© 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.

Minerva and her friend and assistant Renee

Minerva turned the tables on me with her phone camera:

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

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:

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.