During
the years Frank Lloyd Wright operated the Taliesin Fellowship, he was dedicated
to purchasing farmland near Taliesin and expanded his holdings to over 2,000
acres. For more than a decade, he had attempted to acquire the riverfront site
adjoining Taliesin at the Highway 23 Bridge, but was thwarted in his efforts.
After finally obtaining the property in 1953, he announced his plan to build a casual
restaurant that also would provide a scenic tourist destination. Drawings were
completed that year for the Wisconsin
River Terrace & Restaurant for the Taliesin Fellowship and construction
began in 1954. Work proceeded in stops and starts over the next four years.
With assistance from at least two apprentices, Wright continued reworking the
drawings into the summer of 1958. All work ended following Wright’s death in
1959 and did not resume for another seven years.
In
1966 the Wisconsin River Development Corporation purchased much of the property
Wright had accumulated to be developed as a resort complex. Taliesin Associated
Architects (TAA) was retained to develop a Master Plan and complete the
unfinished building as the Spring Green
Restaurant. TAA assigned architect James Pfefferkorn to oversee the project,
and construction documents were signed on March 1, 1967 by William Wesley
Peters. Kraemer Brothers, the builder that assisted Wright with the project in
the 1950s, was hired as general contractor. The restaurant opened in the fall
of 1967 with a great deal of positive press and a visit from the First Lady.
Now
understood with greater clarity as a hospitality facility Wright designed for his
personal landscape, the building represents a provocative end-point in the
evolution of his architectural form as demonstrated over the decades at
Taliesin. Its streamlined Usonian character places it as reflecting Wright’s
mid-twentieth century architectural and planning interests as were being
carried forward by the Fellowship. Since Wright intended the building for his
community of architects and apprentices, there could have been no better
outcome than TAA overseeing its completion. Wright’s successor firm also designed
minor interior modifications in 1993 when the building was put into use as the Frank Lloyd Wright Visitor Center. Consistently
in use since 1967, the building is in excellent condition and retains
remarkable authenticity.
