Taliesin West

Two and a half months ago, we picked up our van in Chicago. The first thing we did was drive the van to Oak Park, the neighborhood where Frank Lloyd Wright started his career. We took a tour of this "Home and Studio" and walked the streets around his house, where he realized his first commissions.
Unfortunately, it is now time to return the van in Phoenix, Arizona. We drove it all the way from Chicago, Illinois through 18 states and 1 Canadian province. We covered 7646 miles (12305 km) in 79 days. We had to fix a tire in Texas and needed a jump start in the Sierra Nevada, apart from that, everything went very well. We slept in the van most of the time except for a few nights that we could spend at our friends in Ann Arbor (thanks, Nancy and Tom), Red River Gorge (thanks, Lucia and Noah), Los Angeles (thanks, Amelia and Isaac), and Encinitas (thanks, Lisa and David).

What could be better than visiting another of Frank Lloyd Wright's homes to frame the whole road trip? We had not planned to go to Taliesin West, but when we were looking for places to stay in the Phoenix area, we found another "Home and Studio"! We immediately bought tickets and planned our stay in Phoenix around it.
Half an hour away is the McDowell Mountain Regional Park. We booked a campsite and arrived just before the park closed for the night after driving up from Tucson. The landscape was similar to the Tucson area with saguaro and other cacti everywhere. We watched the moon rise in the evening and the sunrise in the morning, the last one in nature.

Taliesin West is spectacular! FLW spent every winter at Taliesin from the time he began building it in the mid-30's until his death in 1959. This building is truly the epitome of the prairie home style that made him one of the most famous architects of the 20th century. Most of the complex is just one level, except for the main building, which has a second floor of small rooms to accommodate clients who visited him to discuss their projects. Since Phoenix is insanely hot in the summer, FLW made sure to provide natural cooling by working with shading, drafts, and water evaporation. Without any air conditioning, he managed to make the place very livable for most of the year, and it worked fantastically! When we arrived, we were grilled in the sun outside the complex. Then our tour began and we entered the system of rooms, covered walkways, pools and ponds. We did not sweat at all during the tour!
We were fascinated by the house with all its imaginative furniture, ingenious play of light and stylish ornaments. It's hard to describe the place in words, but we've tried to capture its spirit in pictures. What we would give to have a house like this!

Taliesin West was our last stop before heading to Phoenix to drop off the van and fly home the next day. We found the perfect end to this fantastic road trip and could not be happier that everything worked out so well.

Goodbye, Squares (that was our van's name)!Read more