The Backstory (Replay): Mass murder at the home of an icon of tranquility

On this replay episode: Frank Lloyd Wright, the most famous architect in American history, brought nature and tranquility to design. So how did his chaotic personal life lead to a mass murder at his home? 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
There's always a backstory. I'm Patty Steele. Behind every big
story are fascinating smaller stories, No doubt about it. Frank
Lloyd Wright was a game changing architect. I don't know
one hundred years ago or so, but in a moment,
I'm going to tell you why he was one hot mess.

(00:22):
The guy built spectacular buildings like the kind of tornado
shaped Guggenheim Museum in New York City, and maybe, at
least in my mind, the most beautiful early modern home
ever called Falling Water, built in a forest over a
huge waterfall in Pennsylvania. I'm telling you, you look at
it and you just want to exhale. Oh, it's incredible.

(00:43):
But Frank has a crazy backstory and has nothing to
do with architecture and everything to do with his libido.
It's about Frank's multiple affairs, including one with a married
woman and the mass murderers that followed. Yeah, Frank is
an icon, but he's an icon who's also the ultimate
narcissist and he defines the term hot mess. Okay, it's

(01:07):
nineteen oh three. He's a young architect. He's in Oak Park, Illinois,
which is right near Chicago. He's married, He has six
kids at that point. When his wife brings him a
client who wants him to build a house, Frank takes
the job and he gets to know the wife really well.
Her name is Mema. They become totally obsessed with each other.
A few years go by and the passion only gets

(01:29):
more intense, so intense that they both feel like the
hell with the spouses and the kids. They just want
one thing, and that is to be together. Now. The
problem is it is he early nineteen hundreds, nobody, but
nobody leaves their family for somebody else. But that's what
they do. Frank leaves his wife and all those little kiddies,
and Mama leaves her husband and two toddlers. Of course,

(01:52):
Frank's business begins to dry up, so they decide they
got to get out of town. They meet up in
New York City and hop a ship to Europe. Once there,
Mema works for a Swedish feminist, interpreting her books on
female sexuality, and Frank meantime, takes a really deep dive
into his passion for Japanese art and architecture, which by

(02:13):
the way, actually helps evolve his exquisite style. But then
after a few years he and Mema want to head
back to America. He'd like to re establish his career,
but Chicago is out due to their sketchy reputation, So
they head to Frank's hometown, Spring Green, Wisconsin, and he
builds them an awesome house. He calls it Taliesen, but

(02:36):
the locals there aren't thrilled either. They call it his
love cottage. Who cares, says Frank. In fact, he says,
laws and rules are made for the average. Two women
are necessary for a man of artistic mind, one to
be the mother of his children and the other to
be his inspiration and soulmate. Would a guy? I wonder
how he'd feel if Mema thought the same thing and

(02:57):
needed more than one man. Anyway, it's a beautiful life
for a few years. Finally Frank gets a major job
to build a massive three hundred and sixty thousand square
foot entertainment venue in Chicago. It was called Midway Gardens,
and it's really spectacularly beautiful. It's a triumph for him,
but it means he spends a lot of time away

(03:17):
from home. Now it's August of nineteen fourteen. Frank's in Chicago,
Mema up in spring Green, and her two kids are there,
spending the summer with her working at the house. There's
a husband and wife, Gertrude and Julian. Okay, it's lunchtime.
Mayma and the kids are out on the porch and
six of Frank's students and workers are in the dining room.

(03:39):
Julian serves the meal in the dining room and then
proceeds to lock all the doors and pours gasoline around
the exterior of the dining room, inside and out of
the house clearly nuts. He heads to the porch with
a hatchet flailing away. He slaughters Mama and the children,
actually cleaving Mama's head into vertically right down the middle God.

(04:03):
Next he likes the dining room on fire. Those inside
tried desperately to get out, but remember the doors are locked.
Then they try to jump out the windows, but outside
is Julian with the hatchet chopping away. He kills three
of them. The others had a different way and are burned,
one of them dying a day later, so in all
seven are dead. Only to survive. There's a frantic phone

(04:31):
call to Frank in Chicago. He's in total shock. He
takes the first train north and ironically runs into Mama's
ex husband, also headed north to collect the bodies of
his dead children, and they share a private compartment. Once
in Spring Green, Frank buries Mema in a plain pine
box in his family cemetery, in an unmarked grave. He

(04:52):
actually throws the dirt into the grave with his bare hands.
No one really knows why Julian killed all those people,
because he died weeks later. Despite the tragedy, Frank rebuilds
the house, saying in his autobiography Anguish would not leave
Taliessen until renewal began. Talk about renewal, while he says

(05:13):
in his bio that he grieved Mama's loss for the
rest of his life. Within weeks, we're talking weeks a months,
Frank had already fallen in love again, and over the
course of the next decade or so, he married two
more times. Here's what's ironic about his life. He literally
introduced into architecture this sense of serenity and earthy beauty,

(05:34):
raw wood, stone glass. But his life was red hot
and chaotic. Do you think he was searching through his
art for the piece he could never find in his
personal life.