Wright’s Retreat
There was no music at the Wright-designed visitors center at Taliesen near Spring Green, but we enjoyed lunch there before going across the road to the fascinating house that was a constant work in progress and experimental lab for Wright, who began construction in 1911 and made more than 200 changes over the next 40-plus years.
“He was always experimenting,” said Aron Meudt-Thering, communications coordinator for the Taliesin. “This was his sketchbook. He would try out designs for his clients.”
In addition to living quarters and a living room with sweeping views of the countryside, the main house also has Wright’s studio, where he resurrected his sagging career in the mid-1930s by designing the iconic Johnson Was building in Racine, Wisconsin, and Fallingwater in Pennsylvania.
“This room has a lot of exciting history,” said a guide. “It is where he turned his career around. Those two designs picked him back up to the top. They were designed right here in this room.”
The Taliesin complex also includes the separate multilevel Hillside structure that houses the architecture school Wright founded, still in operation.
“It is still a working community; there are still students on-site,” said Meudt-Thering.
Groups can ride motorcoaches to Hillside, but they must break into smaller groups to ride vans to the main house. Groups have the option of doing both or selecting one.
Wisconsin Originals
Just five miles down the road, the House on the Rock defies architectural comparisons as it continues to change and expand more than 70 years after the late Alex Johnson started what was intended to be a weekend retreat on top of a craggy 60-foot sandstone rock.
The original 14-room house, inventively built in and around the rock’s natural curves and crevices and filled with just some of Johnson’s eclectic collection of items, has been joined by two other large buildings to handle the exotic and whimsical exhibits and displays.
“Colorful” and “exotic” can also be used to describe a visit to Circus World in Baraboo, where the history, thrill and excitement of the circus is lovingly preserved at the former site of the winter quarters for the Ringling Brothers Circus.
The highlight of the large collection of circus memorabilia is the more than 200 brightly colored, restored circus wagons, and visitors can watch wagons being restored. Next door is a fascinating, detailed miniature circus that was handcrafted over a 40-year period by a husband-and-wife team.
This attraction, though, is more than artifacts. Circus World keeps the circus alive with twice-daily seasonal shows under a large red-and-white big-top tent that features an equestrian, an aerialist, clowns, jugglers and two elephants.
