Ten Things You Might Not Have Known About Frank Lloyd Wright
By Robert Stieve
1. In 1914, while Frank Lloyd Wright was away on business in Chicago, a disgruntled servant set fire to Taliesin’s living quarters and subsequently murdered seven of the home’s residents, including Wright’s partner, Mamah Borthwick Cheney.
2. Wright’s second-oldest son, John, invented Lincoln Logs in 1916. In 1999, Lincoln Logs were inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame.
3.
In 1926, Wright was arrested and accused of violating the Mann Act, a 1910 law that made it illegal to transport women across state lines for “immoral” purposes. At the time, Wright was separated from his second wife, Miriam Noel, and was traveling with Olgivanna Lazovich Hinzenburg, whom he’d met at a Russian ballet in Chicago. The charges were later dropped, and the two were married in 1928.
4. The character Howard Roark in Ayn Rand’s 1943 novel The Fountainhead was partly inspired by Wright. Rand described the inspiration as limited to specific ideas Wright had about architecture and “the pattern of his career.”
5. Anne Baxter, the star of Hollywood films and Broadway productions, was Wright’s granddaughter. In 1947, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Sophie MacDonald in The Razor’s Edge. In 1951, she received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for the title role in All About Eve.
6. In 1955, Wright ventured into the commercial furniture business. According to a magazine ad for Heritage-Henredon: “The Frank Lloyd Wright concept of furniture will create a new form to family happiness in today’s home, a new adventure in freedom and dignity, a new flexibility of function and design.” In addition, Wright created sophisticated wallpapers, textiles and carpet designs for F. Schumacher & Co.; interior paint colors for Martin-Senour; and model home designs for Life, Ladies’ Home Journal and House Beautiful.
7. Every year, Wright, his family and a fellowship of apprentices would caravan back and forth between Taliesin and Taliesin West — Wisconsin in the summer, Arizona in the winter. In the fall, one of the first stops in the desert was Los Olivos Mexican Patio, a family-owned restaurant in Old Town Scottsdale that dates to 1928.
8. 
In 1966, the U.S. Postal Service honored Wright with a 2-cent stamp as part of its “Prominent Americans” series, which was issued between 1965 and 1978.
9. Paul Simon wrote a song titled So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright. Art Garfunkel, who at one time was an architecture student, has said he asked Simon to write a song about the famous architect. Simon, however, says he knew nothing about Wright but wrote the song anyway. The subtext, according to Garfunkel, is that the song, released in 1970, was about him and refers to the impending breakup of Simon & Garfunkel.
10. In 1985, in a move laced with intrigue and controversy, Wright’s remains were exhumed from his grave in Wisconsin, cremated and moved to a memorial garden at Taliesin West in Scottsdale — as was the dying wish of his widow, Olgivanna. According to his own wishes, Wright’s body had lain in the Lloyd-Jones Cemetery, near Taliesin. The original gravesite, now empty, is still marked with Wright’s name.
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