Taliesin , sometimes known as Taliesin East, Taliesin Spring Green, or Taliesin North after 1937, was the estate of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Located 2.5 miles south of the village of Spring Green, Wisconsin, United States, the 600-acre property was developed on land that originally belonged to Wright's maternal family. Wright designed the Taliesin structure two years after leaving his first wife and home in Oak Park, Illinois with a mistress, Mamah Borthwick. The design of the original building was consistent with the design principles of the Prairie School, emulating the flatness of the plains and the natural limestone outcroppings of Wisconsin's Driftless Area. The structure was completed in 1911. Wright rebuilt the Taliesin residential wing in 1914 after a disgruntled employee set fire to the living quarters and murdered Borthwick and six others. This second version was used only sparingly by Wright as he worked on projects abroad. He returned to the house in 1922 following completion of the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. A fire caused by electrical problems destroyed the living quarters in April 1925. The third version of the living quarters was constructed by Wright by late 1925. In 1927, financial problems caused a foreclosure on the building by the Bank of Wisconsin. Wright was able to reacquire the building with the financial help of friends and was able to reoccupy it as of November, 1928. Taliesin III was Wright's home for the rest of his life, although he began to winter at Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona upon its completion in 1937. Many of Wright's acclaimed buildings were designed here, including Fallingwater, Jacobs I , the Johnson Wax Headquarters, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Wright was also an avid collector of Asian art and used Taliesin as a storehouse and private museum. Wright left Taliesin and the 600-acre Taliesin Estate to the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation upon his death in 1959. This organization oversaw renovations to the estate until late 1992 upon the founding of Taliesin Preservation, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the building and estate in Wisconsin. Taliesin mostly operates as a museum, however it is still occupied by former students of Wright's in addition to students at The School of Architecture at Taliesin on a seasonal basis. The property was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976 and is being considered as part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In addition to the residence, there are four Frank Lloyd Wright-designed buildings on the estate: the Romeo and Juliet Windmill, designed by Wright in 1896; Tan-y-Deri, the home he designed for Jane and Andrew Porter, his sister and brother-in-law, designed in 1907; the Hillside Home School, originally designed in 1901 for his aunts' school, and Midway Barn, a farming facility.
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