Hero or Dick - S4., Ep. 7 - Frank Lloyd Wright

Kate returns from a trip to Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob, sending us down a Frank Lloyd Wright rabbit hole. We talk prairie style, open floor plans, organic architecture, and why Wright's ideas still shape the way we live today.

We also dig into the man behind the buildings: scandal, affairs, Taliesin, murder, money troubles, and the question at the heart of the episode—can someone be a hero and still be a dick?

Plus, road trip stories, food stops, travel mishaps, and a Fast Five on vacation destinations.

Hero. Dick. Or both? Tune in and decide.

Thanks for listening!

~ Kate & KJ

Transcript

Going Live And Drink Experiments

SPEAKER_02 0:01

We're live, Kate.

SPEAKER_03 0:03

Yay! Hi everyone.

SPEAKER_02 0:04

I mean this isn't gonna be live for Nobody.

SPEAKER_03 0:07

We're never live for our listeners in Portugal. We're live for people who listen later this afternoon.

SPEAKER_02 0:16

Yep. We're live for posterity.

SPEAKER_03 0:20

We're all live.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

I bet you that in years to come when they're looking at history of the world, we'll be we'll be one of the things they look at.

SPEAKER_03 0:32

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_02 0:33

I don't think so either.

SPEAKER_03 0:35

That's a nice thought. Welcome to Hero Deck.

SPEAKER_02 0:39

Yeah, welcome. You want to know what I'm drinking?

SPEAKER_03 0:40

What are you drinking? Something out of a corksicle. Corksicle.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

So uh my wife made she's she likes iced tea. That's her favorite thing. Unsweetened.

SPEAKER_03 0:53

Okay, mostly.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

Yeah, so she uh been looking for something to make it in. So she finally got it. It's a big old container.

SPEAKER_03 1:00

Like a sun tea? Is that what she's making?

SPEAKER_02 1:02

I don't know. It's in the refrigerator. Maybe it was with the sun one time. But anyway, so I get home and it's in there. She's like, Oh, have all you want. So I'm like, Oh, I try some more pretty good. But as you can tell by the rapid speed that I'm talking, what I've done is I mix it with coffee. It makes like a hat, like a poor man's black and tan, and it tastes great.

SPEAKER_03 1:24

Huh. I have I honestly say I've never tried that.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

I'll have to make one for you.

SPEAKER_03 1:30

Okay. Anyway, I uh let me just say this. We bought some Sprite with tea, and it is delicious.

SPEAKER_02 1:38

Yep, we purchased some of that as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:40

Or Jenna said it looks like tobacco water.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

Tobacco water.

SPEAKER_03 1:44

I'm like, that's maybe that's why I like it.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

I don't know, but it is delicious Did you get off the chewing tobacco thing?

SPEAKER_03 1:51

I did not chew it. I I don't I never chewed tobacco.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Redmond?

SPEAKER_03 1:55

Uh it's not actually I I tried it because you know why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't I? And no, it wasn't for me. My dad had I love nicotine, but not in that form.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

My dad had the three of us, because he chewed tobacco or whatever. We're sitting at Save a lot, but before what it was over there. Kroger.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Mm-hmm. I think it was Kroger.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

Glenn's.

SPEAKER_03 2:18

Then it was Glenn. Glen's, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

So my mom's in there, and we're like, Dad, Dad, you know, can we have some of that? And he's like, Yeah, sure. Oh, go ahead. Oh my god. So we're we got sick. All three of us, man. Burned. I was like, what? But that was a good lesson because guess what?

SPEAKER_03 2:33

Go right ahead.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

Never chewed, never smoked. Man, I'm an angel.

SPEAKER_03 2:37

Yeah, you're like an angel

Road Trip Highlights And Small Mishaps

SPEAKER_03 2:39

then.

SPEAKER_02 2:39

So speaking of angels, Kate decided to come back.

SPEAKER_03 2:43

I'm back from my trip. Yeah. We did a road trip. It was great. We went to Traverse City, went to a fiber fair. Next day went to Grandpa's. Yeah. Did you sell any hats? I could have got a gave some stickers out, but I didn't have any.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

You mean for the show? Yeah. You know, by the way, if people would like a sticker, we could get one for them.

SPEAKER_03 3:09

You can write us in the ass.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

Heroic 2023 at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_03 3:17

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

Anyway, fiber fair.

SPEAKER_03 3:19

Fiberfair and Traverse. Then we went down to Grand Rapids, went to a really cool place called The Dungeon for dinner. Had really interesting drinks.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Was that like a theater dinner or something?

SPEAKER_03 3:31

No, it was just like a literally a dilapidated warehouse, and you go in and there's a there's one restaurant upstairs and downstairs it's the dungeon. And it's just really cool how they have it. I think it's in Kentwood. It's right by Jenna's house. And then um, and I know that because I left my credit card there. Oh boy. On my first day of the trip, I went to use it a couple days later. Oops.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Where were you?

SPEAKER_03 3:58

Uh I was in Cleveland when I found out it was gone, but luckily I have a couple more. So anyway, and Jenna went and picked it up. Thank you, Jenna. And uh so then we spent the night at Jenna's, got to see uh Rachel, best daughter Rachel also, and then from the next day, Jen we got up. Jenna made us a delicious breakfast, and we were on our way to Cleveland, and we went to Cleveland, beautiful city. Cleveland rocks, it really does rock, and it is clean, and yeah, and there's some homeless people and there's some weirdos because it's a city, just like here, and uh yeah, like anywhere, and but it was really clean, very walkable. We went the next day to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Oh, yes, it was very cool, loved it, and uh walked down to the to the water, which would be Lake Erie, I believe, and gorgeous. Um, and then the next day we drove to Pennsylvania in the woods of Pennsylvania, and we went to Frank Lloyd Wright's falling water house, which was very convenient because today's topic is water Frank Lloyd Wright.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

Oh, that's right.

SPEAKER_03 5:10

Water is a big subject. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 5:13

His house is leaked, you know.

SPEAKER_03 5:14

Well, they have some problems. We'll probably talk about that. So we went to his house, falling water is gorgeous, gorgeously redone and restored and taken care of. It's beautiful. And then the next day we went to another one of his houses, which is called Kentuck. And the people who knew uh the Falling Water people, which was the family Kaufman family, who owned a big department store in Pittsburgh, they commissioned Falling Water, and then some friends of their saw and said, Hey, can you build us one not so grand scale? We don't have water, but um, and so he did, and so we went to that house too, and it was gorgeous as well. And then after, well, let me just wrap up the vacation. Then after that, we drove to Monticello, which is Thomas Jefferson's house.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

How's he doing?

SPEAKER_03 6:11

He is dead. Oh, that's he's still dead, but he has uh a nice house, and they've you know, they keep it very nice. Uh the grounds were gorgeous, and he has there's um, you know, um the the dumpies, not vintage, but heritage, heritage seeds that he that they perpetuate. And um it was beautiful, it was freaking hot, it was so hot that day, and then after that we went to uh Norfolk, Virginia. Probably saying that incorrectly.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

No, that sounds right.

SPEAKER_03 6:46

And uh we went to the airport, picked up um two friends, picked up Sal and picked up Lori, and we spent the night there, and then the next day we went to the Outer Banks where we rented this big beautiful house with a pool.

SPEAKER_02 7:01

That's the one you sent me the picture, so right?

SPEAKER_03 7:03

I think so. Brooke was pretty jealous. Uh that pool, man. We got there, it was 93 degrees, and we just all got in the pool. And I'm like, I am getting a pool. I'm getting a pool. I don't care how much it costs to maintain. I'm not getting a pool. But uh why don't you get a pool? Uh it's it's a pain in the ass to maintain them.

SPEAKER_02 7:24

Get a pool boy.

SPEAKER_03 7:25

Oh, maybe. Yeah, and then for for me, we could probably only swim in it three months unless we heated it. He cover it to extend it to about yeah, to about you know, five months, and I don't know, maybe five months. Anyway, it was only around for five months, I think. We were we were uh four houses back from the ocean, so we walked down to the ocean a few times. Beautiful. We can't, I I couldn't swim in it. There were kids swimming in it, but uh and one day it was really windy. They had all the uh the flags up. Don't swim. So um, but that was beautiful and um it was a gorgeous area, it's kind of bougie. I don't think I'd ever want to live there, but it was a great place to visit. One thing we did do was uh we did a wild horses tour where you go on this beach, you get in this truck with like these seats in the back, like a kind of like a you know, Mackinac Island or um it's a tour bus. Okay, but it's four-wheel drive. And we baha you go to this certain beach, and from nine to five, you have to have a permit and four-wheel drive vehicle. You can drive down this beach.

SPEAKER_02 8:39

No kidding.

SPEAKER_03 8:40

And if you get stuck in a tow truck, it's automatic five hundred dollars. So I'd like to be that tow truck company. Yeah, he's the richest man on the beach, is what one of the um people on our tour said. Um, but we had a uh cool tour guide, he was a local gator. That was his name. That was his gator. His name is Tommy, but everybody calls him gator. Yeah, and he was a local, so he gave us lots of local flair, and um we did see wild horses, and a couple of them just had babies, and it was it was a very cool area. And that whole, so there's like a little neighborhood there, and you have to have four-wheel drive to get there. I mean, they're I don't know how they're building these legally, then they should stop building them now because there's too many already. Yeah, but they're just on sand dunes. I mean, one big storm and they're all gone.

SPEAKER_02 9:32

Are they like big houses?

SPEAKER_03 9:33

Oh god, yeah. Even the smallest house. There's a couple small houses, but most of them are you know, sleep 12 or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 9:42

Okay, they're all just rich. They're just big rich people getaway homes.

SPEAKER_03 9:45

They're either rich people getaway homes or rentals.

SPEAKER_02 9:48

I got you.

SPEAKER_03 9:48

Lots of rentals there, many places to rent. So we did that tour that was fun, bah, down the beach, you know, and through that neighborhood, and um, that was a fun tour. And then we came back and uh um we dropped uh Sally and Lori off at the airport uh after five days, and then Beth and I drove back. We went to northern Virginia, went to another fiber fair, cool, and then we drove to Youngstown, Ohio, and then to Gun Lake, which there's a new casino there. That's not a new casino, the the hotel is new, though, and they have a big water park, it was pretty fancy.

SPEAKER_02 10:32

Isn't Youngstown where the baseball no I think that's in Pennsylvania?

SPEAKER_03 10:37

I don't Youngstown. What was in Youngstown? Not much for us, it was just a passerby place for us.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

Okay, no offense, Youngstown.

SPEAKER_03 10:46

No, no, it was it was fine. I think we went to a cracker barrel there. Cracker barrel? Pretty delicious.

SPEAKER_02 10:51

Yep. That's some heavy comfort food right there.

SPEAKER_03 10:54

Oh my god, I had the fried chicken.

SPEAKER_02 10:56

Oh yeah, yeah. Why wouldn't you?

SPEAKER_03 10:58

Well, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 10:59

I might get some KFC today, Kate.

SPEAKER_03 11:01

That's not the same.

SPEAKER_02 11:02

It's all we got, but it is all we have. Have you had the fried chicken at Chi Cheese? Since we were talking about Chi Chi's.

SPEAKER_03 11:10

Because they told me that's the only thing they don't they don't.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

Are you fucking kidding me?

SPEAKER_03 11:13

Did you get it?

SPEAKER_02 11:14

No, I didn't get it. I'm just that's funny. They were talking about chicken.

SPEAKER_03 11:17

Everything there is homemade and it's delicious. And I said, How about your fried chicken? Because you can't get fried chicken anywhere up here.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

Right.

SPEAKER_03 11:24

Anywhere in the north. I don't know why. Um, and she said, you know, that's the only thing we don't make homemade. So I'm like, all right, I'm not gonna get it. Yeah, don't get the chicken.

Favorite Food Stops And Local Spots

SPEAKER_03 11:35

So everything else I've ever had there has been delicious.

SPEAKER_02 11:38

Yeah, Kate comes back. She's she she's like a woman about the world talking about her travels. And I my big thing to share with her, because I haven't seen her in a while, was I went to Chi Cheese for Father's Day. Chi Cheese, by the way, is a restaurant in Roger City, Michigan.

SPEAKER_03 11:52

And it is delicious. Everything I've ever had there has been delicious. They're coconut cream pie.

SPEAKER_02 11:57

Right off 23, easy to find.

SPEAKER_03 11:59

They they make everything down to their jam.

SPEAKER_02 12:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:02

Homemade.

SPEAKER_02 12:03

I think we're and it's so good. Wondering why more people don't go there.

SPEAKER_03 12:07

I don't want people to go there because I can always sit at my table. I have a table there. My booth. I sit in one of those booths. And it's nothing fancy for sure, but that food is so, so good.

SPEAKER_02 12:18

It's great. Yeah. And the help, the people are always oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:22

Everybody in that's that works in there is nice. Homemade toast. I mean, everything. Yeah, everything's great.

SPEAKER_02 12:27

Go to GT Jam.

SPEAKER_03 12:29

But not on the day I want to go.

SPEAKER_02 12:30

Yeah. Um so to see. Well, I got nothing. Oh, I bought a lawnmower.

SPEAKER_03 12:35

Oh, that's boring.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

I want to show you. Uh a riding lawnmower, Kate.

SPEAKER_03 12:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 12:40

A snapper.

SPEAKER_03 12:41

Oh, a snapper. From the why do you have a riding lawnmower? Oh, for a cottage. Yeah. And I'm assuming you have like three inches of yard down.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

I'm assuming that we're gonna have to uh maybe help out some of the folks that have some of our properties one day. And my parents maybe.

SPEAKER_03 13:00

Oh, sure. I just well once you have a riding lawnmower, you can't get off of it. I might open a business. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:04

I'm not even kidding you.

SPEAKER_03 13:06

Do you like say do you put the headphones on and just ride and ride and ride?

SPEAKER_02 13:09

I like mowing lawn. Yeah. I like weed whipping. I was gonna say whack, but I don't think you can say that anymore.

SPEAKER_03 13:14

I think you can. I'm gonna say a whack.

SPEAKER_02 13:17

I like weed whacking. But wait, I gotta catch up on some stuff too.

Publishing Wins And The Submission Grind

SPEAKER_02 13:21

Hold on. That's it. That's uh oh, did you see it got published in Fiction Addict Press?

SPEAKER_03 13:28

Well, I knew it was coming up. Did it happen?

SPEAKER_02 13:31

Oh, that one happened. And then I have two more coming. The MacGuffin. Oh, look at you. JMWW. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:38

So check those out. So same again.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

Well, they're not out yet. One is Fiction Addict Press published my short story Glow, which is awesome.

SPEAKER_03 13:45

Is it online? The book devoted to or is it just print?

SPEAKER_02 13:49

No, I think it's both. And then um the MacGuffin that I'll keep talking about that one because I thought that's cool. That's coming up in August. They're publishing a short story called Kill Deer, and then um good legit little journal called JMWW, and I can't remember what it stands for, but they're publishing um oh, a poem called Inheritance.

SPEAKER_03 14:08

Oh which wow, yeah. This is 2026 is your year of publishing.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

Yeah, had to wait till it's 53 years old to get sometimes it takes that long.

SPEAKER_03 14:20

I can't remember how many, but Stephen King got rejected for Carrie. Yeah, I mean Carrie took that one out of the garbage or something. Yeah, and um, yeah, she picked it out of the garbage, he threw it away because it had been been rejected so many times, like a hundred. Yeah, it was some stupid amount of upmer. And like just we're just gonna keep trying.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

How it's different now. Like it's a lot easier to submit now. You go to submittable, you do it online. Stephen King and all those folks before were printing the shit.

SPEAKER_03 14:51

Printing it and mailing it, and probably mimeographing it. Oh my god. Because that was the 70s, and then mailing it out, getting the rejection.

SPEAKER_02 15:00

Yeah, yeah, that's harsh. People were tougher. Probably. Well, probably inefficient, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 15:08

I don't know. I don't know, but I'm glad that she picked it out of the trash because that began his career, really. Yeah, and he was pretty old then. He wasn't 53, but he was late 30s, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 15:20

I think 53 is not old.

SPEAKER_03 15:22

I'd have to fact check that. It's not old, but I'm not gonna. It was not as old as you are now, is what I'm trying to say.

SPEAKER_02 15:29

But Stephen King also writes things that people want to read. That's something I haven't mastered yet. So well three, yeah, three. Yeah, but they're anyway. Our topic, Frank.

Why Frank Lloyd Wright Still Matters

SPEAKER_03 15:40

Frank Lloyd Wright. Lloyd Wright. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

All right, let's go.

SPEAKER_03 15:44

I have always loved his um architecture and uh at him as a person. We'll talk about it. When we went to his houses, though, the tour guy, and it's so nice to go with somebody, even if you know about them, and you could walk around and kind of know stuff, but this guy, Robert, he knew so much more about him that that I didn't realize. And when you walk into one of his rooms, and he does this with a lot of his houses, if not all of them, it's he called it compressed. So you kind of closed in and then it opens up. Release, compress, release. So every time we were walking into a room, it was like, yeah, it's compressed, and then released, because then you get like uh then you get a good feeling, you know?

SPEAKER_00 16:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:39

And he was maybe like the king of the built-ins, I'm gonna say.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Yeah, that's what I read.

SPEAKER_03 16:46

He liked to have well, and the reason he did it is because he liked control of everything.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 16:50

You can pick out the wrong couch, dude. Yeah, no, I'll pick that out for you. I will put it right here. Don't even think about it.

SPEAKER_02 16:58

And there are, I mean, he did some furniture, you have to have dining room furniture and such, but it sounded like he was a master of his art form, a genius in that aspect, but difficult to work with.

SPEAKER_03 17:12

Yes, because he did have an ego. And some people say ego, some people say confidence, some people said narcissist. And narcissist, I think it's the popular ego. But I do think he always wanted control of stuff because he had it, he had it in his mind. Here's how I want it. I don't I don't want to hear how you want it, right? Homeowner, right, or you know, person who commissioned me. He got in many fights with his clients.

SPEAKER_02 17:38

Well, because I'm assuming he created the structure, what it looks like, the feeling, and so he knows what should be in it to complete that feeling.

SPEAKER_03 17:48

Yes, yeah, and he used many, I mean, the details are uh uh are amazing, stained glass and just like woodworking details that you wouldn't have noticed if he didn't put it in, but because it it's in there, it's like wow, that makes it 10 steps above where it was.

SPEAKER_02 18:08

Um started a whole design phase or craze, or now it's it's part of our culture now, but a lot of people tried to do the same type of mid-century modern, whatever it was called uh arts and crafts, mid-century modern.

SPEAKER_03 18:24

He was almost before mid-century modern, really. But arts and crafts and and uh what's the name of it? Utopia? No. Oh, you so you sort of so that but that's the name of his his um houses that he did. But he was he was born in June of 1867, and he died in uh 1959. So he was around for quite a while.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

91 or something?

SPEAKER_03 18:52

91 years old. Yeah, you can do the math there. And he um so his early in his career, he worked in Chicago for uh a famous architectural firm, Alder and Sullivan. And he was heavily influenced by Lewis Sullivan. So if you go back and look at Sullivan stuff, you can see how he form picked that follows function.

SPEAKER_02 19:17

Those new glasses, too.

SPEAKER_03 19:19

No, these are cheaters.

SPEAKER_02 19:20

Oh, those look good.

SPEAKER_03 19:21

Oh, thanks. Um, and then in nine, or I'm sorry, we're still in 1893. 1893. I mean, that's a long time ago. He opened his own practice in Chicago and he used a variety of traditional styles. He didn't quite have his you know, niche yet. He didn't have it. And then um in um people on the street, be quiet. There was a lot of them in 1893 through 1900, he kind of shifted away from Victorian style and he starts experimenting with his geometric shapes, the open floor plan. I it love or hate it, we I do believe we have him to thank for the open floor plan.

SPEAKER_02 20:03

I like the open floor plan.

SPEAKER_03 20:05

Well, I like parts of it, but if you're you know, I hate on those on the HGTV shows, which I watch many of them. I want the open floor plan because when we're entertaining, it's like you entertain like two times a year. Yeah. What about the real life when all the dishes are sitting there and you gotta look at them? No. So I'm not opposed to there being a little wall by the kitchen. Um, but he did uh kind of invent the open floor plan, and he was very influenced by Japanese roof lines, and so when you look at his roof lines, you you can kind of see that. Um then he moved into the prairie school era, which is like 1900 and 1914. He completes the foundational prairie style houses. Um that's when his characterized by low-pitched roofs, horizontal lines, harmony with nature

Taliesin Scandal, Murder, And Fire

SPEAKER_03 21:06

and landscapes. Yes, that is also when tragedy struck.

SPEAKER_02 21:10

What's the name of that? Taleson? Taleson. I want to go to that. Wisconsin.

SPEAKER_03 21:15

Um there's a couple different ones. There's one in Scottsdale, is the West one.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

But this one in Wisconsin.

SPEAKER_03 21:21

The original one is in Wisconsin.

SPEAKER_02 21:23

That was his uncle's farm, right? And he decided to build on it.

SPEAKER_03 21:26

And he built onto it, and that's also where the the fire was. Well, the murder, and then the murder and the fire. Should we talk about that now?

SPEAKER_02 21:36

Yeah. Okay. Oh, wait. We forgot the in the beginning when he was working for Sullivan and whatever.

SPEAKER_03 21:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:43

He actually got fired from there because he was working on the side designing homes for people.

SPEAKER_03 21:48

Oh, head of side.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

It was a breach of contract.

SPEAKER_03 21:52

Um, people don't like that.

SPEAKER_02 21:53

No. Anyway, yeah, Wisconsin.

SPEAKER_03 21:56

So he was married a few times, too. I think we have to mention that. Before we go into the only three. Yeah, that's a good thing. I mean uh you know, I'm almost there. Um in between though, after his first wife, he was married to Kitty. And he ran away with the client's wife. So that's never professional.

SPEAKER_02 22:23

No, I wonder if he got paid for that job. Uh I guess you got the wife. He got the woman.

SPEAKER_03 22:28

Yeah, he owes. So he ran away with uh Mama Mama. Mama. M-A-M-A-H Mama Borthwick Cheney. She was a translator and also a feminist scholar.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 22:42

And they had a scandalous affair. I mean, it was all over the news. They lived together at the Talison until her tragic murder. He was out of town. She was there with her two kids. No, I think they were her two kids already. I don't think they had kids together. And there were some other people there, and a disgruntled butler slash handyman.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 23:08

What's his name? I didn't write his name down because I didn't want to give him any credit. No, it was pretty horrible. But yeah, he locked the door.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

Did he take an axe to them or something?

SPEAKER_03 23:16

Yeah, first he locked, well, yeah. So he locked the doors and windows of the Talison living quarters, and then he set the building on fire and attacked her and her two kids and some other peoples with a hatchet.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

It's not nice.

SPEAKER_03 23:29

And he killed, like, he killed her, two kids, and four other people. Well, I'm not sure if he killed the other people or if they died in the fire, but he had locked them in. And then did he die?

SPEAKER_02 23:42

Oh, just yeah, no. Yeah, I think he did. He's didn't. I think he did too. Yeah, he died in the fire, I think.

SPEAKER_03 23:47

So um that happened to Frank Lloyd, right?

SPEAKER_02 23:52

Horrible.

SPEAKER_03 23:53

And oh devastating.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

And then he spent his life try trying to re life trying to rebuild it. And then in 1925, it burned again from electrical. No, it was probably the evil spirits upon that property, man.

SPEAKER_03 24:03

Probably.

SPEAKER_02 24:05

Ugh.

SPEAKER_03 24:06

Yeah, so they they it's kind of in bad mojo there.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:09

I did want to mention, too, of his first wife. He had six kids. He wasn't always good to his daughters because that was the generation that but which was hilarious because he was with a feminist. Yeah, so he either really championed women or beat them down.

SPEAKER_02 24:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:27

I mean, but one of his kids, John, uh not Junior. Junior was an architect. Uh John was the second one. He invented Lincoln Logs. Shut up. Thank you, John. I love Lincoln logs. Oh my God. And then he had Catherine, David, Francis, and Robert. A lot of kids. Yeah. Yep. Lincoln logs, though. So without Frank Lloyd Wright, we would have no Lincoln logs.

SPEAKER_02 24:53

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 24:54

That's saving. And then, so after Mama, I don't know how to say her name.

SPEAKER_02 25:00

I think you say it right.

SPEAKER_03 25:02

Uh, after she perished, he did Perished.

SPEAKER_02 25:05

I like that, Kate.

SPEAKER_03 25:06

Take up with I I didn't even steal that one. That's not quite dry.

SPEAKER_02 25:12

That was a you've got quite the vocabulary.

SPEAKER_03 25:14

He took up with Maud, aka Miriam. She was an artist, highly volatile. She I think she had an opium issue.

SPEAKER_02 25:24

Oh, perfect.

SPEAKER_03 25:25

Which, you know, yeah. Can break you or make you.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

Things happen.

SPEAKER_03 25:31

It broke her. And then he did marry Olga, and they had a kid together. She had a daughter too. She was a stabilizing influence on his life, and he was married to her till the day he died.

SPEAKER_02 25:45

Can't mess with anybody anymore.

SPEAKER_03 25:46

Maybe, you know, they didn't get married till later, 1928. So by then he had been through, you know, a divorced wife, a wife, well, he never married her, but a partner who died, and then an opium wife, so maybe he's ready to just like be settled.

SPEAKER_02 26:02

I wonder if the choice in his partners was a reflection of his mindset in life at the time, you know what I mean? He finally got to the point where he was like looking for someone more normal.

SPEAKER_03 26:12

I wonder if he married Kitty for her money. I think she had some money. Yeah, because she didn't want, she wasn't gonna give him a divorce. She didn't give him a divorce. He's like, I want a divorce. She's like, hey, fuck you.

SPEAKER_02 26:22

Yeah, you're not getting it. He uh wasn't so good with money.

SPEAKER_03 26:25

No, he was not.

SPEAKER_02 26:26

No. Bad investments and just blowing it on stuff.

SPEAKER_03 26:31

He liked to spend it or invest it. And they said that he would spend a head to m to uh show the lifestyle and right to to kind of live a lifestyle that he wasn't quite at yet. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:46

So it goes.

SPEAKER_03 26:47

And so um let's go back to so we covered his prairie school era, harmony with nature and landscape. I I think that he he at least at falling the the house I've been to three of his houses

Career Comebacks From Tokyo To NYC

SPEAKER_03 27:01

and they all show that even the one that was in the city that was in in in Grand Rapids. There's a uh beautiful house called Mayer, what's it called? Meyer May Meyer May House. And it is free to tour, but they sell out. Where's that? It's in Grand Rapids, right downtown Grand Rapids. Beautiful house.

SPEAKER_02 27:24

What if it was near the dungeon?

SPEAKER_03 27:26

It was not near the dungeon. I guess you said Kent Woodmore. Yeah, that was more Kentwood. This is downtown GR, but it was uh we went last summer and it was gorgeous. But I wanted to go in June. I couldn't get tickets till August. So I had to go back in August to go to it. It was gorgeous, so it was worth it.

SPEAKER_02 27:45

So then in the 30s, you would say that's where his comeback was?

SPEAKER_03 27:50

Um with the falling away. And maybe even before then, because he had the Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois, that's where he started using exposed and poured concrete, and that started something with him too. Now, rumor has it, he was um buddies with Jesse Besser from Alpina, Michigan. Oh, and because the Besser block machines, he would use, you know, that product. Gotcha. I I can't prove that.

SPEAKER_02 28:20

I won't. Let's keep it though.

SPEAKER_03 28:21

And if you if you look at the Besser House, the the first one.

SPEAKER_02 28:26

And wait, you're talking about the one on First Avenue?

SPEAKER_03 28:28

Yeah, first, and then there's another one just on, I think it's on Dunbar, right around the corner from that one. You can see his it I don't think he um there's some he didn't design them, but there's some influence, and maybe even somebody that he trained designed them.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

I can't really look at the one is for sale. It is that's on our list.

SPEAKER_03 28:52

How much is it?

SPEAKER_02 28:53

$8.95.

SPEAKER_03 28:54

Is that the one on First Street?

SPEAKER_02 28:56

Yeah. It's gorgeous.

SPEAKER_03 28:58

It's pretty pretty.

SPEAKER_02 28:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:59

Okay, well, let me know if you move in there. I'll just move into a room you'll never know because there's so many many rooms. So then in 1909, what happened? He finishes the Frederick Roby House in Chicago, and that's a very famous house, too. And that was probably the pinnacle of his prairie house period. He's got lots of Chicago-based, and there's lots in Michigan too. There's one in Midland. Midland has a lot of influential. They have at least one by him, and then influential ones in the Grand Rapids area, too. Chicago has a ton of them. Um, so then he then he moved on to his global work and the personal tragedy, which we talked about that. He began building his personal estate, the Tallyason, uh, in Spring Green, Wisconsin. And then that all kind of ended though, uh, 1914 when they had that fire and the murders. Um, and then after that, though, he spent some time in Japan and he designed the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. And because of its floating foundation, it famously survives the devastating 1923 Great Kanto earthquake.

SPEAKER_02 30:27

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 30:28

Because it had a floating, floating foundation. I don't know if he knew that going into it. You know, that they had to know there was lots of earthquakes. There was always an earthquake there. Um, in the 20s is when he really lulled. You know, he wasn't getting major commissions, he had financial difficulties. Can't remember which wife he was on then. Maybe he was in between. But he did kind of hit a low. And then he um then he founded uh so in the 30s he founded the Talison Fellowship, which was the uh in Wisconsin, but I think also no in 37 he began the Tallison West in Scottsdale, where he trained workers there too.

SPEAKER_02 31:17

He got some uh you know, they got criticized he got criticism uh because he said that the fellowship was kind of maybe just to make some people do some work for him.

SPEAKER_03 31:28

Well, right. So do you want to be his apprentice and earn uh I don't even know what they earned, a little if nothing. Maybe, maybe nothing, but but they got to work with him. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 31:42

That's kind of a you get back in your compressed room.

SPEAKER_03 31:45

Go back to your cubicle. Um in 1935, though, he did Falling Water in Mill Run, Pennsylvania, and that was um that was kind of his comeback, I would say. Organic architecture. Yeah, and uh you saw the pictures, I did, and you can see the pictures, and it is just amazing when you're on that. So you walk into the compressed, and then you open up into this big living area. It's all open. There's a beautiful fireplace, and it's just gorgeous detail. There's um doors that go out to the um what you see over the water, the big uh deck, and then there's these steps that go right into the water. Yeah, but they're not to go into the water. That's creating there's no air conditioning, right? In 30, whatever, 35. Uh that's creating the natural cooling of the air. So you open that up and it cools the room off.

SPEAKER_02 32:48

Smart guy. He was you see that house though, and today you would think it's AI generated. It's perfect, it does.

SPEAKER_03 32:55

And it's not without its problems. It was when it was built, you know, immediately, almost immediately, it needed some structural support. But, you know, it's okay, 35. So we're, you know, almost a hundred years later, and it's still there. It's not going anywhere.

SPEAKER_02 33:14

The dude built a place that withstood an earthquake. No, like that's phenomenal. Well, what about the Guggenheim or whatever?

SPEAKER_03 33:24

The Guggenheim was kind of his his swan song. That was his final masterpiece, the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. I've never been there.

SPEAKER_00 33:33

Nor have I.

SPEAKER_03 33:34

Um, I'm told it's beautiful. Um, I'm also told though it's kind of weird for your museum because it's more the building than because you gotta go around and then you're on one floor and then you go around and another floor. You follow that spiral up. Um, the other thing he did in the late 30s was the Yusonian house concept, which was uh meant to be affordable, efficient, and stylish for the middle class. So it's kind of like a modular homes is how the tour guide was explaining it to us. He said he wanted to make it and he could make some money off of it too.

SPEAKER_02 34:15

Smart. You got that's where you got your car ports, open kitchens, yeah, car ports, built-in furniture that you're talking about. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03 34:22

Mm-hmm. Middle classers, middle classers could afford it. So aesthetically, you know, perfection. I think. I mean, I can see where some people don't like it. It's not, you're not gonna put all your knickknacks out and have it look cute in there. Right. It's just not that kind of a house.

SPEAKER_02 34:42

It's minimalist.

SPEAKER_03 34:43

It's more a minimalist and and everything because it's built in, it's like done. Just throw a pillow there and you're you're looked in, you know. Um, he didn't always think uh to me, when you look at the kitchens in the house, you can tell that the houses were built for the people who commissioned the house, not for their staff.

SPEAKER_00 35:05

I got you.

SPEAKER_03 35:06

And if you could commission him, you had a staff. So maybe the kitchen was in another whole building. Um the the not the falling water one, but the what's

Beauty Versus Maintenance In His Houses

SPEAKER_03 35:18

the other one? Nub, nutnubs, uh, Kentuck Nob. That one had a pretty functional kitchen because those people were wanted it. And that the woman who I don't have their names who who commissioned it, she went back and forth with him a lot. And and sometimes she got her way and sometimes she didn't. And I couldn't believe when you you're in the hills of Pennsylvania, there's this gorgeous spot that overlooks the valley. It's just beautiful. But that's and that's where they wanted the house. And he said, no, we're gonna move it back a bit. Because you can always walk here and look at this beauty. But he wanted you know, he wanted it where he wanted it. That was gonna be the best place for it, and so they put it there.

SPEAKER_02 36:09

He wanted the house to be the focal point instead of the instead of the view.

SPEAKER_03 36:13

And it would have been perfect if they put it there. It was just beautiful, beautiful. And the you know, the the practicality is not always there for the structural features. Um, they leak, they the the materials don't always work, the drainage isn't great, high, high maintenance costs. But like I said, if you're commissioning him, you have a staff and you have a maintenance guy taking care of stuff. Um the overhangs, like in falling water, that sagged and needed stabilization almost immediately. He liked flat roofs, and those are fine in Arizona, but you know what? You don't do them in Michigan unless you have heated and even then sketchy uh drainage was a big problem. Yeah, yeah. But okay, so I went to um two houses this vacation, and here's your souvenir from like a Tuck knob. It's a fancy, fancy pencil.

SPEAKER_02 37:17

Nice, thank you. I'm never gonna use it, Kate.

SPEAKER_03 37:22

You can use it. There's a little notebook too, because I know you need notebooks. Look at you. That's not from there. I have that one. Well, thank you. Or I got it.

SPEAKER_02 37:30

I gotta start doing something, Kate. You get travel gifts for us.

SPEAKER_03 37:33

No, why don't you go somewhere and get me a gift? What do you want?

SPEAKER_02 37:36

What do you want? I'll bring you back some fried chicken from somewhere.

SPEAKER_03 37:40

Uh I would say yes to fried chicken from somewhere, but not KFC.

SPEAKER_02 37:44

I have to keep it fresh.

SPEAKER_03 37:46

So, what else do you have to say about it? You said everything, Kate. I think we know how I feel about him. Um, and I think it's kind of the general consensus on him. Yeah, he was a big ego, and um he could champion women or knock them down and abandon them like the first wife. And I don't think that's cool that he abandoned all his kids, just kind of wrote them off, and then you know, I think a lot of men do that though, and probably women too, but more men. No, it's mostly that their um, you know, their first families, they don't really know how to do a family. And by the third time, he had a kid, and he was very close to that daughter, and you know, loved to show her off and loved to, you know, be with her. And he just wasn't that kind of dad to the six kids.

SPEAKER_02 38:35

Right.

SPEAKER_03 38:36

But we got lincols.

SPEAKER_02 38:38

Yeah, we did, and some great architecture that maybe isn't as functional as it should be.

SPEAKER_03 38:43

Yes. He also, um the last thing I want to mention about him was in the 40s during the war, he was an outspoken pacifist. And he really thought that we shouldn't enter the war. Gotcha. And um uh J. Edgar Hoover had a file. That's all I'm saying.

SPEAKER_02 39:02

Oh boy. You would have had a file. Uh I would have you have a file now, that's right.

unknown 39:10

Probably.

SPEAKER_02 39:11

You do.

SPEAKER_03 39:12

No, I don't. You do. I don't, but uh uh, if I do, who kisses a show?

SPEAKER_02 39:18

Who cares?

SPEAKER_03 39:18

Nobody cares.

SPEAKER_02 39:20

Um yeah, I uh it's too it's like everybody else we talk about. Well, not everybody, some are just dicks, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 39:26

But this guy he did many heroish things, but he wasn't always a hero in real life, and he did act dickish to his family and to a lot of his clients too, but they kept coming back. So I'm gonna I guess they just accepted that. Yeah, you know, if you want to work with them, it's not gonna be easy, but you get a falling ri waterhouse. Yeah, you know, so it's a trade-off.

SPEAKER_02 39:50

I I'm gonna say he's a dick.

SPEAKER_03 39:52

I mean, just because?

SPEAKER_02 39:54

No, because he seemed like a dick.

SPEAKER_03 39:56

He he was kind of stuffed some dickish things, but he had a hero for architecture. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:03

As a human, probably a dick.

SPEAKER_03 40:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:05

Probably he kind of seemed like he did turn it around when he was older. But that's what happens.

SPEAKER_03 40:10

People mellow when they're getting old. Some people mellow when they get older. Yeah. Okay. So that's what we think on. Right. Uh Frank Lloyd Wright, you are welcome to email us your opinion at HarrowRDick2023 at Gmail. Yes. Now for Fast Five.

Fast Five Vacation Places Debate

SPEAKER_02 40:26

Fast Fives.

SPEAKER_03 40:27

I know you don't have any.

SPEAKER_02 40:28

I didn't bring one on purpose, Kate.

SPEAKER_03 40:30

So I I have some and it's vacation places.

SPEAKER_02 40:33

All right.

SPEAKER_03 40:34

Okay. So here's the first one. Are you drinking your coffee tea slurry? Man, that is. What are you gonna call that?

SPEAKER_01 40:42

Coffee tea slurry.

SPEAKER_03 40:43

Coffee or tea?

SPEAKER_02 40:47

Coti.

SPEAKER_03 40:48

Koti. I know that sounds bad. Nobody's gonna want to drink ko tea. We gotta work on that. Send your suggestions or email. Okay, here's the f fast five vacation places, Grand Canyon.

SPEAKER_02 41:03

I haven't been there.

SPEAKER_03 41:04

Oh, you better go.

SPEAKER_02 41:05

Hero.

SPEAKER_03 41:05

It is a hero because it the pictures don't do it justice. You can look at the pictures and go, wow, that's great. And then you go there and go, holy fuck. That is really a big hole.

SPEAKER_00 41:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:17

And don't get people when you go there, don't get close to the edge.

SPEAKER_00 41:21

They do.

SPEAKER_03 41:22

They'd fall over. Like every year, I can't remember how many we'd have to look it up. They lose like four or five people every year.

SPEAKER_02 41:30

Are they usually wives?

SPEAKER_03 41:32

Uh no, but there has been some there's been some shady shit. Shady stuff going on. No, it's usually people taking a selfie. It's like, have you never heard of Photoshop? It's not a thing anymore, probably, but how about Mackinac Island?

SPEAKER_02 41:50

It's so played. That's because we're from Euro. Yeah, I think it's kind of a trick, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:55

Cassidy just texted me she's going there for work. $150 for three of them to get on the island.

SPEAKER_02 42:02

Just for the ferry?

SPEAKER_03 42:03

For the ferry.

SPEAKER_02 42:04

Oh, that's right. They had a big thing about that.

SPEAKER_03 42:06

$41 a piece plus $15 for parking.

SPEAKER_02 42:10

It doesn't sound like a good family, like a regular family.

SPEAKER_03 42:13

Oh my gosh. You'd have yeah, that's not. What if you have four kids? People can't do shit now. I know, it's too expensive. And Manton Island is it's not like it used to be. I know it makes me sound like an old crotchety person, but no, you're right.

SPEAKER_02 42:26

It's like you got two sidewalks, it's always packed. The show stores are all the same. I don't drink anymore. It was fun if you drank, go to the spend the night.

SPEAKER_03 42:36

Um we used to go there and spend the night when Cassidy worked there, and and it was fun.

SPEAKER_02 42:41

But we're just old.

SPEAKER_03 42:43

Maybe there's a lot of cruise ships that go there now. Oh boo. I mean, good for we like the cruise ships to come to Alfina. Yeah. Just not in the case.

SPEAKER_02 42:52

I mean, good for the businesses on Mackinac Island, but good on them.

SPEAKER_03 42:55

How about Las Vegas?

SPEAKER_02 42:57

You love Vegas.

SPEAKER_03 42:59

I've only been there one time. I enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_02 43:01

I didn't think I would, but I thought it was I'm gonna say hero because we did we did a thing about it, didn't we?

SPEAKER_03 43:06

Uh did we do it? Uh probably.

SPEAKER_02 43:09

Did we do Vegas?

SPEAKER_03 43:10

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 43:12

I thought it wasn't that long ago.

SPEAKER_03 43:13

Did you get married there?

SPEAKER_02 43:14

No. Oh I got married at Mackinac Island. No, I didn't.

SPEAKER_03 43:18

I did not. How about Orlando? No. No, I'd say no. But I'm done with uh all the theme parks too. Some people love Orlando.

SPEAKER_02 43:28

Yeah, if you want to go have a good time. Well, if you want to go. If you do, if you like a theme park. Again, though. How do you afford it? Yeah. Yeah. You can fly to the fucking Caribbean and stay at an all-inclusive resort cheaper than you can fly to Florida, California, and do something locally or in the United States. That's sad.

SPEAKER_03 43:48

Yeah, it is sad. Um, I know some people who went to Disney World, Japan because it was cheaper than going to Disney World, Orlando. Come on. It's true. Okay, last one. That's awesome, though. New York City.

SPEAKER_02 44:03

You know, still I like it. Hero. Hero. I've been there once or twice, but not.

SPEAKER_03 44:08

I have never been there.

SPEAKER_02 44:10

It's wild. Times square.

SPEAKER_03 44:13

Oh, I need to go, I think.

SPEAKER_02 44:15

But then again.

SPEAKER_03 44:16

Yeah, lots of money.

SPEAKER_02 44:17

But you got it. Your book deal, your movie.

SPEAKER_03 44:20

Now right now I'm I'm out. I'm tapped out for the month.

SPEAKER_02 44:24

You better head back to the Gun Lake Casino.

SPEAKER_03 44:27

Oh, they did not do me well. No. That was up, like almost 150 bucks, and then we lost it all. But it's sham. It is. It's such a stupid. But it's fun. I like sitting there pulling the left. And as long as you, yeah, I like the old school ones. Um, as long as you go in there and say, okay, I have fifty dollars to lose, I will see them 15 minutes, you're done. But you gotta know your limit. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 44:55

You can't I go and I I I win 50 bucks, I spend 50. I say, Man, I'm 50 up, I'm gonna keep playing. And then I lose the 50, and I'm like, Oh, I only came here with 50 anyway, and I keep playing.

SPEAKER_03 45:06

You need to do the math on that again. But all right,

Casino Math And Closing

SPEAKER_03 45:10

everybody.

SPEAKER_02 45:10

Yeah, thanks.

SPEAKER_03 45:12

Well we might have another episode. Yeah, well I'm I'm in town though. I'm here for the duration. All right. All right, thanks everybody.

SPEAKER_02 45:19

Bye.