildings were larger. Therr! was more
to do and you just couldn't secure all the buildings ard pack all the
Eoodand~eqUi~orwhatyau~tOmweandthedraw~
adsoon. Andtheslasmmthatymcrcruldsetitupwhenyaugot~
there-. Ard~shouldallof~carstravel

tqe- ard trucks? They'd go different speds and people had
different things to do. Sarae warrted to go hare atxi visit family.
A: No. Actually, I had a mr when I joined the Fellmship. I didn't
bring it [then]. I traveled in samhdy else's car and there were
&cut four of us the fimt -1s of tirnss and then when I went ba&
to Ccwhecticut that seo0r-d wirrter and mrkd an the hase, my car was
in Lam Island, a 1954 &nnbler, ard I used that in ooPlnecticut ~IXI
then I-drwe it out to Taliesh. Then when I mde the trek back eubd
forth, I wmld take a couple of the apprerrtices w ith rn ard m wwld
share the cost. SO, it was just by cars. 'Ihsgmupwmldrent a car
and it was Mvidual cars because what ym'd do was get a few people
tagetherwhowantedtogoan3seethe~thingsorstopatthesame
city or go straight dam withaut stapping or so m. So, it wasn't a
strhg of cars.
Q: Were ycru given sperdhg mrmey at all?
A: No. When Fellwship started in 1932, I don't -the
-ct amounts but there WE a Imlletin that Wright made.
Thiswaswhatwe~regoirgtodo. Hehadnoworkatthetime. Hehad
no work fram the late twmties. I tkink he did me hause for a cousin
in 0klahmt-m arrd maybe txam e j q . So, he needed a source of
b. He was writ- then ard occasionally spakit. In 1930 he
gave a series of 1- at Pr-. It was for mmq, obviously.
So, in 1932, the Fellamhip was both a means for him to formalize or
kind of open up an office. He had people wr1rkix-q with him [at the
th], but it was very difficult because he wuldnlt pay them. So, he
started this thing [the Fellowship] with these yaq ap&ices in
1932, and they had to pay. I believe the original not~on was six
hundred dollars for roc~n and board. He sbrbd with, I don't lacrw,
--five or thirty. I the original list shckJs what
collages mey came fm. wes [W] was rme of than fraa m.
There were a qle fran Vassar z d so a. But in m y -, they paid
and that arrvcruntwmt up in the. When I joined him, it was fifteen
hundred dollars. I did pay fiftem hundred dollars. I paid swan
hundred and fifty dollars the fim& six nrcarths arrd than I garve
check for seven hundred and fifty dollars, to Gens, the emetary.
Andthenattheendof theyearIsaidIhadmmmnm~~. I-, I
hadmmeywhicbwas what I was for inciderbls. I didn't
havethecarthen, butforcluWrqor~else, So, wehadto
be self-suppo*ing. scxre w o e s cmae--.there WEe scnre fmm
&thy families and they didn It quit paying. Thq kept payirq.
Obvi~~~ly, thq were very wealthy. There wre scam peclple a came .
Esla of !hpe Two, Side O m

A: No, it was in the arrd was no way of knmbq
what all the 7 ms no orgardzation, it was just
Mr. Wright a d whatever he decided was okay, yclu hm. I remnbx you
ad&q, "Did I get an allmance?ll No, I had mmy, a savm acocrunt.
I~foralcnrgthIlceptarec~~ofwhatIsperrtandI
averaged it &--this was in Arizona for abut six mnths-and I spent
-thing like fmand-a-half dollars a week. Ncrw, ycru could get
away with no mnq by never going to tcrwn, mt having a car, ard never
buying any clothes. A littlehard, they'd-&. W z t p could.
We were a carrnraznity, so a person wasn't left stam-. Wasn't
wanth. without clothes to mar. I remermber for this miod of time
Q: All right. So, there was a t twice a year interrzrption in the
routine. m t about holidays?
A: Okay. There was a big Easter. Mrs. Wright is of Greek Orthadox
faith and we had an Easter Suuday heakfast. There were no religicrus
me^. Welradm-flardaybreakfast. I ~ w v ~
elaborate. It took a ccrclple of days to prepare. We made her recipe
for Baba. It's a cake without yeast. Yau beat it to death1 Iats of
eggs and by the physical labor, it will rise. It was miraculaus.
2bpay, it's made m paper foms, yau it's m s h or
Yugoslavian-I don't krm~ which, And blini, which were carmnonly
called-well, it Is a trues a arrl a blintz, you can get
it in the mian Tea IPaan in New York, Little pancakeec ard yau get
dishes of thirvgs to pt rn it. We had caviar arrd jaras and jellies and
choppd eggs arrd so on and yau get all of these little blini and you
roll themup. This breakfast was a big meal, ycxl see. It was held
out of doors in Arizcm aa the terrace, a mncrete terrae. It was
very dscx>rative crutsi.de the djnjxrg man arrd m. arrd Mrs. Wright's
qumbrs. Andthatwasusuallylateinthemno~ardthere~dbe
a large nmhr of guests, clients an3 peaple frm~ Flmmk, mybe frcan
California and there wmld b an Easter qg hunt for the marry
children. I renmrhr Anne Baxter came with her little daughter
[Katherine, nartled a m her gmrdmbw, Wright's first wife] . She
nust be thkQ y- old m. She was abolrt five then, and were
alotof littlechildrmandsoitwasveryfestiveand~was
all dmssd up. At Chrklxas, there was nut a digicrw thing.
People ccruld 1- ard go to m. Arryth people cmld. There
wxe a few pople who mt an M y
to mi-. But there was
a, ncrt a cemrmy, a tradition, both at mistmas and at Mr. Wrightls
bkthday wfiich is in June of givirq lfr. Wright a bax of draw*. It
was called the misbnas Bax or the ~irtMay Bcm. Orve -ice
vmld make a rather elaborate bx cut of & or nretal, cqper and so
. In Mr. Wright's idiam, ht very elaborate, big ancRagh to hold
draw- of a certain sh&rd size, oh, I wwld say abmt sixteen by
hmty. And then all of the qqren-ti~~~i wmld design buildbqs or
~,]xltmostlybuildingsand~theminthebax~thenm
Chri* day and on his birthday, he and ms. Wright and the
relatives visitirq ard w on U d be in the living rcm and weld
in all dressed up and held crpen up .the bm. Fbt, held cammt upon

the-, whomadetheboxandsofortharrdthenhe'dgo~the
draw* axxi critique them, loak at than d camrent. And these boores
were ulthtely stored in different places, so thq were decorative.
I don't knml b that traditim s-. when I was -1 gOt
then in Navabx and right away the peclple WEE tell- me, 'Well,
get:readyfortheChri&r~~Bax, Yau~~eguttoraakeadraw.hg.~~ I
renmbr what I did the first the. I drew an elaborate tent because
each of us basically worked on cxlr tents ad built thm up to be rwt
quite cabins. So, I designed a fancy tent.
Q: It saunds like it was less a crift to Mr. Wriciht than a tire
A: Well, yes. I guess that was it. He didn't need any gifts fmn
us. I mean, cxlr draw- particularly, he didn't need. I don't knau
hm it started. I'm sum it ms a decade old or mre when I gut
there. It was just a traditian and I can't say what W original
rxlrpose is. Yau're -1y right. It was just a nim mian. It
cmly h a m
twioe a year, so it wasn't a big wesrt. It ms six
mnths aprk, mrre or less, It marked ~~ and his b-y, so
we didn't have to think of giving Mr. Wright anything for his
birthday. We nwer thaqht of buy- a w. (laughs)
A: Those words weren't used. People wuld take leave occasionally
for varims perwrnal masms or fdly reasons or if they wanted to do
~~. For ex~mrple, this -im on this [-icut ]
house, I initiated that. I wmsn8t sent there. I was not the
mising apprerrtice. Another apprentice was sup em is^. He was
me I had not net before. He had been art supervis- ather houses
[inQhioandWkcmsin] &he justwtmttothishausetosupervise.
He was not dbsctly sent fram Taliesin lxrt fram job site in
ohia. I just said, ''I'd like to work on this hmse.l1 I dm% knm
hcrwImadethe~, ~Igotafewdollarsanhwrandthen
later an the client gave me more. I just fnFBnt to mrk m it. Nm,
that wasn't the leave Where ym left entirely because I ms still
mkhg on a Wright design. I had to rent a log cabin in Camecticut
and I was all by myself. WEt people wuld leave to do uther thhqs
-i&ly and ma* there was scams illness in the family. s a ~
people gat drafted. Same beam mientims abjectors, smz wmt to
jail. I knm people who are back fmn that kird of an exprience,
me of thcee three. So, there was a leave for a military obligation.
And them were a [veq] few apprentices who had been at Taliesin eight
or ten years before am3 then just shckJled up again. Wrt there was no
need for vacations. Mr. Wright ms always telling us we were always
mvacntim. Eut the pint weus, going- the tvm places, that
was a hiatus d pecple wuuld do whabmer they wanted. Same pwple,
asIsay, tookalqth [goirqfmn~siteto~ather].
Q: Didn't ycru ever feel a need for relief fram that rather intense
cmmmd life?

A: Well, if ym need it for a day, it was easy to do. Ycru could just
get up an3 leave or you muld go to a corner on the place. That's
what Rmdx was for saae of us. No, there was no great reed for it.
If there was SUA a great need, me didn't want: to belcrmg w.
Q: You mentioned the conscientiaus nbjectors, was that pretty wide-
W?
A: Wl, I wasn't there in World War 11, but Mr. Wright was apposed
tothemrormsambivalmtaboutit, shallwesay. Ardsare
apprentices cdxrimsly served. Sarae follued his lead and tried to
bca~ conscientims objectors. Sclme did arrd wrrre cmldn't and these
went to jail. They didn't serve very I-, I1m sure. I don't knm
really, but I hew SXE of them whm I was there in 1954 who had gone
throughthisperiodandtherewereafew.
Q: Hcrw was the routh affected by the fact that Mr. Wright MS
either in residanoe or nut in residenoe at the time?
A: Well, rn missd the SLtnday mdrq breakfast talk. He tried not
to bs away on because he enjayed Saturday night mil Smhy
night. It was rare. But he w a away, ~ ~ we'd have a [formal]
m y mordq bmakl%mt, He wouldn't be there to talk. We'd have
the Saturday night an;l SIlnday night occasion. By the my! p also had
musicians amq~t the amicesf lxrt weld have also visltmg
msicians whald play, Gary Gmffman, tZlle pianist, ard Yehudi Menuhin,
and others. wit tha ~respolusibilities mkirrusd and visitors wmld
came. I recall taking visitors arrxlnd on a Sakud2y and flxnday and
raotthhkhqaboutvhetherMr. Wrightwasthereormtaxle
sayhg, WI, p )aww, can vie meet Mr. Wright or will m see Mk.
Wright?11 H I mmbr saying, ycru laow, ''If ycxl see him, if we pass
him, ycxl can talk to him, hrt we can't go into his -.I1 And then
realizing after I said that to people on that me occasim, he
wasn't am^ there. And I hadn't thaqht of it, So, life wmt m.
There were decisims in the draft- rocen, initial desi-, that
didnlt go rn without him. Rrt it was an aplgoirq organism. Also, ycru
have to recall, occasianally, whan he was out spaking and talkfrYg
with clients
-
arrd seem sites, mssages wwld axre bacJc that affected
W1121t we wuuld do in the dmfthq room. lk finally discovered
sm&hhg or he went to a pr&la~ an his builairrg [under mtruction]
or with a client and he tmuld alter thie design or detail.
builckkrqs under ax&mctim. We were still do- drawings.
Thatistosay,ycxldofurthardetailsasthe~imgoesm.
Oryaureviewshopdrawirrgs, whicharedrawkpdmeby
mkmtmctors. So, when a big issue came up aml he was ntar3g or he
was there or he met the client d ths contractor arrd got his am
~301utiar1, he telqhmed back and it W d dmqe the vmrks. So, whm
he was not thare, it didn't rrrean that he wts not mmecbd, yuu see,
he still had an hpct an what was going m.
Q: miougly, arry apprmtice systerm is rooted in the nation of
reciprocal respansibilities that the -ices have tmmd the
aprt and the tmmi the aggrentices. m. Wright was a very
busyman. Hehadmny~todo. Hcrwdidhedenmstmtetoyou

persondLly in ymr relaticmhip with Taliesin his cammitment to Wt
recim relationship?
A: Well, the relatianship was very close. In the first place, we
m isolated. Thatls am w. were no distractims in bth
places. I nwan, the Fellwship was built araund F'rank Uoyd Wright
and there were forty or fifty pople, nren, vmfen, ad children,
producing his drmbgs, 1ivi.q as a d t y . It is so close that
itls very hard to ape-therew was no met. There was mkhhg
writtan, I do this and then he wwld do that. Lat's just go right to
the draft- rocan. Aside fran us, he had no staff. We were the
staff. I'm talking abatt: a large architectual practice. He had a
few ky people vho were senior apprentices, particularly, Jack Hawe
and Wes Peters. There were several athers, but t%leEie two- the
major mes when I was there, Jadc, for the ard.litectUre, and, WeE3, for
engineering. Naw, this is mt just as clean-cut as that, IYrrt they
ware the principal aides. If vie assigned to the draftinq rwm, there
were two phases of amhitectural dmdng. You do eirmnary
draw-, or pmsmtatian draw*. With Mr. Wright, they were in
colored pencil, plans, ~ i v e s and , elemtiam, an white sheets
of paper. When the client a- this design, which wae his
cwlception of the house for a particular site. Bm -Id [a
preliminary -wings] ccm ba& d rn had to M o p the mrking
drawiqs, vhich turned into blueprints, which took mnths and several
people would be working an thwe. For the prelbdmq drawings ad
the w0rkh-g drawirrgs, in stages, Mr. Wright wwld supewise and
these senior amrenti-, not d y Jack and Wes, )xrt others who were
senior to Ire wlruld supervise. And Mr. Wright usually csrme in the
drafthgrocgnattenolclockinthe~. Hernighthavebeen
writing in office m anmdq the mail. Cca&e in the drafting
rocan, go to the
-
fmmt where he had a big table ad Jack's was nearby
ard if he had sa&hirq to draw, held draw it. This was weryday. Aml
then if were homes that he had to loak at, he wmld dawn
[toaurtab1815]. He3aewwhEcethey~,whowas~kiqm~ch
board. Held wer and ymld get up and held sit dam z d ymld
laok~thedrzlwingsarrdhem~y~~, talktoyou,
work m them. And so, in this way, it's very hard to say when he was
do* far us [as apprentices] or just doing his um mrk,
We just eicipted in #e w a n of the preliminary designs ard
thewrkingdraw~andycruactn'tgetarry)3Btter~timthan
that. You- hammed in it. Rrthezmre, if yauwxe not assigned
tothedmftixlgrrxlmorifylxlmre, ycrucauldalwaysgetupathor
aqatherthardloakatthe~drawingEiandseewhatwasgo~
on When I was urt m cmstmction, as did nwy other apprentices,
t~le'ddways--thedraftingroc~nwhenit-ftmand
look at w. It was all apen, Mr. Wrightls draw or
else1s draq ad see the developmk withmt dbtubing We
had this ability to participate vicariclllsly in all of the ather
projects, butmostof thelearnirrgwasdommthemesymworkedon.
And then ycw have to mize that when ycu did worm draw*, ycru
were do- them with two or thme or far other pacple. And they all
hwe dif f e skills axl different expriences, so ycru were learning
fmn therm and sare of therm had a lcorg exprim with Mr. Wright and
~theyc~wre~inghimaswellas~~tryingtointerpret:,
the~popletrUingtointwprethim. And~think~toldp

the first hause I worm on I did the millwmk anl the elevations.
Well, before I did that, I studied varia~ls sets of Wri@t ' s drawbqs,
all filed. So, I knew hm different they were than ths way I was used
to before the FellckJahip. I lmked and I said, ''This goes this way m
thishouseandwe~regoirqtousethiskirdinthishouse. It'svery
similar to this. 'Lhis is the Mrd of feeling. Let's use this
detail.I1 And then were always h o r -ices hb wmld give
a little twist to it, who m very aml auld do it in half of
the time that I d d
and, you Inwrw, say, vtThat's f h . I 1 Also,
there's the questim of leamhqhcrwtodraw &draw well. There's a
~t skill h e tecturd drafting. When ym develop it, you can
pick up sombodyls draw- ard even without 1- at it carefully,
ycrucanseethatbythewaytheparsondrerw, whatkirdofan
architect, what kirrd of a designer he is. There is a very close
cmnecticm [- ar&itecturd drawing aml ar&itectual thinking].
zmd that's samething to learn.
Q: Hcrw did you resolve those h&ances in which you d another
junior apprerztice or you ancl a h o r appmkice disagreed as to what
A: Well, I think with Jack, there was no questicm. He had been there
Ercan 1932. Or Wes, Ixrt: Jack parkicularly on architechre. It was
sort of like the white House. The p- rep*, "The white House
says so and so.'' Well, if sa&dy on the staff out said
ninety-nine times art of a h-, it s what the president
either told him or a m y ,
he hxws the president: so dl, that
that~swhatthe~idesrtwmldsay. So, they say, ~~'Ihe~teHmses
says.'' Well, the White Hmse is a buildirq. It nwer says aqthhg.
(laughs) Well, that's the way it was. Jack wmld flrequerrtly say, if
you raid it with him, What abcut IA~S?~~ He U d say, l1It's
samething I'll tala3 up with Mr. Wright." rn other words, he kmw
where he stood as to what he a d say. He ccsuldn't almp answer.
Eht in- cases in deal* withhim, he a d help, yuu see. If
Jadk didn't want to make ths dscisian, if it looked tao B~~LOIJS, well,
held say, We1l1 we shm this to Mr. Wriqht.l1 ~rrd then the next time
Mr. Wright came arwr& he'd settle it.
A: Not all the time. Jackwas also work- on draw*. He was not
just a straw boss. He was do* a lut of wark. He wars a very fast
dmftsman. He's dlent and very fast. His prodhaction was
hcrdible. Particularly, his preliminary dmwirqs, he'd do a lot.
So, hehad~thathe&dhavemhisboard. Thecewxeather
d o r w o e s . So, Jack Wdnlt carre aver for thee. Yau see,
there W d be people. Thae wasn't a mamn to follw Mr.
Wright lt. It was very informal ard Kc. Wright might cam arrrund
andt~mkwl~&~itwi~;urybadtvthere, because
they're Mr. Wright's draw-, not aryb3y el-.
Q: Let's turn to that, mt I guess ycrumight call the order
mmg the fell-. You say m swen senior fellcw, they've
got a rigidly datermined rarmber?

A: No. Idi.dnvt~lWhOthey~wllsnIf~gukthere. N w
came araurd atd told yau this is what it is, byt they're seniors. It
didn't mean -, I mean, arrythirrg special. They were there a
1 9 time arrd they had respmsibilities ard they -It all equal or
they weren't all the s2tm; kind of peaple.
A: Thgymtherealwtbandthsy-CQPlPnittadtoTaLiesh.
It didn't look like thsy m leavm. Nw, one left I was
there. That's artis Beahger ard he was there abaut ten yeam or
mre, Ivmnat sure. So, me senior apprentice left whan I was there.
He had ccaae to Taliesin fran the University of Kansas -1 of
Architectme. I think he was an.- faculty or had just been a
graduate. He was there ten or raom years z d in rq semrd year, I
think, he wmt back to Kansas as a faculty mmhr and hels still
there. Inthe five years UEI, I m saw amher senior leave. And
as a matter of fact, there was a prwious senior who canu3 back a m
Mr. Wright died, John Hill. The reascffl he left was that he hame the
edibr or the hilaing editor of Hause mutiful. He
had a skill in writing. He did a lut of interior work at Taliesin. I
mean, he did furniture ad mior details and draw-. He ms very
good. He was with House Beautiful for a raanber of years ami then
afterm. Wright died, he retuned. NQW, I kmwhimbecause of
visits. He came occasionally and, of cxnuse, when sambxly had
been an apprentice for a lcag time cam bade, yau knaw hels an "old
boy.I1 You hmw, he werything and weqbdy. Nm, he didn't
laawwho I was or any of the newer apprenti-. And, also, House
EIeautiful was doing a bunch of articles m Mr. Wright. Thq" very
close when I was w. Elizabeth Gordm was the editor and they did
~issuesmhim*
Q: Well, aside frm their presuraably indefinite dtmerrt: to
Taliesin, what else dist u@shed--and
' the lm$h of their
-t else distbquhhed
-
these senior fell-? Access to
Wright?
A: Yes, ht only in tha nature of #eir resprmsibilities. No more
mial or arrything else. We all w c e s . We mre all a part
of the cammi*. wit rn their responsibilities, you lmav, and their
rqmsibilities were llOt f M. Fbr exrmp31e, senior Ken Lack&& was
very good at plumbing just as a sideline. So, wtxe rmyh sane
other younger people who hew abut plw&irYg, but the
mqxmsibility for plmbing, nm this ~s not a big thhq, lxrt there's
a lot of p1ud.q at bath places, was his. Nw, this is not his major
thhg, hrt I1rn just say* that each per- had a carbination of
skills ard Ilrrterests.
Q: What about living a-tions?
A: Well, most of thm [the seniors] were married ard therefore, they
basicdlly in Arizona didn't live in tents, they lived in this
ccarrpcKlrd, which is the original apprmtim -. It wasn't
very ~UXUX:~CXZS. It was just maw. Zhey had mmnmd lavatories in
bathrocsns and so m. I gusss, they had a closet so they muld keep

clothes in their rpam. Ard in WiEKmnsin, no seniors lived those
sixteen bedmxm on the tw~ sides of the draft- rocxn. While they
nice, no seniors liW thEe. Aid they generally lived in the
saxe place, I mean, they dweloped their acccoranoda.tians wer the
years. If -'s thare miry ---in W k m s i n , for ample,
these who lived in Taliesin had more than ox roam. I man, Taliesin,
being
-
a kind of a, I don't knm what yau wmld call it, a Villa,
Hotel, farm, what-& with all of these buildingrs rambling aram aid
all of things being -. Same of them had nice little
suites that they built wlemselves, the irlkciors, yau )acrw. A couple
of arrd a balw and maybe-- rrtuper luxuriws or super
large, hrt very bautiful . . .
Q: So, they had that privilege of accmdatm . . .
A: Wzt they ate with us d wrked just as hard as m did and were
just as to Mr. Wright,
Q: Did the locaticn of scmuxae's drawirq table in the drafting rown
indicate their status?
A: Well, Mr. Wright's was up front d then the rest m in ranks.
It was smly a matter of mrwaieme if Jackt s wis near Mr. Wright's.
And~usuallytherewasan~vistor~~tookcareof
t.hedraw~andtheystayednearbacausetheyhadtogogetthean
fast. So that was all, there was no other Wcation [of status] . If
you walked h you'd not knm who was *. You had to sprd a 1 9
time thare figurhq at. If you justwaLked into figure art who was
the &or and who was respmsible d so an, it was very info&.
It worked beamsa we had to these people. If they didntt have
our it Udntt have worked because Mr. Wright wasn't there
all of the th. This ms the last five years of his life. He didn't
have to worry about all of W details. As a matter of fact, he has
hm criticized by Twably of not mrryirq abart IWA, lmt letting
thingEl go and not hav- good eyesight and so m. I don't quite agree
with that, lxrt he had practid architectum for shty-five years and
he didntt have to deal with all of the grubby details and there were
lots of people who cmld do it, ym lacrw, & so he ocruld supwise it
lightly althmgh pay attenth to what he wanted to pay- athrtim
to. It had to work internally as a mechaniarn. SametimsEl, it didntt,
ycru -9
Q: A1- Jack Hme and Wes Fe&rs were called fellws and thought
of as fell- . . .
A: Apprentices.
A: Itts a Fellerwahip. It's a Taliesin Fellmship, lxlt nokdy's a
Fdlekj. them. -were all -iaes.
Q: Clearly they were more than appmntices, they had a pnmnent
ootmnitmnt. Wereartt they paid salaries?

A: Wes carte frcan an affluent fdly ard the way he spent money, it
was clearly nut f m Mr. Wrightls pocket. Jack did nut. He came out
of high -1 and johd the Taliesh. He canvt frrnn Evanston High
School. I assume he ms paid -. I dmlt think it was much.
At one time, Mr. might haqht cars for senior apprerrtices. They
bught a ~ 1- Minx, painted red and black. Arrl they were there
vhen I got there in 1954 and they were pretty well worn, but sme
seniors have them. So he gave thean cars. I1m quite sure Jack and
the Etecretary. He did seaetarial work, tdephme. papers, bills,
letters, and all that kind of [tkixrg] , tyPm and mt not. Wtt he
was an accmpliahed hterior designer and he did a lot of mrals for
Mr. Wright for 1- Mldings like the Price in Arizma and for
laxgehames. He~vexrypesrsanableaswell. Hemilddealwith
clients m the telephone, and in m.
Q: Can ym give me a profile of the -ices, that is to say, the
charamistics in general -?
A: No, thatls very difficult. I1d say there were tw kinds,
Amricam and ncm-Amaericans. I mean, I'm trying to break it dam.
The non-Arrrericans were different because they am^ fmm a long
diEttarzceardmstof~~~~teamhi~,maybe~o
t w o y e a r s a u t o f ~ ~ WhenIwasth@m,wehadtwo
~ l .
fram Ida. Orre f- Japan was the sml of an ~~ mo mrwd
with Mr. Wright on the IsJrperial Hotel. We had thm fmm Italy, South
Arrrerica, a qle of amtries.
-
Ard they also generally, at least
whenfwa~there~cmrreforcmyear. TheyhadaCanrmi-, itwasa
big expense, a big thing in their lives, and then they wmt back. we
hadaSwisscmplethatareforaytar,welltwoywm. 'Iherewas
b h a I was at Wiesin £ran China * had been there a nuher
of-, SOtherewaswnreexOeprtimto [theoneyear]. But,
basically, the foreign archi- were mre hmqmms in their age,
their baclqmund, and their camdtment.
Q: So, their assocation was more like a pstqmkate fellamhip
Y=?
A: Yes.
Q: They m professid architacts already anl . . .
A: Yes. I dmlt knm hrrw Mr. Wright se1ed.d then or, ym kmw,
through recrcarplrerdatims. There w@re enaqh people all wer .the world
wfio knewm. Wright or. . . So, he toak tha on faith. He didn't
usually interview them. Nw, the ones fmn the united States d&
m the great el mybe 80 percent, are mu21 mre wmems. WhenIwasthere, therewas~fellcrwwhohadjust~ted-had
been there six mwrths before I was-he graduated frrarn a high &ool in
Wisconsin, not far frm Taliesin in a mall Wiscrmsin tcrwn. His
fa- was a fanner. Although, I lacrw that he was rather
sophisticated because this fellow just m a t e d fmn a rural hi*
schoolwas~ofthefewwhoread'&leNewYorkerevery~.
(laughter) Again, this apprenkia I mrrticmed last th you to

ICE, Dick Stdeban, had practiced architecture in Nenmda for abcrut:
twaky years, And thm we had these recent architecture graduates
just like the foreigners, EK) it was very -.
A: Therewemafew*-ar&ite&s. Inthelasttenyears,
architecture has became just like law, it's beca~ an acceptable
f d e profession as far as the profession is comemedl but then it
wasn't. So, there were just a ample of them. Arrl there were also
~ w h o ~ w i t h t h e i r ~ w h o w e r e a r c h i t e =theywere
c b ,
both called apprentices. While the wife of the architect apprentice
&d not draw, she'd do amqthhg else.
- Was that true in all rn of married qles?
Yes. You &dn1t be there unless ycxl an apprwkice.
So a lot of the ma- work , , ,
Nut a lot, no. Well, since there ms so n[B1ch--ym man cdchq
&--no, that wis nmmxist. There might have been sum sew- or
-. There was a curtain rrrade a big stage curtain. Well,
mn worked on it, tm. It was a big rush. I -y dm% hcwwhat
the wmm who were not architects did. I didn't follau them arrwnd.
(laugh-) I dm't )saw. There mre a couple of infants ard children,
sothqhaddnildcareaswell, WhenIwasw, therewasaccluple
wha me frcan California, a ywq qle with a s ixm-old child.
Q: I guess marital status did terd to seprate ths apprentices,
didn't it because they U d
live in different: places?
A: Yes. But no more than it in the cutside world, in the rest
of the mld. Yes, distinguishhq characteristics of the people, but
there was r#, & of arry kird, the married people did this or the
single pqle did this. It was just a cQmmrnity with txxe people
married and scxm wfio weren't.
A: Well, in of saying so marry came fmn here and so rimy were
thisageandsonmy~yedsol~, Idnn'tIacrw3xrtIthinkthisnew
list cmne mt this fall collected by Betty Kassler arrl others
will, you haw, ca~ce it's analyzed rweal a t kind of infor"lll~ltim and
that will be veq interestitq. Hcrw 1- Wmy stayed, maybe their age
because the birthdates are here. So, hcrw old, what was the average
age when they cam, I haven't
-
the sliqhw idea, very -.
It dmqed, it lmmd aver. I was five years. I came in 1954
and-fellmcamea&ybefaremeandthenpeople-a~rrreat.ld
same people left, it was a big tunurver. Nca3odty kpt records of
arrything of that nature. Ycru there or yau wemn't there and that
was it. There was no Registrar!

Q: I luxw it's difficult to generalize on such mittem, kut hcw wald
yauccarrparetheappnticesyau~wimycrurgsneralaoquaintances
as to creativity, irrtelligence, -?
A: I can't do that. I wwld say a disthquishing dmracteristic was
that they were all devwted to m. Wright and his architecture. I
mean, that was a s h qua mn of be* there and lasting arrd being
interested in participathg. Okay, there wsre varicxzs degrees of this
aml variaus attitudes, bt that's the distbquim characteristic.
Other than that, there were all kimls of people and all kirds of
pamomlities and you had to be able to live in this kird of an
e r n r m , whidr wasn't easy for wnu; an3 IAxy didn't stay. It was
very glamorous by the way, yau knm. I don't knm, not the right
. There was a certain amxlnt of egwM1dir-q. You're working
with the world's -test amhi-. You're doing important thirrgs
for his etectxlre. It's going to shm up in Mldhqs. It's go*
to be forwer. Ard then not mly that, here he is. He treats
you like, you hm, ycru1re inrportant to him d then all of these
famcruspeclpleccane~andthesecliBlrts~arein~ofhim,
somtinuts the famcrus people, too, dan't knclw what to say to him. And
you have to tell than what to do. It's kind of a like a little bit of
that thing washes off. It's quite an epri8~b08.
Q: Were there wcial factions arru3llg the apprenti-?
A: Yes. Well, pop10 viem cloee to other pecple, hung araurd with
other pople. You &dnlt be equally associated with forty other
people, so there was scam canman interests, it U d change quite
rapidly based upn what was go- m. I nean, it wuldn't be cliquish
in that we'd nsdm that way. For -18, this fellaw I worm with
in do- that lavatory in the hsemnt of the theater, well he and I
got to be very god frierds. (law) m, I if we wre just
fri- do* #s jab, that wuuld be the esd of it. Ihe most
important thurg ws that rn were all there because of Mr. Wright.
Thatwa~iaurccaaanonhterest. Thatwerrodealutofdiff~
anmq Wviduals. Ycru rarely m aware of thoee &if femnces, I
man, pecple am fmn different parts of the cx#urtry. Had different
badqmunb arflvalues. We- tight and close because wewere all
Wright s slxf f-%pprmtices. It was his mmeck word,
Q: The reason I'm exploring this is, as you knuw, a lot of the
diagnoses of ammmal experiments, utqian or otbmise, have argued
that amtudly fell because of bickering and factionalism and
rivalrieswithinthegrmp. I'mtryirqto-the extentto
wMchthsrewassu&dhsensicolmmgthea~ces~whyit
a-y didn't damage Tbliesin W way it did other
=P=*?
A: Again, I'd have ta say that it [didnlt happen] was because so mch
of aur hterest hbeing IAxxews -toMr. Wright. As 1-
ashewasdoingwhathewantea.todo~~~involvadinit, the
cliff- amrmg people had to go by the wayside. Nm, whm it
dim1 t-I can't think of any hident [at the mcpnarrt] -it W d mean
that that persm or persrms CCUldn't fit in. So, we voluntarily
slrppressed arry possibility of dissension that U d be significant.

- Fkm the atside, peaple always said, I1Yau are being dcaninated by Mr.
Wright. tt Well, we voluntarily be* dcaainated. Every day you
could raake the decisirm, yc~z ccniLd leave the next day, yau Iaaw, or
tihe next week or say, "rnt's ermgh.'' Eut we vFere vol-ily doing
it, so it wasn't -in. We wexe devoting cxlr lives to his mrk
and that's vhy this kind of differeme doesn't occur. Itve thmght
about that in caaparirg it to the history of utopian camunities and
intatid ccplprmnities. lhey were basically religious arrd tha while
there may be a pr@& who's 1- it, he is q d h g for wane a
who's else. That didn't occur here. The thixq that held
thisthingtqetherwasamanwhowasthere. Hewasnttsam&em
else, you see, so you cculd nwer question t h e w . Mr. Wright
was d y human. When you cpstirm a p-, stmeme could say,
'Well, the deity he's spea)ung for, I've gat a frwn the deity,
too. In this case yc~u caxldn't get thcee -sages. I'm stretchizag
theanalogy, butthepoirrtis.U.rattbattswhy~Ilonkatthose
other dties, I see why they failed. NQW, Mr. Wright was very
hmm and he had failimgs, but we all llndarstood that. That's me
a lot of people don't -. He objected qui* frquently
to people call- him a genius, yau )acrw. I rwmbr SeMtor
[William] m. I was the ttfamily sewer,'' vhich is the waiter for
WE family 0x1 Salxday night, Surday mrr~jng, Sunday night, and during
the week, an mianal lundi. ?hat's just a part-time maintenance
job. That week I was family server, and as it weus a Saturday night,
weatehthethebr. There~ahelvesintheseatsinfrmtof
yau. The plates carre. There wre eight people in a line an3 yau pass
the plates dawn, but the family sat in the back at little tables,
about three or fur people. Ard there abaut ten peclple there,
incluaing Senator Barrtrm. Mr. Wright had recenUy pirclposed a new
capitol bezilding for Arizaa. Nabody had asked him. He didn't l h
the om that was bairrg designed, so he proposed it. He made big
draw-. It was a mantelous thing. Tbmbly has a description of it.
But in any case Mr. Wright was saying I was going in and
cutwiththedishes. Iwasnltstandirrg~~tothewtmle
canverstion, so all I heard was sm*. -y, Mr. Wright was
arguing that &her -tech shmld g& up and say that this Lxlildhg
is a tarrible disgrace for the capitol, as citizens of Arizona. And
Senator Berrtcm, I heard him say, %ut, FYank, ycrutre a genius. You
can get away with it.'' Mr. might got with &mton. I don't
lmm what he said to him. I was carryjns the plates away at the tim,
hrt the -morning at Sumlay breakfast in his talkhe referred to
this incident withaut describirq it.
Erd of Side Two, Tape Two
A: Well, the next m, it was Sunlay rrromirrg, and cm suMays, m.
and Mrs. Wright wmld have breakfast with us. We waited until theyld
c m a ~ little later .than usual and weld be all dressed up in our best
clothes. Ard then after breakfast, he'd talk informally to us. It
wasn't a aemm. It wasn't a lecture. It was just a casual talk and

Well, in the & he started aut that he was up nrost of the night
1- for this definition of genius, Mch he had thwght of but
couldnlt mmrbr Bxacrtly. It stitrmlated 13y Senator Bentmls
m k
of the night before when he called Mr. Wright a genius and,
therely, said he cwld get away with saying certain thhqs. Arxl this
Welsh author, vhm~ he didn't m, said that genius was having the eye
toseeNature, themindtO-NatUre, ardtheheartorcoumge
to follow Nhature, Mr. Wright was very pleased with f w this and
then he exprdd m it. I don't -1 the details, lxrt it was a kind
of way of takirrg the stigrrra E m them genius. It gave genius sane
c o w and broke it dam into three elements. If yew had all three,
you were a genius, I'm sure if he had l2mqht of it the night before,
hevmuldhavetoldSeMtor~~likethat. Wztthepojnt
was that m, like otherrt, often Wright or called him
samthiq whit31 sort of explained to them his ability to do certain
things or his hhavior to get away with certain and so m.
While as a prsm, Wright mver felt that. He felt that-sure, he was
a genius in Berrtcm's sense, krt that's too suprficial and there was
~behirrditarrdherehef~whatIthinkisapn?ettygood
definitim of genius which fits Wright as it mst fit other great
artists.
Q: Were you wer in Wrightls he receivd this kind of
fadrg praise?
A: Well, when Ehnbn said it, he was smiling. I remmkr that. It
was kid of like in quotes, yau knuw, Wh, Erank, you muld get away
with that because you're a genius." Arrl he dl&. But I was present
when visitors--farmus ard not famms visitors--knxlld praise Mr. Wright
excessively and I mean excessively. He sinply werlooksd it. Mtm
all, he had a lot of that met of his life or a part of his life.
He just simply went on with what he ws a3xnrt. Usually, there
wwld be a mnall w, maybe a clierrt or a ptenthl client: with the
cQmaim or fdly or vhtenrsr it was, far or five mle arvl he ms
givirrg themr a tar of his draft- roan and those of us W m
w&dq d d hear it ard mwt of the pople would be silent, I;nrt
sawthzsthemz~dbewmebodyU-mre~muldgush. mybathe
ptxt=on~&~brcn.qht ths qrarp to Wright saw a drawhq ard felt
obligatad to say samethlrrg and Mr. Wright would give these little
abcut the history of this lxlUa and that Mlding, all of
which ws had heard. 'fhis person's msponse might be to heap excessive
praise m him. Of course, he [Wright] was paishq himself while he
was desmibing all of these projects. But this perscx~ wmld just keep
praising hirn -ily. Well, Mr. Wright U d just sixply nut
hear that. He'ddkegard that &that person nwer )olew it, of
cmrse.
Q: What qualities in a visitor wmld stinaulate Wight's attmtiun?

A: Well, if they genuine intarest and it isn't very difficult
totall. ~Iandtheotherapprmticeswl.llo~visitors~,
famxls ard mnfmms pecrple, a d easily tell the levd of 3axrwl@dge,
could tell. The tour muld get 1- if the pecple were really
interestd and redly -iative and and mnbd to
)aclw mre. If they were just g a w and just wanted to be close to a
great man and all that, the tuxwuuld be short. But: m& of the
pople wuuldn't knm~ this unless ymld seen it rrrarry times. He spent
th with mle who were intelligent and and &wed it,
even if they were strangers.
Q: Did you wer obmm any arsuxrwntfi Wright and visitors?
A: No, he was very diplmatic. I wmild say it was sort of a
self-selection process. There were, no dcrubt, marry ar&itects arrl
critics and people who were kmwledqeable abaut amhitechxe, who did
mt like Wright or his work. They wmldnlt -, &viasly, so
there's a self seldon. I saw a few who did ccaae who wxe sawwhat
aksptiml.. For exanple, the wican Institute of Architects had a
mnfermceinRmenhardthenthqhadaone4aytmrsotheyb~t
upgrarps of ~and~icestookthemarrwrdandthein fhdly
theyam. Wrist. Well, in the gmup I took aramd, I -zed
-of the-. Ikmwwmeof theirwrk. Theymmkitq
critical caglnnants as we went armmi. Arrd then finally wl.lan they met
Mr. Wright-I think there tm gmups of abut twenty. -was
one fellclw frm California who kuilt a lot of steel and glass
buildings and he was makirvg mmmts ah&-this was Taliwin
West--abut hcrw poor the mnstmctian was. It wasnlt well designed to
last in the heat and so forth and so m. Ard then finally, vhen all
forty of them lnet with Mr. Wright--and it just so h a m that this
wasn't planned, but it was &te a dmmitic nmetm because there was
aseriesof Sf"RPSarxithey~canirqupthe&e~~anlMr. Wrightwas
camFngfmuthatcrpandthenmqstoodmtllestep* Itwaslike
Moses meet- the flock or mrd3irq liks that. (laughs) ~rryway,
that was just the vbim of it. m y f these ar&itects just stod
there. had never seen Frank Uuyd Wright. He gave than a big
welam HehadthisnmnirycmkmmsywiththeAIA. Heidnever
joined Wmn and he finally got a ndal frara axl all of this kind
ofbiness. Inanyase, heganrethemawcygoodtalkatdhelooked
thanall intheeyeamltkteystoodtherestoc;kstillardtheywereall
maturemen.
-
Itmsan~irgtalkof W~klndIhadheard
before. to be an cpmhq for questions mar the end aml
so an. Narve of the qunstias a w e fmn arry of ~ l e the ,
dE&ics. Ithhk-didditwashlmJa3. Idm'tknmwhathe
asked. They fairly polite ard there ms no point in raising the
questims they raised ma me. Ard they wma a minority, obviously,
Irut: still they were sube;tarrtial ardvltects * were just not Wright
fans. On the other hand, yau have to realize that they could always
go hoane ard make capital on havirq mt Wright and, heard him, but then
axld m k abart, lh the a~ fellm, about the poor -ion.
In ather words, prwirq thsir am thesis, which wa~t perfectly
possible.

Q: What kind of celebrities m? You nrerrtioned wrru; Hollm
people,
A: Yes. We had mre in Arizona than in Wisconsin because wrrne
wintered in Hxxdx and then, of ccrurse, it ms near Cdlifod.
Although wgnealsomm in the sumruerasvisitors if theywere friends
f m Wisccnsin. The pecq?le I saw, and samths had -im to talk
to because we had cocktails before dinner or we had to hb thm m a
tour before they met Mr. Wright. I jatkd - dam a few of their mms,
there~MargaEetsmger. -
Q: Let's talk abmt each of these Sn order. All right.
you like?
A: Well, nkay. what U d
Q: Well, just arrythirrgyaurecall frranthat . . .
A: About Maqm2.t Sanger?
Q: Yes.
A: Well, that she was alive. It was amazirq. I didn't ha a she was
alive. Imanlyawareofherbymti&andIbeliare&atea
W with us. I can't rewmber which one it was d she spake after
them. Ican~lanedist~phrasethatthsstateof
-icut is going to have to-well, they passed smz kind of a law,
at that tlme in the fifties, sareWrg regulating the sale of birth
amtml. So, she said, 'The state of -icut is going to have to
police into wery in Connecticut. (laughs) I dmgt
bow to0 nolch abaut: her. I man, I saw her briefly.
Mr. and m. Henry Luce m freqtuent visitors because, I think, they
hadawirrterWinArizmadwraetimesm. Imecartmwhen~
was sartvewhsre else. Mrs. Lute was mre fridywithMrs. Wright,
Q: Arry impression of her or . . .
A: ShewaslikeMrs.Wrj-Fpltina~way. Shewasvery
intelligent, very aggressive, and very sure of herself. I We just
besn readirrg abaut: her lately in a qle of books that have ccane out.
Shewassmrtardtough, andsowasLuce. IwasstandingIsear33ydI
got into an argument with I-, Mr. and Mrs. Wright's dau#ker, on
Vhethermnot~hl~ga~hwastalkingdrJwntoitsreaders. Wewere
taWrqabartthi-ywdealtwithcertainbmes. Mamatterof
fact, I don't 3aaJ if it vms before or after that that Mr. Wright
chided luce an T h prhtw a false story. [The wmte that] he had
started a fire fake fireplace of his sute of rams in the
Plaza Hotel. Well, t w reasons ~ he C3CILZ1dnft have dare it. Om, he
laew that the fkmplace was fake atwl W secmi plm he couldn't have
dane it. One of my first assigrmrents at Taliesinwhen I got there was
tohelpnwks~~~forthat~teofroanrsatldredacom~it
in red and black ard it [might's design] was very beautiful. We
didn't do all of the furniture b.rt we added to it. One of the
we did was to crcnrer the fimplace. Mr. Wright designed it. We
rnade the p1- ewer. I remalkc enermeling it in Arizm. We

cuvered it over so that it didn't exist in a -. Wit in my case,
- T h printed that story and Wright jakirYgly said to Luce, mtYcru )acrw,
samstirnes you m't printing the truth," and what not. Luce sort of
drugged it off ~IXI said that he wasn't really in charge of the
day-My crperatians of the magazine. Well, m y , I dm% knuw if
it was before or after that bA the incident I had with him was when
Iovanna~Igottotalkingabazt:~imemaqazineandsay~thatin
the text, in the writing they m -lZEiq dam to the Amxiem
pople. His answer was, "Do we have a cxllumn of adviae to the
lovelorn? Do we have d c strips? Do rn have an ~ l q y
Andthatwastheli~testof~they~talkirvgduwnornot!
I don't thinkhe was mally in aquhg with us, but
a-y this was telling IE that probably early in The magazine
they did debate [havirq thee features] when it ms nu?-eul.
He was a rdigims and he ms very straitlaced ard he firmly
beliw&incertain~, lh- [w2lsrshewasbomtoa
missionary wle] and the whole story of that. The Americanls
destiny, I forget it exactly, the Wmrican &ntur~.~~ Ard, of caurse,
hewasthis~ysuccess£ulman, althmghasIread~abcnrt
him, Brim Hadden, his p&ner, was really more than half of the
success of T h mzngazine. He [u] died yrxmg.
visitors, Elizabeth Taylor and Mi- Todd. Todd warrted Mr.
Wright to design mwie theaters to be hilt in parking lots and these
were the par- lots that were then being hilt araund shcpping
malls, 'Ihs SbFpirrg mall WaS irrverrted araurd 1950, 1951. He braqtlt
the idea torn. Wright that he-dwant to do a chain of mvie
theaa to take admnbge of theEie parking lots at night wha mdLls
wuuld be closed. As it act, as the raalls developed, they
stayed open m. Wrt at the tim, the malls were closing at five and
six o'clock. In any case, it Is not a bad ib rrcrw shoppinq malls
dohavermviethsgters. Butthese~goirqtobe~toutmthe
p e r i ~ o ttleparkirqlotwhidlisanather.. f
.
A: No. It would be mother hildirq, Mr. Wrist was axrkplating
using a dane. scmetimes it was a rigid wnretimes it was an
inflatable dcane. At that th, Gooctyear immtd a fabric so that yau
could have little inflatable dames. He was going to get them to do a
big me. And he did do s a skekhes ~ of it d, I guess, Todd paid
for them, but 'POdd ms killed in an airplane accident abart three
weeks later. Arryway, he and Elizabeth Taylor and Taylor's two sons by
Mi&ael Wilding carrre. I think Mi- Wilding was thsre, too. Yes,
hewasu-lem, too.
A: Yes, ~aliesin West. w y , they met in fl.loenix or PaLm
Springs and they flew up m -Is private airplane. Arryway, thq
came up-I was to take them Oh, I was to bh Elizabeth
Taylor ammkl while Mr. Wright was to talk to MiChad m. So, I
wmtoutintheparkitlglotandwat&edtheclaudof btmupthe
road and it turraed out to be a big fat Rolls Fbyce with a chauffeur.
I -myself. Themwmacc~lpleof otherapprenticeswithme

ardsaidmtwastom. Oneof themtookMi&aelTWdtowhere
m. Wright was. I wa~l left with Elizahth
-
Taylor and I took her
arcrund for about forty minutes. She was thsn abwt twenty-five years
old, height of her fame. And after the tar, I laet the &hers
sumplace, and than we all traipsed along. was Mt. and Mrs.
Wright and by this time the business m. Appmntly, that
conference was WET. So, Mr. Wright was talking mre akn.lt
architecture. I stayed alq, as did a few uther apprentices, and we
went to the theater, and I mrmbr sittm im the thsater. In the
front ruw, Mr. and Mrs. Wright anl Michael Todd atld Elizabeth Taylor
& a couple of us in the back arrd s brdq d and so on. Michael
Todd was telling Mr. Wright smethhg a hk Hollym&, about mclvies.
I had -y read that he grw up in the vaudwille business.
He was a amly ht&ar at a burl- &m and he still lmhd lib
that. Hewas just tough. He had a big fat cigar ardhewwld talk
with it in his mxlth. He was a real tough kid frcsa chicago. He was
try- to take the stage. Mr. Wright was -1- w,
you kmw, ad Michael Todd was also exp1ahir-q things. It was mdly
-ing. They got almg all right. Ardm. might -
that kid of theatrid pemm. Elk- Taylor never said a word.
Shejustsatthereandatonetimeinthestory, I d m @ t ~ ~ t
it ms abaxt, lxlt Todd was saykg alnrt different of
11~~~9esanlhe~~~tothinkofamieandb~chedwer~.
Wright anA he hit Elizabeth Taylor QI the anu atd he said, %ay,
Elizahth, what wms that last mwie yau were in? What was the name of
that mnrie?I1 He cauLdnlt thB name of the mie. He was a
very macho guy. She was very timid, by the way. She was very shy.
Whem I toak her -I was al- with k for forty or forty-five
rfdmkes. -toakherbmwnsawayearly. Theysearedtobe
too little to take on the tar. They were wearm oclwfwy cnxtfits,
abA six ard eight old. And so I was with her ad tdc her
arrxvd ard, of caurse, enqhdy lookad up wherever m m. she was
veryshyandwasveryafraidtosay~. Shewas justvery
beautiful and hardly said a wwrd.
other visitors, Adlaj. S-, .I didn1t get to talk with him. I saw
him. I heard him. Frank Umr&, wfio was then garemnr of Idaho, the
~t gwemor in the camtry, yehudi Menuhim, the violinist,
Christophar I-, Bl&&&er rnler, Charlton Hsstan.
Q: W1s stap for a mrmt with Nler. Were y m party to ;iny of
that.. .
A: Well, Fuller EKlmehcrw or other I also got the chore of taking l-&n
m, or trPking care of him for an h#ur or so, maybe it was two
hours. M that was in the library, sort of a hmhr, a dark rocan.
Wetalkedalangth. Wehadalotofthingstotalkabcutbecause
his daughter to elarmbay -1 with me. She was a year or tm
behimi me. When I was in that -1, he had irrvented the
car, bxlceafpltituptothe~l, talksdtotheschmlabautitand
- his daughter. I barely knew her [in schaol] ard I had not
her. In any case, he very talkative and he carried the
then tank kids art in a ride. I ms in the me class too law or too
high to get a ride. Arryway, so I saw the car parked in fmnt of the
dmol. I IEUI, that was all aur amectimwas. So, I asked about

camersatim d he had Mr. Wright a 1- th arrd was very
friandly tuwards him because Mr. Wright had helped him in an
htrdwkian or letter early in FuLlerls when his career was
getting nabre and Mt. Wright wafi say- to people, maybe once or
twice, ''This is a man who &ms great w, listen to him,11
and so an. Mr. Wright had a mptatim by that th. He apensd a
door or two. Thq were laq-tirrre acquahbmes and very friandly, but
philOSOphically poles apart in term of mtecture and design.
WzcJcy Nler ms an engheer who was tryirq alwap to do -re with
less material and that was his objective. were beymd him
cxarp3letely. There was no point-he didn't discuss anythhq else. He
did appreciate ard he did mdershd Mr. Wright's architecture. He
~whathecaulddoandheWhtWri@t&ddo. Butthey
didn't werlap in any way. They didn't even discuss erqineerhq
tog-.
A: Never. Nut that I ladcrw of* No.
Q: You rrrentiQned after Fuller. Yau lrm?ntiQned . . .
A: Well, there's ChriStOphgl: I-, Yehudi Ivkluhb* well, these
people, I didnlt knaJ too well. I saw them. I heard them talk. I
didn't talk to than. I mean, I w~us in a and so on. And there
were marry mie people like Charlimn He&m and Anne Baxter, vho was
Wright's -ter, &@ter of his daqhter, Catherine. Ard she
bmqht her daughter [Ecatherh] , whose father was Jdm Hodiak. Billy
Wlrke and all kjnds of actors ard -, Fenmxb Lawas d people
like that, dozens, ycru ]u#rw.
Q: Wme these visits by celebrities distracting?
Q: All right. Was there a written
-
or unwritten cde of behavior
gwerning the inhabitantEl of Taliesh?
A: Well, when I got w, I becmrre aware of+& I hadn't seen
before, of a b-, a orepage flier that awwurw=ed it [the
Fellmship] in 1932 and it said sawthhq like, it was mosphical
and pmwticfflal arrd werything* I it said scmthhg like,
I1Apprentices will bring a saw and a -.I1 Arrd it also said
scmhhg abut vhat they're supposed to do and what MP. Wright will
do, Wlt it was [an] historical [dcxxrmerrt] when I gat them. That
didn't guide one. What guided me was what you m told what other
people arrxlnd yau did. So, there wasn't anythhq written that we

folld. It was like jo- a camfmiw that was go- an for
~-tmyeamwhenIgatthemandhadthk~~~p. A
few peaple were there flrcaa the beg- with m. and Mrs. Wright.
You just fitted in. So, lAere wa&nlt . . .
Q: What abaut drMdng? Where there ary oodes of mvior?
A: No. It was less an oqanization than it was a family, I mean,
it's nut really [a nuclear] family, h t a very exterdd family.
Everybody learns what they are to be doirq, more or less. of
course, you are born into a family, hrt still there's written.
The only thing that was written ma l h the assigrrmants ea& week,
which wem poet&, If ym had a very, very la- family, that wmld
have to be done, too, I (laughter) You knm, you hke care
of tbe -gel ycu do =& this was a little bit rmre organizeii
than that. So, that kind of had to be plt up, h t as far
as--you learn f m what uther pople did.
Q: All right. M I S talk almrt thoee assignnmb. In yam wwrk
there, mt was the mb.m of yau: associatian directly with I&.
Wright?
- A: Well, I wuuld say, I drmlt hm if there is any typical apprentice
relationship, but mine was sort of in the middle. I neither very
close nor very distant. I felt I was in a -, am of thkQ or
forty people who were there to help him with his work ad to keep the
d t y going. He involved himself in all of w, scms in
greater detail than others. When he &md up, it was in aty kind of
amrksituatim~itwasinthedraft~rpanorcut:inthe
field, we bemm part of wlzat had to be dore there. If it was
drawing, it wis was desiy, m m working an the drawirgs. Just
like a very infonml archltectwal office where the principal cam
~thedraft&roandaeswhatksaygortbeyinteractand~di~
what the -lent is and so an. If it's in the field--arrd m s daesnlt
happen in amhitectural office-is was more lih-what wwld we
say~whocklnedanestateorycrulivedwithwmebodyandyau
were his field had. Not exactly the right wxd, but we wze mrking
in the field ard if he said, "I wwt to do this. Let's do this,
kys." We'd get art and do it. So, aur relatiomhip was in that kind
of acorrteott. He had furQ or fifty pecple to react to, He didn't go
araurultalkingtoea&paslscoleveryday. He justwentarandanddid
mtarer he had to do. It was well organized [in that sense]. His
lifestyle, as I pemeived it in 1954, I joined him, was well
f-. This -18 relatimshLp, this way of living s b it had been
going m for twmky-bm years an bm sites. Althmqh, the interest:
~~ulatatydaywme&mlld~thatlherveroccurred im
before, like a new design or let's do this, tear dam this thing.
was always a patmtid for radical change and [a surprise] to
IMX~~ of the people who had been there awhile. For exmnple, we
mwed frrm om Taliesin to the other, me of the fkmt he'd do
msheld~tocharrgelscnorethingoradd~. Onoccasimit
to take durn scmEWn9 that was built, let's say three four years
before. And here saethres it wwld bs the sam pople who had been
mrw on it, yau lnmw, so that was quite a chqe to them. It was
very ~ 0 ~ .

Q: Ma* we can -1- that best by lookirrg at saua of ywr major
assigrrmenrts?
A: Okay.
Q: Discuss them in order of mrtance or in d.urmwlogical order,
huwwer yau want: to. What major projects did yau mrk m?
A: When ycxl say rrrajor, I hndately think of the dram rocan, of
the draw-. I checked the list, e ' s list. I didn't keep it.
But it looh like I've mrked on the working drawings for six houses
or buildings. I worked on the preliminary draw- of fax and I
worked on details here ard there for a whole bun& of but I
worksd on the preliminary drawirq for four and the mrkirvg drawings
for six Elnd these were real blilaings. T h m m built, tvmwent to
working draw- and didn' t get f iniahed. Of the six working
drawimp all got built. In fact on m of them, the Rayward Hause in
cumeckiczrt, I wmt aut to wo~k m [the amstmction of] that house
for fivennnths. Another~oe~&~w~~raoreexpridthanI
supervised the cmstrddan, k t I helped Mid it. Arrd then I
back, the ham was dl1 un3erway and being expmded. While I
was up there, the client wired Mr. Wright he wanted a swinnning pool so
thedra~m-madeatWiainto@ina-poolandw
gutthemupthere. Ididn'tworkonthcee. Andtheystartedtobuild
that. When I left the house, it was 80 percent finished. Ard then
when I gut back, then the hmse se still going on. I think they were
livirg in it. A playhmse was hilt and designed. I did the drawbqs
for that, a very simple thiq. And an additid bedroean wing with an
cbematory on the roof. And then also a cantilevered wallway41,
fht a separate garage for autm&iles and 1-, pwer tools
and what not, and three or fcrur bays and that was pett up. That
wassepamtefrcra~hase. Andthenacarrtileve.redwalkharqingout
aver a smalley valley ad in an am hbem that garage ard the hrYuse
and I worked on the dmwhy for that. So, hsrewa~i a project in
whim I worked cm the original wmkirrg draw- before I got to
ammcticut. It msnlt pl-. I just was assigned with other
pople. Helped finish the workirrg drawbqs and then went up ard
workdonthehrrlseandcambadcandthendid~crtherthirqs
[at were] addsd to the wrk. mat was very irrtere9ting.
Q: Well, maybe we should explom that ow. my dan't ycxl start?
A: All right, that was the first- I workedon and the masan for
my assigmmt an it was -use Jack Hme had pi- a fw poplet two
p q senior people, mt senior appmtices, hrt bm exprim
pecple arrl then anothsr third person. I ms mw. When I gut in this
graup, they lmew ma and whem I canre fmn, millwork. So, I was qiven
thE? sheet dch shaws the four elevaticms of the hazse and the w*
s&edule and then there's another sheet with the millwrk detail. So,
those fxo sheets wtm? my [principdL] -ibiliw. All fc~lr of us
w~rkedmthesetofdrzlwirqs. lhereweretwelvesheet.sinthisset,
We worked m tihem all at the same th so we crcluld ideas back
&forth. Whatwehadtodowas~theprelirninarydrawingstoa
set of bluqdrks to hild the hmse. It wasn't very difficult for n-e
because millwork was smethiq I'd drawn before. So, what I was

learningwiswhattheEleothersweredohgatthesam3th. Bythe
way, to get into the style of draw- at TaLiesin, I had a few mths
before at nights taken a set of drawiqs called the Lmmss Hase,
whk31ms~undsr~on. Hewasanqhmerforthe3M
Cclmparry and he was building this aattage, a -hdrmn w, a stllall
~bedrocmstane~mF9.liteBear~cRztsideof~lis. I
knew it was wmtructian. I thought I might visit it. It was a
relatively small hrrlse. I toak the trachqs mt of the vault with
Jackls permissicln and on a table next to me atd I drew the
whole set of dnwh-qs all uver again. 'Ihsre were tan or Wve sheets
inthatset. So, I juststarted~&eetmeto&eettwelveand
just simply dmw them, nut traced them, but drew than. Now, that's
not thenway they'd draw therm, but it gave me experience in 1- at
every lme. You can't do drawings lh that, it's a way of
1em-h~. So, in arry case, having done that, I think I still have
thatsetof~~,3x1ttheyccruldehcrwIcculddrawso~felt
cmfiderrt: I d d
do the millmk dstails. So, I got hlved with
this team. We spmt several mnWs m it [Raywad Hmse]. This was a
very fussy, dmadq client with a lot of Oamrmnicatians ard
occasirmal visits. There was a lot of mail cdq in and a lut of
questicms. Not all of great mmq=~=, hrt there was a lot of
irrteractian with the client.
A: Well, for that I just worked m the amstmctica dmwirqs.
The preliminaries had bean dme. Well, I enjoyed do* them. I felt
CODlfidmt. I m, I got started
-
right in on a real Frank Uoyd
Wright hmse. The other pecq?le were good. Ons of the other people
with experience was new at Taliesh and he had to learn Taliesin ways,
Mr. Wrightls ways. He was dokg it the way he did hi1di.q~ [before]
d wen a style of draw- different so it had to be -.
He was older and [it was] diffiailt [for him]. It was a very
-it was a variatian of the Iaurent Hmse in Mord. The
l~inpartoftlaehouseinRnckfordis&ap&like~ams. Itis
sort of like the shape of a football d the whole house is in it.
Andthishmsewasthatsmrreshape~chMr. WrightuEiedsewmd
timas, me for his scol [LlaJlellyn] in , D.C. and here
[Rayward House] WIS just the living mxm Md the mister
bedman in it. then a 1-wing off fxmn one side with four
bedroaas, later becmrre five, with several baths. And then m the
other errd of ~AE ellipse, this football4mpd thiryg, vas a
carport amA a mid's man, which wts cantilevered. W mle thing
was arerlonking a river, a small river in a wmis, it was a very
dramtic site. It was all mde of mmrete block. Tha
dirq arrd the living m was very high arrd made of hams
in a radial pattern, dcuble bearm and a lut of glass, a very dramatic
hause.
Q: 111 this vmrk an thevm1:kh-q draw-, do ycru recall ary zjpecific
interaCtim with Mr. Wright?
A: No, I dm% This was a lorg t h ago. There- fewpmblems.
He lmked at the dmwirqs as they mnt alaq d I think I didn't get

Q: HbW abcIut the phase in whi& ym m actually -king there?
A: Well, I sort of wmt up on @ m and there was anather apprentice
[Allan Gelbin] working there whan I hadn't lmmn. He'd been working
a n t h r e e ~ i r l ~ Ihelpedthe
, ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I helpedthe-, I helped- cabhehwhrs. I helped
the labom. I did arerything. I was there sixmmths in the
winter. I rented a log cabin a few miles away. It was very gad.
Ocasioaally, since I was ths only arve an the site who had worked on
Um [original] drawirsgs, the chief carperrter, Mr. Elhssm, who had
workad on another of Wrightls hauses, the Sanders hause in coll.mecticut
[Stanford] , a year or so before, held occasionally ccsne over to KE
v h q tha draw-. I caild see him mnhq. kEe said,
with a d e
lWell, Mark, what did yau man by & when yau drew this?" Of
caurse, the dmnces m I didn't draw that and it was scaneeae else.
Eut Samethres he faurd an error d it was scgnething m had to resolve
on the site or telephme TaLiesin if there was a major pmhlm. But
k-almylshap~bcatchmsifk-t.thareweusmerrorin
thedrawiqs. Itwasjustastandingjoke. Therewemnatrrrarry
errors, butthere~thbqsleftfmdecisimstoberrradeinthe
field. lhat was cma of the major msponsibiliti- of the apprentices
who were supe~~ising hmses. FkequmUy, he [the vising
a~i~]~dtdlkwithmeabartthesethingsshI~rksdan
thedrawings. Well, hewasrmzchmore~i~thanIwas.
Q: So, there was another apprenticle there who was acktally
supmising cmstrwtion?
A: Right.
Q: was that the patbrTl?
A: Yes. The houses were either hilt mrraally, that is to say the
amer wmld get the sets of blueprltrrts and the specifiications ard get

ids [fmcontmcto~s]. Orhevjcruldqet bids and find thantoo high
& then get an 2ly?prentice, or he would start with an apprerrtice.
Nuw, then, whm he had an a-08 held pay the apprentice and Mr.
Wrightwasal.waysabouttenortwentyyearsbehindinwages, sohe
would say, 'Well, just give them rpcrn and
and spending rrroney or
sorething like that.I1 Wzt, m y , 4A-m apprentice and the clwner muld
work out sum khd of an amammmk that wmld raake it wrthvhile.
NW, then, the question carne as to who was the cmtractor. ~~
themnerwmldactasthecontractor, butitwaguesUmof
or not he wwld okay all of W bills or held let the
apprentice do aJ.1 that wrk. If he felt liJ~ he want& to be irnrolved
all the time, he wmld take all the bills and all the -cts.
If he didn't, he wuld give it that responsibility to the apprentice.
Themtxruldbesanelarge~, 1ike~Carpentryworkor
llwonuy~rk&soon. ~ ~ m e y ~ p a i dbut b y ~ ~ ,
this was always a lo& situation upon what kird of pople
you couldget. 'Ihat was thedifficult thing, gettingpoplewhowmld
look at the draw-. 13eclple might lmk at than muse they said
tWrightll an it, hrt than if they wanted to bid on it, pt in a
bid abart twice as what thaxjht it wmld c m t them muse they
were afraid. A few contracrt0~~ wanted to do it. And a fellcrw like
this Eliasscn, this had already dam a ham, #e Sarders
Hcru~se, ard he -It afraid of the draw*. See, the draw- are
ummd in that thery have very few d.imnsicms, They are an a unit
system. There's a grid all aver W drawings. Sanetimes spares,
triangles, or sanething l h that. They [me units] have dumsions.
They're fixlad, and falls on those lhes. when they don't
tha~ ym reed a dinlesrsian. So, basiwlly, yau don't med raarry
dhmicns. ln typical archi- drmhqs, you them up ard
thereamljneswitharrck~sarddhmsicmsfor . So, bhm
people looked at this, they had learn that yau-mmt the
bxes and then nrultiply by faur or whatever it was to see hcJw big it
was.
Q: Why did Wright da it that way? Ehsier?
A: Well, that was what he &led his unit system. It was in plan and
he also to ~icane extent -ied it in elevation and it was a kid of
discipline. Them wars an aesthstic discipline, Wign diEicipline, ad
it created a pattern so that it nat only, fnm the cmstmctian point,
~rkdasIexplainedit, indoirrgme~10rkhg~. Whenm
startsd art with the preliminaries which viere also on the grid, then
we~thegridforthe~kingdmwh-qsan3then~ehadto~
-
theideaEim.theprelhimry~the~kirrgdrawings. Wehadthis
disciplim in frcntof usan3when~haddecisianstomab, there
were these l h help* us make the decisions. So, it was a kind of
an a-ic disciplim, which he used and which WE us& because we
do- the drawings. There's a unit system in all of his
builm. Scaaetimes, ycru cmld actually go dam and see it because
with a cmcmb floor, he wwuld specify the unit a d be
insmibedinthe~throcaghdutthe~lehtxlse~w,ycxlcoolld
kind of look at the floor and there was the grid.

Q: Did Mr. Rayward visit the harm while yuu were there mkbq cm its
cmstnction?
A: Yes, frequerrtly, andMrs. too. Shewas a gclurmet cook and I hew this frr=lmwhenwe~mr~onthemrking~becausewehad
all of these--it's a large ki- and we had all of these special
things to put in like a Emnake m. A bi? &q@g block and hanging
pots and all of that kin3 of thing. So, it was quite qlicated and
then she ms blved witb that vdm~ we gut to it on .the site. He was
there muse he ms paying all the bills ad checking all the
details. I think he was living in New York City at the the, whi&
was Elbut miles away.
A: Allan Gelbin. He had finished three hrxlses in Gmtm, Ohio that
hadbendmemeaftertheotherorsimxltanwxlsly, Itmmt sure.
Q: Nm, was your work relationship with him or wim the work crew? I
mean, to whan were yau -ible?
Q: You nrean like the carrtilevered withmy or , . .
A: No, the smaller thhqs, the small, sraall things. It's hard to
-ibe. Whentheremrepmblermsinthe~im, hearrdIlcnew
hcrwtodothemandifwe~mCOUlddOtherm, mtoldthat
CQntraCtor that's nut part of the cmtract arrd m'11 just supply you
with arrl they'll be dme.
Q: What abcut the phase of mrk,an this inwhi&yam doing the
add- design?
A: Wall, Wt was when I was back. I msn't doing any draw- tlmm
[on site] Whm I retuned after six mnths, the house was aLrnost
finished. And then, -y, a mqw& castle thraafPI, 'What alxnrt a
playhrxlse?" So, Mr. Wright designed a little playhouse in the shape
of a f-1 and it had a a mhq in it, It had an uval
cpanirrg and it was mly abut fiftea feet lmg and it was sitting out
in a fork h the river. He mtde a little skt& and then I did the
worm drawimp. 'Ihery were very shple, made of cmcrete b le. And
then they smt it art to them. It's been Mlt. I've seen a
photqm@ of it. The cantilarered wallcwaywas a lnajor project
because it was mntilenrered [ommete]. m. Wright did the shtch and
I did the working dmwimp with Bknlel Gliclnrran, who was his
consult- errginear of longstanding. It ws a very qlex
cantilever. For Mendel, it wasn't much. Amy, he calculated it and
helped me with it. We worked together, that's the way engineers and
architects work. 9mee d raw were cunpleted and sent to them. Had

a cantilevered m f over the walkway* walkway went out in an arc.
That was vhatrtlads it difficult. It was as if ycxl mlt a bridge,
inside of go- stmight it goes in a dcircle. It was very
dramatic and mts to be no object in this hmse. I -1,
haever, when Rayward fixst cams, I remmbr him bring* the
photqraphsof theeitsandthetopographicalmapardalistof things
hewantedinthew. Hewas~abartathirty-fivedollar
hause. When I got up there in the amskudim abut eight
mths later, it was clearly a hUru3mr3-thoward-dollar hause. And
tha a swirmhg pool gat added and this playhouse and this
~ileveredthingarrdsom. Idm't]n#rwwhyhestartedtotalk
about thirty-five dollars because he didn't really mean it.
I have a feeling that he thaqht that-and sam pople I lacrw did
this-but Mr. Wright Is fee was 10 peraerrt of the cost of the house.
So, tbat he went to him and said, 'Well, I want a
thirty-fiw4ollar hause. htl then ywr fee wmld be three
thowad five hurdmd dollars. !Itten if ycru wmt off ard built a house
ad it cost twice that much- thcrusard dollars-mld save
yourself three five hurdmd dollars, It's powfile that that
might have been his idea because it was so far mmm%i f m what-I
mean, it was obvims by the nurtber of arrd the lard itself
that it msnlt going to be a --five dollar hmse.
Usually, in a case of this W of cmstmction with the =rentice
supervising, the mmr pay* the bills, the ardritect really doesn't
laclwwhat the hmse costs, ycru see. It's hard to say wfiat the house
cost. But on * othsr hand, Allm Gelbin, the supmising
apprentioe, had a good idea so that if an ck~ner [like Rapxd] wanted
to shortdmrge the ar&itect on the fee, he wmld have a hard time
do- it.
A: with Mr. Wright?
Q: Yes.
A: Well, the playhmse was very shqle. Mr. Wrigi-rt made a sketch, I
can see it in my eye. It's still at Taliesin. It- an elmatian
and he first drew a little -ive a q l e of in&es high and
then he drew the elevation d a plan. It's a very sinple thirYg.
There are no dm- or arrything like that. It's just this cwbcrete
block playhouse in this odd ahape. I simply turned that into
-in21 m e wd&q draw, makirrg the bl- fit atd
werything work, do- it accurately with dhmsicms d so m, noting
certah~andhesignedthedrawirg. Therewas-
[~lfcated] to do. An we& of this nature isn't a big
~ ~ t h i r It~smtgo~tomalceor~his~tian,
q .
ycukmw, he just got ridof it. His -was clear as crystal and
it didn't taks nre very 1 9 to do it. On Uus amtilwered m y ,
thatwasaveryhi~-pckFeredengirveer~thingard,Ithink,notdy
did a Glicknm ht also Wes Peters talkad to Mr. might abcut it,
I dic?nlt. There was mre erqherirq in it .than, I think, the design
aspect. Itgat~~theeng~hgandtheyinteracrted
andIwasnotequippedtohardlethatkindof~.

Q: What design assignments did yau have?
A: The1astprajectIwrksdmwhenM.r. Wri@tdiedwastheMarine
Gcrvenrmesrt Center, which $s a major project and I w worwith
Merdel Gliclanan again an that. Nw, it was originally suppsed
to be a faurmillion dollar hildirq, with a twmQ-rnillim dollar
additiw? an2 1% sure the dollars have datad. But Uw price, I
that the clxlrrtywas m a b m t . It's avery 1-
buildh~, the CCrunty~~inSanRafael. Iwas
translating the preliminaries into ane-eighth inch to the foat working
draw-. Arrd that tmk ma several rrmths do* all the plans and
elevations. I hadn't gotten very far. I was crmsultirrg with M m k l
on the engineer- of it because this was kirrd of a bridgelike
structure. It had a unique facade, which Mr. Wright hpt
callirlg--thsy ware amAEt3, hlt they ws@ not s--hangm
pendsrrtives. I dm% kmw. He mde the nmne up. In any case,
they're~-likeeff&anBaChfloorandthey~~hthe
building. They dm% support atyWq and l3e buildirrg itself is like
a bridge. It's W bridgeg, parallel bridges, very amplex. In any
case, I did not carry the draw* vary fax-I wked on UEKI for two
orthreermnths. Yauwxejurstbeg~toseethermanthesebig
sheets of paper. They were -ly 19. It ms the first wing,
the fdllim4bllar whq, whid.1 was built first. Mr. Wright died
and I left a nmU~ after. Nw, thcee drawings were fini-, probably
by several pecrple. The reasan caly me was given them to start
with was muse had to laycut [the entire design] and it was
a lot of work, all these plans-I think there were far or five Elmr
plans and the site plan and the bm major elevati~ll~j. It was kind of
like bl- up the original miminary draw* and so it was easier
for cae p==m to do all of it. I worked on that for senrsral mntb
~ithMmdelthinkirrgabartthe~inser~arddoing~~
calculaticms as we went alaq so that ycru cmld do them finally.
Thmtheutherthingsfworksdonwasaclinicfora~h
Hastirqs, Mirrruesota. These mre workirq drmhqs. It was more lih a
house, just a small clinic. I did virtually all of the worw
drawhq~ for ane hause, the they Wright hrxlse, no relation, in Wausau,
Wi-in. And later I saw that ham ahm& finish&, W
cmstmcticm aLnrost finishsd. lhat was a three-bedrpan ham, two
thauEtand ~iquare feet and hang* wer a-not a cliff, )xrt a big dmp
to scnre river. I fmgut what the river is, Wausau River, mybe. Then
I warm m the Boswell hase in chimati, Qhio with a grmp of
other people and I worm an t 3 Jankowaki ~ hmse in Michigan with a
group of pcple. Thoss are the =king dmwirp. The prel~ies,
I did for the Walton in -, California. I participated in
the IWerb house in Seattle, washington ard I alsa worked on the
Zeeger house in Gross Isle, Michigan~~ies. A qle of
OtherthingsIwcrWanwrethe~eritageHenridmFurnitmezufi
fabrics, which a lot of peclple mre doing at one time.
Mr. Wright did a line of fabrics for Schumacher and furniture for
Heritage Henridon. Arrd then I did wme detail draw- m a variety
of buildirrgs urdenmy, BElth Sholma Sy~gogule and W Gqgcmheim and
others. These wwx sme small thing8 that I was just called in like
else and told, We need to do this. what are yau
do- for a couple of days?I1 U e thq [W hildings] were urder

co~l~itructim. The ~ t u r e w a s . That was -that
Mr. Wright worked on a lot ard it WE lhe f time held ev~r
desigmd furniture, to my 3axrwl*, not for a [particular] building.
I think it was nu& miticized-I knm it was rnxch criticized and I
think nmt of the miticism ms dsEierved. It weus heavy. It was vwy
archibzhral. The major criticism was that he had always designed
furniture d fabrics and floor cover- and hmqings d whatnot and
lamps to carry out the design of a hmse as he did with Dana House or
many other hmses. And here, sam furniture manufacturers and
Schunacher, the fabrics, and &her people minced him to do this.
For no kuilding or any [pakiculqr] 3xlild.i.q. I don't think he was
~iatisfied with it ad I knuw thq -It because they did raat
manufacture all of the furnitum-well, in saw cases the mrketirvg
part of the ccanparry didn't think it was salable. I rambr in the
furniture, there was same based an a square, sam based an a circle,
sane based m an ellipses, same basd on rectaqles. Yau lclaewthere
mre different ~mnes to things. They only manufactured me of
thesearvlenly~ini~andthen~also~~sli@Uy
ad so m, prabably due to nmufacturirag d. lhey mlt tm
successful.
Q: They were advextised heavily as very . . .
A: Very, very hewily and the Schunaacher fabrics w mt dung wim it.
I think this whole cantle umbrella of Hause Beautiful,
E1izak-h Gordon, the editor, becaw they were big advertisem there
and she pmmtd it [Wright's designs]. I'm quite sure she gat than
toget-.
Q: Well, might m take a lmk at Bach of theseprojects separately or
is there emugh to say aboert each me of them?
A: It's easier to loak at the draw* than to talk & it. I
think I said it was Wausau, Wismwin, mncrete block. It was a
typical pol- hcxlse. It had a living roam, emept the living roarn
was not mzhqular. It was in the shap of a semicircle d it sort
of hung cut over this drap to the river. AIKI then #e m t of the
hauseranback, yclulacrw, thebedroamwirgwithavrtatthend
near--. Wehadhsuesthereinsiti.rqthehmsetosavescrlne
trees. It was I?wrtine. other than that, it lms not aae of Mr.
Wrightlsgreatest:hcxlses. 1tt:tobellikewme~. Itwasa
little urzusua3. in the ahape of the 1ivi.q rocan, had a hard the
gettiqthekitdm~appliances [to fit in]. these are minor^
that dm% shine q light an the architectme. This was kind of like
an invisible client. I dm% nsmbx them, Mr. and Mrs. Rzey Wright.
I dm% nu& ammmicatian with Mr. Wright. !lhm was a
fortieshowe, theManscmhcxlse, inm~68u&Somybetheycanre~
him-thelhnsom. Thiswasfarteenorfifteenyeamlater,
buttheywerethekindof clierrtsofonetypewho~ratharlow-ley.
TbywarYtedWrightasanamhitect. 'R~~cametohh. Theysawhim.
Theyagreedtothe-. Hedesignedthehouse. Theytoldkimwhat

theywarrted, He did smwthiq, the pirelhimries. They 1- at it.
Thqmayhavenradsscrme~~s1~0rdmqes. Thenwewmtinto
wor- ~~ ad may have hem a little dcaticm, bt
itjustcaueaut~,yau)auckJ. Butontheuthmhand, theuther
side of it is, also #ere to be no special challenge, I think,
for Pfr. Wright. It's a nice hcluse, but it h't very witing. It's
a house by Wright. I can see all of the elamnts of it. I danlt see
phckqram. I dm't see pecple going cut and -phi.tq it.
Maybe, WE [Ixley] Wrights are private. And that's amther thiq,
mybe they dm% want people--it's in a place where yau could prwent
people fmn takhq vi- muse it was m this bluff arfl UE d y way
you CCRld get to the other side was go a- ths river several miles
awayandthmqhalutoftrees, sotheycaildperhapbeptheir
privacy. So, I Irn not say- it I s -use of the designer the hause is
not publishad, but it's kirrd of like a muthe w. Wright was not
always do* his best. He was not always creating Fall-ter.
Q: What's the ksy to that? Is it muse the cliant in this case was
not stlnailathq, perhaps or
A: It might be that, pnrabably. And pmhbly also that was the best
idea Mr. Wright had at the time. It waa a dramtic site. He rnade use
of it by shuving the living man aut wer W edge. It didnlt
cantilever, it just went dmn to a fmnlatirm ane floor belw. You
had a view. I'm not sure whi& way it faces. A big
cNerhangirg mf, a lot of steel in the roof to hold it. It has a
square roof an a mxd mcsa. That was interesting. So, h the
cornem it had big milivers.
-
Arrd they were held up by [W]
aspcb to the ha~se, but arerall
ncrbody would cite it [as amq Wright's faur hmibd and
f iftye houses. I think, Marin County, for ex;ample, will be well
Imam, of crxlrse. It is so large as well. A gwenmaent project.
TherewEremarryhams, wen &ler than this. Like the [first]
Jacobs hcwe, the fix& 1- house, five thamnil dollars in 1935.
That's going to be a enshrined in history. It's a ladmrk. So, as
an artist, nut amy is equal. I saw a mie abcRzt
Pi-, dch was a movie of this --whatever anniversary
exhibit. It was in New York. I saw that exhibit. W marie was
abc#zt the exhibit. They'll never again asseenble all of these works.
I man, it wm eight ham to walk it. I didnlt all of
that th~. I skipped a few. It's all chrww1ogicaL when he
was a kid until he died. Of cmme, when he died he had lots of
paintbgsardso~1. Idcm~tknmharmanymillionpwplesmit.
Arryway, they rnade a mie of it so it ms of Uus thiq,
Well, you go this Picaso exhibit yau see Picaso wasn't
workinggreatwayday. (law) Smeday~hedidn~tfeeltoogood.
It -It sinply that. It was sinply the level of mtim carrnot be
maintained. The greatst architect cannot be great wery day of his
life.
- steel. So, there drmrratic
A: The -1 hrxlse was a brick kmuse in Cincinnati ard I was kind
of like an extra man rn that. I didn't mrk on it for the whole
period. I just carme in ad helped for a while ard then went aut ard

did sate ather project, In other words, it was a l q fast
enough. One thbq abmt the pradclcrtian of these draw- shCRlld be
noted is that they were always late. Well, not always, always
late. It fit in with the -1e dm, Mch is true of any
ar&itect, that the hcnzlsre always msb more than ym think it's going
to mst. But they were always late because Mr. Wright was never in a
hurry to give up ?urythim. If it went a c t tm fast, he felt that he
didn't give it his best arrd also amther Wrq that slcrwrsd it dam ms
when heid change it, when its undaxway. NW,-~C~ of these I worked
onhadrmjordxuqes, butIsawhcxlEteswhtxethe~rkhqdrawirqs~
half dme an3 he made major and thq had to virtually start
all arer again. So, that wmild delay m. It was very nu& like his
changirq ~aliesin and Taliesin West when he back ard forth. And
I~hE?&dgetmywiththisbecawkLem~U~Wri~t
and & clients would wait. hrt he did have the urge to imprwe all
of the th arfl occasimmlly, held visit a hawe [uder cmstruction]
and charqe it at the si- smsthhq whim he didn't see in the
draw-. Itnmyhavesaethhqtodowiththetopgmphyorwhere
ycxllstandandwhatyauloakatorjuElt~~tcametohimand
he'd
-
say take this dawn d do this. So, he nwer left it alme and
that's a t delayed the quite fmnkly, the idea that as long
as you areworkirq on it, it canget better and that's true. I
honesty Miwe that. I saw him good kuild.irqs better even after
they
finished. I man, the drawing was f-. And, m, of
caurse the clients warld wait arrd Wt, of cmme, spoiled him in a
sense that he ccnxld get away with that and the stories of sum people
waiting a year or more, yau m. It's in Jacobs1 book ad wen
Hanna, says they are go- to be dme ad then a mth later--well,
same* was or it hasn't bem dcme yet. So, there ware plenty
of delays, you krww, but people Waited arrd I think it was kWl of lib
a test of the client's will. They cmld be =re I m,
they ~ ~ not lbe d M- abcut it, M 1-1 ZEZL 0.e.
Mr. Wright usually if scnuebocty was gsttirrg out of their uwn
hc#zsearrdhavhqtogosamhece. Butu#ually~tkindofthirrg
would not m e him. I ~&ean, it had to be a big -. m t
wouldn't be an -.
Q: V&e yai hived in any design efforts in whi* the relatimships
were that
-
the client got tired of waiting or Wright gat
angry and thy just bxoW it off?
A: Well, sam of these preliminary draw- never went to worm
draw*. Now, the for -that U d have to be studied
and uwestigatd because there is a cabhatian of retsms. I knaw
onsfellcrw~isa~eng~inLasAlamocsdhegotarwther
job else anl his hmse . , . Where wis it? Ncw, I can't
rexmbrwherehemwedto, buthis~for~Arizonadesert:
didn't fit in New Mexico, so that hcruse nwer gut U t . In saw
cases only the preliminari- wem ~ 1 ~ think - 1 the pople had a
champofheart. Eitherthwyvazmnotlmosurewhenthey&a&&or
while they said okay to the hign, and they had to pay for the
preliminaries, they nwer felt sure enmgh to go ahead with a
wr- draw-. They paid ab-xlt half of the [total fee of 10
percent] for the prelimjnaries. 'Ihsn &hers might have gotten bids
and they were too high and then didn't want to go thragh the whole

hassle of an apprentice or the whole thhq of then humirq a
contractor and so m.
~atheraspectymref~towas~ornotMr. WriFp1tandhis
clients didn't get alq, When I was there, the last five yem of
his life, that was already minimized. Those who would cam knew what
they-gettirughto. ~Imewenough~FrankLlaydWriqht.
He was published. They saw his buildings and so m, spolrs to
[prwicxls] clients. It was unlikely for them ta met sm&hirq
unpredl.ctable other than an mpndctable design. Nuv, occasionally,
he did a prelimhq design a& the -18 tumsd dun And then he
didmothermearrlthatwastrueof theJac&zl secadhowe. Asa
mtter of fact, he did me hause for Jacob which was *
f i w
dollar base ard then Jaccbs that. His family
got bigger and he cave back d they were very friendly arrd they lived
nearby and they visited arrd he wmked for the &i& Wright
wasveryclceeto, itolTimes, . Wd then he [Jambe] said
heneededabiggerhamon \$l he had [since] hqht ard
Mt. Wright designed it ard the fLmt let* back was, and it's in
Jacobs1 boak, ~Ytlxk isn't what we want.I1 NQW, here was a client
a.1- had built a by Wright. The reamn they didn't like it
wasitlsal~~urthmseandthey~a~thatthq
auld crmtract for the winter or the children leavm or h t have
yau. Therewasjusttmnu&all~u.rtamla.lsofmthe
Wisccmsin ma-. Anpay, he didn't like it. So Wright then
designed this hause, which is []axrwn as] the Jaab I1 house, &ich
washilt. Thiswasanranwho~toforaseowrdhouse,
-that-mthef*manditwasWofmaybea
misjudgment of Mr. Wright as to the clients. mybe he didn't spak
t o t h e m e m q h o r ~ t h e m W @ l l ~ t o ~ w h a t ~ ~ d l i k e .
of them wmildntt tale any hmse that he designed. If they didn't
l h it, they ccruld say so. So, .he did rjcanetirrres do a preliminary
again, I dm% )arcrw if held do a third are, (laughter)
Q: While self selection my have mrked in clients who
might dxKwe to care to Wright, it didn't help Wright in zqmehg to
tahm . Thatwasjustanuchmorechancearrd&ort-term
&atid- -1- of m.
A: Well, I occasionally I cnrerheard him talkirq [privately] to a
client. Herdmeet in the -0. It ms an open place, you
knm. I dmlt hm hQW it on, kut itls probably, sare people
came and if they -It sure or he felt thq mren't sure or if he
didn't thhk they mre-thq mde a -, he cauld talk them out of
it. Held say he's too m. Why don't ycru ccaare back in six months or
samethin5f lik that? Wrt I think he took artside of a few
lhthat. IItlean, arrybodywhocametohimand~lyasIsay,
pople -tohim. I met frequrrrtly aftemads. Wewere
isolated cnrt in Arizom and ~iscunsin and after they spake with Mr.
Wright, they just didn't leave, they hq arrxmd, thq ate with us and
soan, Andtheywemshcrwntheplaceandblkdandwhatnat. AMd
they wmld usually say, IWe1ve been waiting a year to decide to came
to Mr. Wright. We didn't know if held do it. We were savirq the
mmq and ke finally gat the sik and m did this & so forth.''
were vary highly mtivatd. Nw, as I say, there my have been a few
the

Q: ATIyUlins else m the -1 hae that was particularly
notewomy?
A: No. It was a very big house. Another apprentie I know
mxpervised it and I saw it undsr mwtmctim, ht I didn't see it
finished.
A: No, nothing special.
Q: Okay.
Q: What about this clinic in -?
A: Yes, that had an -ing-m roof.
-
It was all roof
whmp~caa~euptoit. Abigoverhangingroof thatwasunusual, I
had never worked m a clinic ad so the -itian of the offices
were sort of dwb3y ard ths prelimhuy-I nrean, it's this miroan,
doctorts office, exasninatian raans ard m. Eut then [client]
Dr. Fasaberder had sent a whole list of requireaaante3, y m knav, with
X-ray and size of the m atrd lightirg and whatnot arrd that had to
be fitted in. the ~ ~ i emrmch s of that , is ayerlooked. It's
there lxlt ya can't see it all. Yau assume it can be dme and h
whenyauhavetodome~rkiIxJdrawirrgEi, yrxlhavetomakesure
they're in there because the guy has to have so marry electrid
cortleta and the door swkq ard so forth as he shuwed all Mrrd of
equipment he had in the mans. It gets very practical. Outside of
the striking roof, the a t . part of that project was the fitting in
of all of th@ equipaesrt.
A: I did the pmliminaries an that d that's a cancxlete block hause,
ard I did not do W working dmdq~. It had a swhdrq pool, zuxl I
think that was the first one I did preliminary an. Ja&
helped me. I wish I'd dcne better dmwhqs, but they [the clients]
lilted thPm. I m, they liked Wright's design. The drawJngs -It
the greatest. Doing preliminary drawhqs takes quite an artistic
skill. I was really new at it. lhat was hilt aftemads and I did
not work on the working drawbp. It ms in an orchard. It was a
~ 1 y a*, q a living rmn with a tail of the bedrocars and off the
1iv~~mtheotherdirectionfrarnthe~is.theterra~
withthesw~pool. Ardthatrrassitedinkindoftheslap~

partofth8ordmrd. I~theprelirainarydraw~haddlof
these mwd all wer it, 1 h [large] polka dots all over it.
Q: Did ycru visit the site before yau did the . . .
A: No, we had a toposraphic map and phatosrzlpbs. And that me was
crystal clear, I man, these trees were pr?abably bmty feet apart in
each direction. They just cwered the site. And the tclposraphic mp
dm& yaur cantam arrd you had a highmy dam thsre and Mr. Wright
had pidud the site and dme the sht& for it ard we simply had to
just set the house right m that to make it fit cm to that slop an2
get a driveway in. Thatls what prelhdmries shm, arm of the things
it shms. Not only the plan ard exterior of the house, but where it
is on the site ard haw do yau get to it, particularly in a rural site.
That was relatively q, it was mt difficult.
Q: Huw 1- did ym work an those preliminary drawiryss?
A: Prabably a mek, ten days. I really don't mmrbr.
A: Yes. Usually, Jack Hme cmld do what I did in a wek, he cculd
do in a day and better. There's pirnbably other people samhre in
belxen, ycxlk?ow, maybefKxne~~lUwerthan1. wasn nut much
incentivemhlspart. Heranthedmftingrocgnto~thatout.
He d d just knuck it cut. It might take him bm days, maybe, if yau
wanted to look at it d g h t or ' . HehadworkedwithMr.
mi@t, at that tima, for twmty-fw. He started ha
graduated fmm Evanstm High Schnol in 1931. As I undeYstand the
history, in the middle thirties, he had that
-
hportant role in the
office, so he was quite ycxlrrg d he was just very good he had
worked very closely with Mr. Wright and he was very self effacing,
very nd8s-t. He hew what he cmld do, but his role with Mr. Wright
was very close. So, in a certain sense, of the prelimhq work
~thsgaveaut~givenarttogiveus~ie~#3e, mttogetthe
work done. I nrsan, he had to balame the3e things axt because w@ kere
an aqoirrg amamity arrd he couldn't hog it all. In lllarry cases, he
was aremmrked. He worm m preliminaries and worm draw- and
worked wim Mr. Wright ard so m. Wzt there's rm question about him
needing~todo, lxlt~wEcetheEiej~thathadtobe
madebytheseniorsastowhogotvhichmrkbalancirqbetweenthe
needs of the Fellep. That also af fec?ted us gettiq work aut on
tb. scmnethes do- thirrgs -I&. Wrightls direction
mat~llotinthedmftingm, buildirrgraodels, doing
cmstmction or landscapirrg, which hpt people out of the draftrocanarrdthenthedraftWmfellbehird.
AndtherewEmtinresMr.
might aid, %et this dane =,I1 whatwer it was. And people mdd
have to be mled off to do it. Wrt the -ing was that
while not enqbdyls *let thre mre so rrrarry people there
with a variety of skills and highly motivated, so ycru cauld do that.
He had a very good wor. stxition,
Esld of Tape Three, Side Tm