If you're driving from Chicago to Spring Green WI to see Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio at Taliesin, you definitely do a last second swerve onto the exit when the "Racine" sign triggers a memory that this is where Wright designed the headquarters for the SC Johnson Wax Co. Unfortunately we discovered the public has no access to the building, and it's too far from the street even to get a close-up look. But then we're told that Wright also designed a home for the Johnson Wax Co. owner. It's one of the last of his Prairie Style houses, an unbelievable 14,000 square foot house built in 1938-39 that Wright named "Wingspread." Here's the "Great Room," and I do mean Great.
Wright was an overnight guest at the house a few years after it was built. According to legend, he disapproved of the furniture, paintings and prints that the then-current Mrs. Johnson had selected to replace things that Wright himself had installed as part of the original design. He got up in the middle of the night, found his selections in a storage room, and restored as much of his original furniture and paintings/prints as he could before the family woke up. When Mrs. Johnson saw what Wright had done she kicked him out of the house and never allowed him to come back.
More about FLLW to follow.