Taliesin and House on the Rock
In Southwestern Wisconsin you’ll find two very interesting houses within ten miles of each other. They can’t be more different and yet they both work if you visit both on the same day like we did. It made for a pleasant day trip.
If you know anything about architecture you’ve probably heard of Frank Lloyd Wright. He is arguably one of the most influential architects in the United States in the 20th century and is largely responsible for the prairie style home that the modern ranch style home. Taliesin is his Wisconsin home and you can take tours of the school building where he taught architecture and his home.
Technically this is Taliesin number 3 as the first one was burned to the ground by an employee that, for reasons unknown, went into a murderous rage, locked all the doors, set the building on fire and used a hatchet on anyone trying to escape. That was in 1914. He rebuilt it but version 2 burned down after an electrical fire in 1925. Version number 3 was rebuilt in 1925 and still stands today.
The Taliesin estate was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976 and is also added as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019. There are a number of Wright designed structures on the estate: the home he designed for his sister, the Hillside Home School, the Midway Barn, the Romeo and Juliet Windmill, and his home. There is also a small Wright designed damn that supplied power to the estate for many years that is still standing (the generator long removed).
Ten miles away is House on the Rock and it’s hard to explain what it is. It’s part architecture, part antique museum, and part trippy weird assed stuff. I remember going to this place as a child and the only thing that stuck with me were the mechanical music ensembles spread throughout the structure. After having gone through it again there’s just SO much that overwhelms you that you could spend hours describing it and still be wrong.
First is the house that was created by Alex Jordan on Deer Shelter Rock. It is intermingled with the natural features of the rock and natural vegetation. Trees were left in place in several areas and have been left to grown through the roof. The rooms of this house feature low ceilings, dark wood, and antiques. The Infinity Room is a cantilevered room that juts 218 feet from the house without supports underneath and it has thousands of windows. It’s quite the view.
From there it just gets bizarre. There are exhibits outside the house that sometimes defy expectations. The Streets of Yesterday looks like a turn of the century city fill with vendors of the day with collections for each type of vendor. Some of the exhibits are real and some are replica’s and no where is it described. You simply get to experience it.
There are suits of armor. A huge antique gun collection. Dolls and doll houses of all sizes. Nicks knacks of all types and sizes. Rooms of mechanical instruments playing songs and there are really quite fantastic. Not all of the music is played by the instruments (some created by organ) but it’s still fun. There are multiple carousels including a huge one with monstrous creatures and the exit from the room is through the mouth of a scary looking demon. The Organ Room features three huge theatre organs in room filled with industrial equipment from a bygone age but with church bells of all sizes and randomly placed religious sculptures.
Outside are several gardens that are quite enjoyable to stroll through. Japanese and Chinese sculptures dot the gardens. Plan on walking - a lot at House on the Rock. We spent about two hours there in large part because we wanted to do Taliesin as well but first timers should plan on four hours.
As I said, I remember going through House on the Rock as a child several times. I thought it had been on a school field trip but after going through it again I’m not sure it’s school field trip material. Is there anything wrong for kids? No, I think there are things that people of any age will find fun, but I can’t imagine shepherding 30 or 40 kids through the museum so I must have went with my parents.
This part of Wisconsin is called the driftless area. It’s part of southwestern Wisconsin, southeastern Iowa, and northwestern Illinois where the glaciers did not scrape the landscape clean during the last ice ag. The soil is fertile and rolling hills make for a very pleasant landscape.
Frank Lloyd Wright worked with the landscape so that it was a natural experience and influenced architecture around the world. Alex Jordan incorporated natural structures into his house but then went overboard on collections and a bizarre experience. Either way I recommend seeing House on the Rock and Taliesin. They can’t be more different in the experience but both are worth seeing.
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