Tag Archives: Road Scholar

Golden Light at Unitarian Meeting House

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© Mark Hertzberg (2025)

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It was an overcast, uninspiring day to photograph Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unitarian Meeting House in Madison, Wisconsin. I was helping lead my 26th Wright tour for guests from Road Scholar, and had decided to leave my “real” camera on the bus. After all, what would I see different on my umpteenth visit on a gray day? Given the dank sky, I took only my phone with me. The light changed dramatically at 5:06 p.m. when the sun unexpectedly broke through the clouds. I started photographing the original church building while the guests were looking at the 2008 Atrium addition designed by Kubala Washatko Architects, Inc. One of them called me over to show me the reflection of the church in the windows of the Atrium. Bingo! Thank you, Ned, for calling me over to tell me that the pattern of the windows made you think of the Pyrex-glass tubing you had seen yesterday at SC Johnson in Racine!

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Links:

Unitarian Meeting House

https://www.unitarianmeetinghouse.org

Road Scholar Illinois / Wisconsin weeklong tour…come join us, we have five dates scheduled for 2026:

https://www.roadscholar.org/find-an-adventure/22976/Architectural-Masterworks-of-Frank-Lloyd-Wright

Please scroll down for earlier articles on this website.

The Coda to Hardy House Rehabilitation

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© Mark Hertzberg (2024)

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When the late Eugene (Gene) Szymczak considered buying Frank Lloyd Wright’s Thomas P. Hardy House in Racine, Wisconsin in 2012 he told me, “I don’t have children. This is something [save the house] I could do for Racine.” Indeed he did. He undertook a heroic rehabilitation and stabilization of the house.* Gene, left of center in the photo below, was awarded the prestigious Wright Spirit Award by the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy  for his work on the house in 2015. He died unexpectedly a year later after an illness.

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The house stayed in the family after Gene’s death. Tom Szymczak is one of Gene’s brothers. Tom recently completed a project which, he told me, was the last thing Gene wanted to accomplish at the house. The house was built with two pocket doors. They were replaced by conventional, hinged plain wood doors by the third stewards of the house, David and Mary Archer, between 1947 and 1957:

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Gene decided to put pocket doors back in the house in 2013. He chose sliding glass patio-style doors so he could look into the two courtyards from the entry hall. The heavy metal arms that opened and closed the pocket doors were left in place, and were found in 2013:

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The house was built with leaded glass windows throughout, including in the dramatic two-story living room overlooking Lake Michigan. Anne Ruetz, whose parents were second stewards of the house (1938 – 1947) told me her parents replaced the windows with plain glass ones because the original ones leaked. When Gene put in energy efficient windows he jokingly told me that the next owners of the house could bear the expense of replicating Wright’s window design. Little did he know, of course, that he would be shifting the burden to his brother. 1908 photographs, which are used courtesy of the OA + D Archives, show the original leaded glass living room windows:

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Instead of replicating the design in the living room, Gene intended to have the design fashioned for the pocket doors. The work was completed earlier this month, with window inserts made by Oakbrook Esser of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. The installation photos show Tom Szymczak, left, and master craftsman Chad Nichols:

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Thank you, Gene, for your gift to our community and to the World of Wright!

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The first people outside of family and friends to see the new windows will be 17 members of a Road Scholar Wright tour next Wednesday. They will be followed by several hundred people attending Wright in Wisconsin’s “Wright and Like” tour Saturday September 7.

*The term “rehabilitation” is appropriate, rather than “restoration,” because there were some changes to the house. “Restoration” would infer house museum status, accurate to either the day Hardy moved into the house (1906) or left it (in 1938) after losing it at sheriff’s auction because of monies owed on the house.

Links:

Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy:

www.savewright.org

Wright and Like Tour:

https://wrightinwisconsin.org/wright-and-2024

Road Scholar Architectural Masterworks of Frank Lloyd Wright Tour (run 4 or 5 a year)

https://www.roadscholar.org/find-an-adventure/22976/Architectural-Masterworks-of-Frank-Lloyd-Wright

Please scroll down to read previous posts

My Wright Eye – May 2024

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Photos © Mark Hertzberg (2024)

I had a half hour wait before meeting 22 guests coming from coast-to-coast to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Thomas P. Hardy House on their weeklong Road Scholar tour (I am with the group as a Road Scholar guide for three days on these tours, as they travel through Racine, Milwaukee, Madison, and Spring Green). I have been in the house countless times, including leading 14 of these tours. While I try to see something new on every visit to a familiar Wright design, I did not think there was anything new to see in the house.  I had already played Wordle and my other daily games phone games. I had already looked at my emails. I plopped down in a chair in the living room and looked up. I looked up some more and then I knew what I had to do…I had to lie down on the floor and start taking pictures of the ceiling.

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Then I walked over to the stairs and looked up at the second floor:

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When I then went outside to greet the bus, I saw reflections of Wright’s leaded glass front hallway windows and their reflected images in a new way:

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Today, as our guests toured Wright’s American System-Built duplex at 2132/34 W. Burnham Street in Milwaukee, I looked down instead of up. The duplex is being restored with help from a Save Americas Treasures grant. These are the back stairs:

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On-line links:

Road Scholar’s “Architectural Masterworks of Frank Lloyd Wright tour:

https://www.roadscholar.org/find-an-adventure/22976/Architectural-Masterworks-of-Frank-Lloyd-Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Burnham Block:

http://wrightinmilwaukee.com

Please continue to scroll down to view and read previous posts

Waking Up My Wright Eye

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© Mark Hertzberg (2023)

My Wright eye has been dormant for a long time. It finally woke up today, as I finish my 13th Road Scholar Frank Lloyd Wright Wisconsin tour as their step-on guide and “expert lecturer.” I generally look for photos other than just literal pictures of Wright’s work.

I join the tours when they get to Racine from Chicago on Wednesday, and continue with them in Milwaukee, Madison, and Spring Green through Saturday morning. It is always a challenge to find fresh photos at places I have visited so many times, especially when each stop is always at the same time of day. This time I took no photos Wednesday or Thursday. It took spectacular fall colors today – Friday – when we got to the Unitarian Meeting House in Madison to bring my camera back to life.

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Then it was on to Jacobs 1. The bonus for our tour guests, which we did not tell them about in advance, was that there was a good chance that Jim Dennis, steward of the house since the 1980s as well as Bill Martinelli would greet us, and that Jim would welcome them into his home:

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My first picture at the Taliesin estate after lunch was not of a Wright building…it was of the trees in front of Hillside Home School:

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I found new angles for photos of the drafting studio, including the sadly empty drafting room and the Romeo and Juliet windmill:

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And then it was on to the Holy Grail for our guests, Taliesin itself:

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If you know me well enough you know that I cannot go to Taliesin without a visit to our dear friend Minerva Montooth. Today was no exception:

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Links:

The Road Scholar trip:

https://www.roadscholar.org/find-an-adventure/22976/architectural-masterworks-of-frank-lloyd-wright

Unitarian Meeting House:

https://fusmadison.org/welcome/meeting-house/

Taliesin:

https://www.taliesinpreservation.org

Minerva Montooth:

https://wrightinracine.wordpress.com/2021/09/29/the-marvelous-minerva-montooth/

Please continue to scroll down for previous posts.

 

 

Catching Up on All Things Wright

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© Mark Hertzberg (2023)

It seems like more than a month since I last posted, but, a month it is, almost to the day. Today is catch-up day, with a variety of things for you.

First (and most important?!) are my latest photos of our dear friend Minerva Montooth. I had the pleasure of chatting with her June 30 when I was taking another Road Scholar group – my 14th since 2017 – to Taliesin, at the end of their week-long Wright adventure in Illinois and Wisconsin (I am with them for the three days in Wisconsin). I will post a link to this particular Road Scholar trip at the end of this article.

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Minerva turned the tables on me with her phone camera:

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Next, I am a few months late to the party, but I just finished an important book about the Jacobs houses in Madison and Middleton. It is published by OA+D:

https://store.oadarchives.org/product/frank-lloyd-wright-s-jacobs-houses-experiments-in-modern-living-pre-order

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The book was edited by Neil Levine, and starts with an essay by him. Neil’s late wife was Susan Jacobs Lockhart who grew up in the two houses. Hers is one of  six essays in the book (the others are by her sister Elizabeth and brother William, and by Michael Desmond) There are profiles of Herbert and Katherine Jacobs; first-person accounts of growing up in the houses; and compelling perspectives on the history and architectural significance of the two houses. There is also a rich collection of historic photos and of Wright’s drawings. I was particularly taken with the photos of the Madison house under construction, and shortly after, when it stood almost alone in the neighborhood.

Thirdly, Michael Schreiber of This American House, sent me a link to a “Reconsideration of William Cary (sic) Wright,” Wright’s father, by Hope Rogers, William Carey Wright’s great-granddaughter. The architect’s father has been given short-shrift in many accounts, wrongly portrayed as a thoughtless man who abandoned his family. One other recent setting straight of the record was Paul Hendrickson’s 2019 book Plagued by Fire. Here is a link to her telling of his story:

https://thisamericanhouse.com/the-architects-father-a-reconsideration-of-william-cary-wright-the-father-of-frank-lloyd-wright/

And, finally, mentioning Paul Hendrickson is also a way to segue into my last offering for this article. He recently attended a conference at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Rosemont hotel near Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. We were going to meet at the hotel and he emailed me that he was anxious to show me a variety of homages to Wright in the hotel. They are like fish out of water, with no apparent context. After all, the hotel was near the airport, not in Oak Park in River Forest where acknowledging Wright would have been a logical. Regrettably, the manager of the hotel has not had the courtesy to return a number of calls over several weeks, calls in which I had hoped to learn the genesis of the Wright decorations. So, here with no explanation, are some photos from the lobby and one of the ballrooms:

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Road Scholar Illinois /  Wisconsin: Architectural Masterworks of Frank Lloyd Wright:

https://www.roadscholar.org/find-an-adventure/22976/Architectural-Masterworks-of-Frank-Lloyd-Wright

What’s next? “Only the Shadow knows,” as was said on the long-ago radio program. I rarely know in advance what and when the next posting will be. Stay tuned, and in the meantime, scroll down for previous articles.

Hardy House: Gene Szymczak + 10

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© Mark Hertzberg (2022)

1319 Gene + 10 006.jpgSaturday’s afternoon sun projected the pattern of the entry hall windows onto the walls. Robert McCarter writes that the floor plan of the house is articulated in the windows.

Yesterday, September 17, marked the 10th anniversary of Eugene (Gene) Szymczak becoming the seventh steward of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Thomas P. Hardy House (1904-05) in Racine, Wisconsin. Gene fell ill and died December 3, 2016 after undertaking an extensive rehabilitation of the house. Its new stewards are Tom (one of Gene’s two brothers) and Joan Szymczak. Tom and Joan invited family to a low-key celebration of the anniversary on the dining room terrace yesterday. Anne Sporer Ruetz, who grew up in the house from 1938 – 1947 and two non-family couples were also invited.

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I took Gene through the house, which was challenged, when he was considering buying it in 2012. As we left, he said to me, “I don’t have children. This is something I could do for Racine.” The late John G. Thorpe of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy advised me to step back and let professional appraisers and others take over. I understood, but I wanted Jim and Margaret Yoghourtjian, the longtime stewards of the house to first meet Gene. I told Gene what kind of pastry to bring Margaret (chocolate-covered marzipan loaves). He also brought them a Japanese print reminsicent of a famous drawing by Marion Mahony of their house. We were having lemonade and cashews in their new apartment when Gene surprised us and made them an offer for the house. There was a glitch though, or so I thought, when the week before the closing Gene emailed me that he was having second thoughts…it would make a good teardown and he could build something with a three car garage underneath. I held off calling the Yoghourtjians to cancel the sale so I could get hold of Gene. It was two days before he called me back, from Baltimore Washington Airport, on his way to visit Fallingwater, “Just kidding!”

Anne has often told me that it was like watching movies when the pattern of the leaded glass windows was projected onto her bedroom ceiling and walls by the headlights of passing cars at night. She was delighted that the “movies” were playing in full force in the entry way as we arrived at the celebration yesterday:

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Anne was a celebrity yesterday: one of the guests had brought a copy of my book about the Hardy House (Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hardy House, Pomegranate: 2006) and asked her to sign two pages with photos related to her:

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1319 Gene + 10 020.jpgThis photo of Anne’s 14th birthday party at the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed dining room ensemble (which was lost after her parents sold the house) was in the Racine newspaper in 1946. She is holding the cake at the head of the table.

Coincidental with the celebration, a new Wright website, which I was not familiar with, pinged this morning to a piece I posted in 2014 about Gene’s work at the house:

https://wrightinracine.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/hardy-house-restoration/

The new website is:

https://franklloydwrightsites.com/hardyhouse/

Gene was honored with a Wright Spirit Award from the Building Conservancy in 2015, and the Kristin Visser Award for Historic Preservation in 2017.

I posted this piece a year ago when Anne and David Archer, who grew up in the house between 1947 – 1957 were reunited at the house:

https://wrightinracine.wordpress.com/2021/06/13/hardy-homecomings/

I challenge myself each time I visit a familiar Wright site to find something new to photograph. A week ago, before I was escorting my fourth Road Scholar tour of the summer, I told my wife that I was having trouble seeing anything new the first three tours of this year and was almost considering not even bringing a camera with me (these were my 10th – 13th tour with the same itinerary since 2017). I looked up as I was bringing our guests down to the dining room and looked at the bottom of the stairs to the living room for the first time. Out came the phone camera:

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The Road Scholar “Architectural Masterworks of Frank Lloyd Wright” tour is a week-long and begins in Chicago:

https://www.roadscholar.org/find-an-adventure/22976/architectural-masterworks-of-frank-lloyd-wright

Writing Wright With Light-Photo Adventures at two Wright sites in Milwaukee

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© Mark Hertzberg

Something wasn’t right today. I was not committed to taking pictures as I accompanied my 11th Road Scholar Frank Lloyd Wright trip, my second in a month, to sites in Milwaukee today.* As I have written in past blogs, I try to see and photograph something new every time I visit a familiar Wright site, but I did not feel photographically inspired this trip. When I got to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Burnham Block, our first stop, I thought I had seen all the pictures there were to take, on the trip in May:

https://wrightinracine.wordpress.com/2022/05/19/wright-tourism-is-back-bits-of-burnham/

So, I left my workhorse cameras on the bus and carried just my iPhone 11 Pro. Then I saw something that struck me. I gingerly took out my phone and snapped a picture:

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I put the phone back in my pocket, thinking it would be a “one and done” day. I took two photos of Road Scholars eager to enter the American System-Built B-1 Richards House, and again figured, that would be it for the day:

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Ah, but there was more to come, above me, and inside the house:

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Done for the day? Maybe, but I decided to bring the “real” cameras with me when we got to the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Wauwatosa. I was immediately struck by the cloudless and rich blue sky. It seemed in synch with the blue color scheme of much of the church building. First, was the obligatory “record” snapshot before pushing my eye:

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The “crown of thorns” below the domed roof presented myriad photos:

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Then I came to the entry way and its cantilevered canopy:

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There are thousands of two inch by two inch ceramic tiles above the roof of the canopy. Our docent, my friend Cathy Spyres, explained that these are the same tiles that were on the original roof of the church. The original tiles were not replaced after they started popping off the roof.

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Then, onto a quest to see something new inside the church:

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Spyres told the guests that blue (as well as gold) is one of the dominant colors inside and outside the church because it is part of the Byzantine heritage. So was the sky, I thought, as I heard her explanation.

I was in touch a few months ago with the director of a Wright site to take photos for a forthcoming Wright book by a university professor. The director was critical of one of my earlier photos from the site because it had an “on the spot look.” I asked for clarification: “On the spot means it looks like a hand-held shot. It isn’t carefully studied. It has a casual look.” I make no apologies for my style of working: “Casually,” and “hand-held.”

Photography literally means “writing with light.” Today the light was perfect for me to write Wright.

*The guests’ week-long itinerary begins in Chicago and Oak Park, continues to Racine, where I join them, then on to Milwaukee, Madison, and Spring Green. They see 12 Wright sites in Wisconsin during this deep immersion into the World of Wright:

https://www.roadscholar.org/find-an-adventure/22976/architectural-masterworks-of-frank-lloyd-wright

Wright Tourism is Back: Bits of Burnham

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© Mark Hertzberg (2022)

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The pandemic is far from over, but Wright tourism is ramping up again. I have helped lead the Wisconsin portion of Road Scholar’s week-long tour that starts in Chicago and ends in Spring Green since 2017 (a link to the itinerary is below). This week is our first of three tours for this year since 2019.. We have 16 guests from 10 states on this tour. Our first stop was the Burnham Block in Milwaukee which has six American System-Built homes, most owned by Frank Lloyd Wright’s Burnham Block, Inc.

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I always challenge myself to see if I can find fresh photographs at Wright sites, no matter how often I have visited them. Here is what I saw on the Burnham Block after two years away from my Wright photo quests. I have two establishing shots showing signs of spring:

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I concentrated more on patterns or design elements that I saw, mostly at the duplexes (dupli?) at 2032 – 2034 W. Burnham Street, left, and 2028 – 2030 next door.

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LR Burnham 2022 018.jpgThis is not a version of the Frank Lloyd Wright signature tile…it is one of the faded red squares that have been used as social distancing markers on Burnham Street.

LR Burnham 2022 017.jpg“I thought Frank Lloyd Wright hated basements.” They were not his favorite spaces, but he did not eschew them entirely. This is one of the vents from the basement at 2032 – 2034.

I told our guests that one of the great benefits of touring 2032 – 2034 is that while they generally see fully restored or rehabilitated Wright structures, this was an opportunity to see one in raw shape, as money from a Save America’s Treasures grants is used to bring it to house museum status like the Model B-1 down the block at 2714 W. Burnham St.

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LR Burnham 2022 066.jpgThis period stove is in a closet until the restoration is done.

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We then toured the Model B-1, one of the two single-family homes on the block. It was the first Burnham property acquired by what became the Burnham Block organization, in 2004. It has been fully restored with a Save America’s Treasures grant. It is a tribute to Mike Lilek and the organizations that have been the stewards of Burnham received not one, but two SAT grants.

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There are still two duplexes that will need restoration, including the world’s only Frank Lloyd Wright building clad in aluminum siding:

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I close this blog entry with a nod to my friend Cathy Spyres, docent extraordinaire at Wright’s Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church – her church – in Wauwatosa. The church is our second Wright stop on our Milwaukee itinerary:

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Tomorrow’s itinerary is another full day: We are overnighting in Madison tonight, after also seeing the Milwaukee Art Museum (Saarinen / Calatrava) and Monona Terrace. Tomorrow we start at Jacobs 1 and then go to the Unitarian Meeting House, Wyoming Valley School and have lunch at Riverview Terrace before our in-depth tours of Taliesin and Hillside. I can attest from our own trips with Road Scholar that you see so much and learn so much (education is a major component of their programming) that you need a vacation after your RS vacation! Wright tourism is, indeed back in full swing!

Links:

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Burnham Block:

http://wrightinmilwaukee.com

This Road Scholar Trip Itinerary (we also have a full tour of the Hardy House in Racine and an exterior guided tour of Jacobs 1, although they are not listed in the advance itinerary):

https://www.roadscholar.org/find-an-adventure/22976/architectural-masterworks-of-frank-lloyd-wright

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exploring Wright with My Cameras, 9.18.19

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(c) Mark Hertzberg (2019)

This is a follow-up post to the one from two days ago and several from earlier this year, as I visit Frank Lloyd Wright sites that are familiar to me with guests traveling on Road Scholar tours. I have been with four tours this year, a fifth one is scheduled for next week. One of our guests this week was from Australia:

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My challenge to myself is to try to see (i.e. photograph) these sites in new ways on each visit. Earlier this summer Taliesin Preservation was kind enough to ask me to write about my photography for their blog:

https://www.taliesinpreservation.org/behind-the-lens/

I am dedicating this post to my friend Cate Boldt, docent and educator extraordinaire at Taliesin. First you see Cate, a Master Gardener, preparing for her role as a Taliesin Garden Fairy, and then with students in Taliesin’s summer architecture camp, as students prepare for their final presentations at Hillside Theater (the practice run was at Wyoming Valley School):

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Our first stop Wednesday morning was at Jacobs 1 in Madison:

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I was taken with the glint of morning sun on the side of the house:

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I have long admired James Dennis’s red Volvo P1800 sports coupe which sits under Wright’s first carport. Wednesday I challenged myself to photograph it in the context of the house:

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Then it was on to the Unitarian Meeting House where I concentrated on the new copper roof. There is just a hint of light on the left edge of the prow in the first photo, the usual angle from which the church is photographed:

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Then it was time to play with light and shapes:

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As I shot the next few photos I longed for the days I worked for a newspaper, when I likely would have been given access inside the fence and allowed to climb up with the craftsmen restoring the landmark building:

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Our next stop was Wyoming Valley School. I have posted geometric photos in the past, but I found new lines to photograph Wednesday as Mary Pohlman told our guests about the school:

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I found a new way to show one of the many mitered windows:

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After lunch at Riverview Terrace, it was on for a Cate-led tour of Taliesin. What could I see differently? The first two photographs are reflections in windows:

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Percy Jackson (Hamblen) thinks he rules the roost (Fifi Montooth sometimes loudly challenges Percy, but she can never catches him):

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Inside the original drafting studio:

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In Mrs. Wright’s bedroom:

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Outside Mr. Wright’s bedroom:

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I struck out at Hillside Home and School, but that is okay…I can’t force pictures that don’t present themselves to me. Earlier Cate had urged me not to miss photographing Kevin Dodds (white shirt) from Taliesin Preservation and Michael DiPadova from the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation as they rebuild the Tea Circle:

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I leave you with one more “Selfie,” my reflection in the trim of the headlight of Jim’s Volvo:

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Thank you for joining me on my photo adventures!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photographing Wright for the Umpteenth Time

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Photos and Text (c) Mark Hertzberg (2019)

When I take guests on Frank Lloyd Wright tours for Road Scholar I tell them that one of the joys of Wright’s architecture is the possibility of seeing new things on every visit to places one has been to before. I always take my cameras with me on the Road Scholar tours for that reason and on my fifth tour for them, two weeks ago, I saw new things in buildings I have photographed many times. Alas, I did not find new things at every site we visited.

My first discoveries were at 2734 W. Burnham Street in Milwaukee, an American System-Built duplex being restored by Frank Lloyd Wright’s Burnham Block. The walls have now been stripped off and I saw these things, including the incinerator chute in the kitchen. The first photo is the view from the living room into the kitchen:

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I have photographed the Unitarian Meeting House in Madison many times. This visit I saw these views of the church. I hope to see the new copper roof by the time of my scheduled fall visits:

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I also saw a picture which spoke to the church’s statement of what Unitarianism is about, a collection of May poles amidst a “Black Lives Matter” sign. No matter what one’s beliefs, this is what the church believes, which is why the church exists, which is why there was a building for Frank Lloyd Wright to design:

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I have enjoyed photographing one of Wright’s smaller commissions, the Wyoming Valley School. This is what I saw differently this time:

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At Riverview Terrace (the Visitors Center at Taliesin), I was struck by the colors on a tree in the driveway:

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Then, of course, there was Taliesin. One of the guests asked why there are no art glass windows in the house. Cate Boldt (our superb docent) explained that Wright had no reason to shield the house for privacy and art glass windows would have blocked the views of his beloved land. What did Wright see?

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Windows looking out from the guest room were uncovered in December, 2017:

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The “Hoffman rug” in the living room has been taken out:

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The Romeo and Juliet Windmill and Tanyderi:

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And, then, finally, this was the first time I saw the drafting room at Hillside Home and School without students, which meant I could go into the room and take pictures:

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The tour I accompany for three days for Road Scholar is: https://www.roadscholar.org/find-an-adventure/22976/architectural-masterworks-of-frank-lloyd-wright