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Ever wonder how many children Frank Lloyd Wright had? Or what they grew up to become? What about some of the famous people of Wright’s day who visited Taliesin? Why do the roofs leak?

Well, read on.

How many wives did Frank Lloyd Wright have?

Frank Lloyd Wright had three wives:

1. Catherine “Kitty” (Tobin) Wright (1871-1959). Socialite and Social Worker. Married June, 1889; divorced November, 1922.
2. Maude “Miriam” (Noel) Wright (1869-1930). Artist. Married November, 1923; divorced August, 1927.
3. Olga Ivanovna “Olgivanna” (Lazovich Milanoff) Lloyd Wright (1897-1985). Dancer and writer. Married August, 1928.

How many children did Frank Lloyd Wright have?

Frank Lloyd Wright fathered seven children and adopted one. They are:

With Kitty Wright:

1. Frank Lloyd Wright, Jr. (1890-1978; known as Lloyd Wright)–architect, landscape architect. Lloyd worked with his father on the elder Wright’s 1920s California homes. The younger Wright established a practice in California, where he remained until he died .Among his more famous projects is the Wayfarers Chapel, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean in Palos Verdes, California. He also designed a version of the Hollywood Bowl (destroyed).
2. John Lloyd Wright (1892-1972)–architect, toy designer (designed Lincoln Logs and Timber Toys). John also worked with his father, most notably on the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo and Midway Gardens in Chicago. Wrote a book about his father describing his childhood memories and their relationship.
3. Catherine Wright Baxter (1894-1979)–homemaker. Mother of actress Anne Baxter, star of All About Eve and the Ten Commandments .
4. David Wright (1895-1997)–building products representative. His father designed a house for him in Phoenix, Arizona.
5. Frances Wright Caroe (1898-1959)–arts administrator of America House, New York City.
6. Robert Llewellyn Wright (1903-1986; known as Llewellyn)–attorney. His father designed a house for him in Bethesda, Maryland.

With Olgivanna Lloyd Wright:

1. Svetlana Peters (1917-1946)–musician (Olgivanna Lloyd Wright’s daughter from her first marriage, whom Frank Lloyd Wright adopted). Married apprentice and longtime Fellowship member William Wesley "Wes" Peters (this hyperlink takes you to an article written by former clients of Peters' Ascension Lutheran Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona).
2. Iovanna Lloyd Wright (1925- )–musician, artist.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s writings and statements indicate that he was a profoundly spiritual man. He often stated that his religion was nature, spelled with a capital “N” and often chided the idea of religious doctrine.

Wright was known to say, “religion is good, why does anyone have to organize it?” This may come from his Unitarian background. His maternal family, the Lloyd-Joneses, were Unitarian and Wright belonged to Unitarian Societies in Chicago and Madison. His father, William C. Wright, practiced as both a Baptist and a Unitarian minister. For more information on Unitarianism, go to the web site maintained by the Unitarian Universalist Association; www.uua.org.

Was Frank Lloyd Wright wealthy?

Frank Lloyd Wright’s maternal family, the Lloyd-Joneses, were middle class. His father, William C. Wright, tried his hand at several professions: minister, musician, and music teacher (in addition to being a non-practicing lawyer).

Throughout his life, Wright made and lost millions of dollars (in today’s figures). He once wrote, “take care of the luxuries and let the necessities take care of themselves.”

Why do his roofs leak?

Frank Lloyd Wright’s buildings are known for their beauty, artistry, sensitivity to their surroundings, and sometimes their leaky roofs. Some of the roofs he designed leak, in part, because of the techniques and materials he used. To increase the sense of shelter, Wright extended the lines of the eaves farther away from the building, thereby lowering the pitch of the roof. Longer, lower roofs do not shed water and snow as easily as higher pitched roofs. In addition, he felt a compulsion to experiment, and felt that the work he was doing could eventually be improved as technology evolved.

A good example of this philosophy can be seen in the Johnson Wax Administration Building in Racine, Wisconsin (1936-39). Wright employed cylindrical tubing for the windows in order to diffuse light and block the view to the outside. At the time, no adequate sealant for the glass tubes was available. S.C. Johnson Wax experimented with a variety of solutions before advances in sealant materials produced one that worked.

So, how big is Taliesin?

Taliesin can mean two things: Frank Lloyd Wright's residence begun in 1911; or the 600-acre (240 hectare) Taliesin estate, which includes the Taliesin residence, the Hillside Home School, Midway Barns, and Tan-y-Deri, the house that Wright designed for his sister.

Just the residence is 37,000 square feet (about 3,400 m²), including exterior courtyards. Interior square footage is roughly 21,000 square feet (about 1,590 m²), including everything from closets and boiler room spaces to the magnificent living room.

The Taliesin estate includes a total of 5 Frank Lloyd Wright-designed buildings. Square footage of the interiors of these buildings has been estimated at 75,000 square feet (close to 7,000 m²). That's almost 2 acres, just of building space.

Who were some famous people who visited Wright at Taliesin?

Genius attracts genius, and the list of visitors to Taliesin proves the point.

Writers, artists, performing artists:

1. Maginel Wright Barney, children’s book illustrator. She was Frank Lloyd Wright’s youngest sister.
2. Anne Baxter, actress, star of All About Eve and The Ten Commandments. She was one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s grandchildren.
3. Sophie Braslau, American contralto opera singer. She visited Taliesin after a performance in Madison, Wisconsin during the winter of 1932-33 and sang “Der Erl Konig” in Taliesin's living room.
4. Gutzon Borglum, sculptor, designer of Mount Rushmore. He was a frequent visitor to Taliesin.
5. Henri Cartier-Bresson, world-famous photographer (who died at age 95 in 2004). He came to Taliesin in the summer of 1947 to photograph Frank Lloyd Wright.
6. Elizabeth Enright, children's book writer. Frank Lloyd Wright’s niece (Maginel’s daughter), Ms. Enright won the Newbery Medal in 1939 for the children’s book, Thimble Summer, which was inspired by the landscape of the Taliesin Estate.
7. Marcel Grandjany, one of the greatest harpists of his time, he also taught at Julliard. Visited Taliesin as a guest of Frank Lloyd Wright’s in the late 1940s.
8. Ken Hedrich, photographer. He photographed Taliesin for the influential 1938 Architectural Forum magazine issue devoted to Wright, and was a partner in the world famous photography firm, Hedrich-Blessing. One of Hedrich’s partners and brother, Bill Hedrich, took some of the most famous photographs of Wright’s new design at that time, Fallingwater.
9. Charles Laughton, actor. A friend of Frank Lloyd Wright’s, his portrayal of Quasimodo in the 1939 version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame is considered a classic. He appeared in over 50 movies, including Spartacus (1960), Les Miserables (1935), and The Blue Veil (1951).
10. Arch Obeler, writer, director and producer in the 1940s and 1950s. He created the science fiction/fantasy/horror series, Lights Out, which ran on both radio and television. He was a friend of Wright’s and commissioned a series of buildings in Malibu, California from him.
11. Ayn Rand, author. She visited Taliesin after World War II. She may have been inspired by what she knew of Frank Lloyd Wright in the creation of Howard Roarke, the main character in The Fountainhead (which she wrote before she met Wright), but she denied that Roarke was based on Wright. She commissioned a house from Wright during her visit to Taliesin, but it was never built.
12. Carl Sandburg, poet laureate. He visited Taliesin as a friend of Frank Lloyd Wright’s in the 1920s. The two were friends throughout their lives, so he may have visited more than once.
13. Ezra Stoller, world-famous architectural photographer. He photographed Taliesin in 1945 and again in the early 1950s.
14. Edmund Teske, photographer. He lived at Taliesin in 1936 as the first Fellowship photographer. He later taught at the New Bauhaus Institute of Design in Chicago, and lived for over fifty years in Los Angeles as a photographic artist.
15. Mike Todd, movie producer (later a husband of Elizabeth Taylor). He visited Taliesin with his wife Joan Blondell at the invitation of Frank Lloyd Wright in the late 1940s. Joan Blondell was a movie actress; her best-known films were A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and The Blue Veil, which she starred in with Charles Laughton.
16. Alexander Woollcott, essayist, writer for The New Yorker, and a member of the Algonquin Round Table. Visited Taliesin several times as a friend of Frank Lloyd Wright’s, starting in 1925.

Architects and landscape architects:

1. Buckminster Fuller, architect, theorist, and the inventor of the geodesic dome, among other designs. Visited Taliesin as a friend of Frank Lloyd Wright’s in 1939, and possibly other times.
2. Jens Jensen, famous landscape architect. Visited as a friend and colleague of Frank Lloyd Wright’s. In 1912, Jensen advised Wright on the fruit trees and flower species that the architect should order for his new home, Taliesin.
3. Philip Johnson, architect and winner of the Pritzker Prize (the so-called “Nobel Prize for Architecture”). Visited Taliesin in the later years of Frank Lloyd Wright’s life as a friend (and mostly friendly professional rival) of Wright’s. Mr. Johnson returned several times before his death in 2005 simply to sit in and enjoy Taliesin’s living room.
4. Erich Mendelsohn, famous European architect. Visited Taliesin in the 1920s. Mendelsohn’s most famous design is the Einstein Tower in Germany.
5. Richard Neutra, well-known California architect. Lived at Taliesin while a draftsman for Wright in the mid-1920s.
6. Rudolph Schindler, well-known California architect. Lived at Taliesin while a draftsman for Wright in 1918 and 1920.
7. Auguste Perret, famous European architect of the early-mid 20th Century. Visited as a friend of Frank Lloyd Wright’s in 1949.
8. Mies van der Rohe, world-famous architect, and designer of the Seagram Building in New York City, the campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago, among others. Visited Taliesin several times after coming to the United States to teach at IIT.

Notable Former Apprentices of the Taliesin Fellowship:

1. Alden B. Dow (apprentice, 1933). Michigan architect. Awarded a Gold Medal from the Michigan Institute of Architects, won the “Diplome de Grand Prix” in 1937 Paris International Exposition, and was named Architect Laureate of Michigan in 1983, among other awards.
2. Arthur Dyson (apprentice, 1958-59). Won a gold medal from the Society of American Registered Architects; former dean of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture.
3. Pedro Guerrero (apprentice, 1939-40). An apprentice who worked as Frank Lloyd Wright’s photographer. He later specialized in photographing sculptors, including Louise Nevelson and Alexander Calder.
4. E. Fay Jones (apprentice, 1953). Won a gold medal from the American Institute of Architects (AIA). Designed Thorncrown Chapel, which was voted the 4th greatest building designed in the United States in the last 100 years (Fallingwater was #1) in Architectural Record magazine. The building was ranked as the 60th favorite building in the United States in a 2007 poll taken by the AIA (Taliesin was #30).
5. John Lautner (apprentice, 1933-39). California architect whose houses have been used in movies, including The Big Lebowski, and Diamonds are Forever.
6. Kevin Lynch (apprentice, 1937-39). famous city planner. Wrote The Image of the City, and won a 50th anniversary medal from the American Institute of Planners.
7. Nicholas Ray (apprentice, 1933-34). Hollywood director and writer; directed Rebel Without a Cause, among others.
8. Paolo Soleri (apprentice 1947-48). Architect and designer of Arcosanti, a community in Arizona. Winner of numerous awards and honors.

Other notables:

1. William Evjue, founder of The Capital Times newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin. A longtime friend of Wright’s, he was a frequent visitor to Taliesin.
2. G.I. Gurdjieff, leader of the esoteric Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man and author of All and Everything. Visited Taliesin at the request of Olgivanna Lloyd Wright, a former pupil, in the 1930s.
3. George Parker and his wife. Founder of the Parker Pen Company, of Janesville, Wisconsin. The Parkers were friends of Frank Lloyd Wright’s and visited Taliesin frequently during the 1930s.