Taliesin West History: Why Frank Lloyd Wright Built His Winter Home in Scottsdale

Taliesin West is Frank Lloyd Wright's winter home and studio in the foothills of the McDowell Mountains in Scottsdale. Wright found the site in December 1937, and his apprentices began building it in 1938 out of desert rock, sand and canvas. Today it is a National Historic Landmark and part of a UNESCO World Heritage listing.

I drive past the signs for Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard almost every week showing homes in north Scottsdale, and I still think it is one of the best stories in the Valley. A famous architect around age 70 picks empty desert with no water and no buildings and turns it into a place the world comes to see. Here is how it happened.

Why Frank Lloyd Wright Came to Arizona

Wright first came to Arizona in 1927 as a consultant on the Arizona Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix. A couple of years later he brought a team of draftsmen to the desert and set up a temporary camp he called Ocotillo while designing a resort for developer Alexander J. Chandler. The heat chased them out after a few months, but the desert had made an impression on him.

His home and studio in Spring Green, Wisconsin, called Taliesin, was hard and costly to keep going through northern winters. His wife Olgivanna liked Arizona, and after Wright caught pneumonia in 1936, his doctor told him to spend his winters in the desert. That advice is the real starting point of Taliesin West.

Finding Land at the Foot of the McDowells

In December 1937, Frank and Olgivanna found a site near McDowell Peak, about 26 miles from Phoenix. Wright put together roughly 320 acres, buying part of it and leasing the rest. The land had never been developed, though people had lived on it long before. Hohokam petroglyphs are still carved into boulders on the property.

There was one big problem: nobody knew of any groundwater there. Wright paid to drill a well, and that well ended up costing more than the land itself.

Built by Hand by the Apprentices

Wright ran a program called the Taliesin Fellowship, where young apprentices lived, worked and learned architecture by doing it. In early 1938 those apprentices arrived at a site with nothing on it. They lived in tents at first and put up a temporary shelter of wood and canvas while they started on the real buildings.

The method Wright used became known as "desert masonry." The crew gathered rocks from the site, set them in wooden forms, and filled around them with concrete mixed with desert sand. When the forms came off, the colored stone faces showed through. Roofs were canvas stretched over redwood frames, which let soft daylight pour into the rooms. Almost everything except the cement came from the land around them.

The first buildings went up between 1938 and 1941, and the main compound was mostly finished in early 1941. Over the years the canvas and wood wore out in the sun, and steel and more durable translucent panels replaced them.

What the Name Taliesin Means

Taliesin is the name of a famous Welsh bard, and the word is usually translated as "shining brow." Wright used it first for his Wisconsin home and studio, which he started building in 1911. The Arizona compound took the name Taliesin West once most of the buildings were done.

The Power Line Fight

Wright cared a lot about the view out across the open desert toward the Valley. When overhead power lines were planned in sight of the compound, he wrote to President Harry Truman asking that they be buried. He lost that one. Instead of giving up on the site, he moved the main entrance and reworked the living room around the new reality.

After Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright died in Phoenix on April 9, 1959, at 91. Olgivanna took over running Taliesin West, and the architecture school that grew out of the Fellowship kept training students there for decades. The land around it went from empty desert to busy north Scottsdale neighborhoods, and today its address sits on Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard.

Taliesin West was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 and is a National Historic Landmark. In 2019 it became one of the buildings in UNESCO's World Heritage listing called "The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright," alongside places like Fallingwater and the Guggenheim Museum.

Visiting Taliesin West Today

The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation runs tours at 12621 N. Frank Lloyd Wright Blvd. in Scottsdale. The most popular first visit is a self-guided audio tour of the historic core that takes about an hour or a little more. Longer behind-the-scenes tours and desert hikes are offered too. Reservations are strongly recommended, and the grounds are gravel and concrete, so wear good shoes. Check the foundation's website for the current schedule before you go.

If you are thinking about living nearby, my Moving to Scottsdale guide covers the city as a whole, and McDowell Mountain Ranch is one of the communities just up the road. You can also browse homes for sale in Scottsdale. For another story about Valley landmarks, read How Camelback Mountain Got Its Name and How Phoenix Saved It.

Questions People Ask

When did Frank Lloyd Wright build Taliesin West?
Wright found the site in December 1937, and his apprentices started building in 1938. The main compound was mostly complete by early 1941, though the buildings have changed over the years.

Why did Frank Lloyd Wright move to Arizona?
He came for his health and for the climate. After he caught pneumonia in 1936, his doctor advised him to winter in the desert, and his Wisconsin home was hard to keep up in the cold months.

Is Taliesin West a World Heritage Site?
Yes. In 2019 it was included in UNESCO's World Heritage listing of Frank Lloyd Wright's 20th-century architecture, and it is also a National Historic Landmark.

Terry Day, REALTOR®, DeLex Realty, 10115 E Bell Rd, Scottsdale, AZ 85260.