Latest / Ridiculous History / The Dark Side of Frank Lloyd Wright, Part Two: Mass Murder, Cults, and the FBI

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The Dark Side of Frank Lloyd Wright, Part Two: Mass Murder, Cults, and the FBI · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always, so
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: much for tuning in. That's our super-duper producer, Mr. Max Williams.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Huzzah! Huzzah, tiz-yah.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: That's Mr. Noel Brown. They call me Ben Bolin. Noel,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: we're in media rest. We're in the middle of a
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: really crazy story. And, dude, I just have to say,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: not to blow our own horns or hop on our
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: own sawhorses here, I thought we did a pretty okay
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: job with the backstory.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, laying the foundation, if you will. Nice.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: For Frank Lloyd Wright. Now, you may have seen the
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: episode title for our first episode, and you may have thought, wow,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: you guys talked a little bit about a scandal. You
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: talked a little bit about an early life. But where
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: are the disastrous dark sides of architecture we were promised? Well,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: that's this episode.
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  Speaker 2: And I don't know.
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  Speaker 1: Noel, what do you say we just dive right in?
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we teased a bit of a fire at the
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: end of the previous episode. So that's where we will begin.
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: We have to introduce... A new character, however, in our tale,
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: a 31-year-old African-American gentleman named Julian Carlton. In 1914, he
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: came to the compound as Taliesin to work as a chef.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: and house servant, I suppose you could call it, over
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: a summer. And this was a personal connection because Carlton
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: had been recommended to write by a fellow by the
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: name of John Vogelson, Jr. Often you get a junior
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: when you're a swell as well, who was the caterer
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: for Frank's earlier Midway Gardens project.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's strange to me because when we think of
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: construction projects, you think of a site supervisor, you think
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: of contractors, you think of people hanging drywall and welders
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: and other construction professionals, but you don't really think of caterers.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean? That feels very fancy. Yeah. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: so this guy's a caterer. Vogelson, he recommends Julian Carlton
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: because Frank and co. are looking for some kitchen help,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: and they're looking for a handyman, basically. On paper, Julian
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: has a solid rep. He's got great recommendations from, as
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: he said, Swell Society. And his wife, Gertrude, comes along
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  Speaker 1: with him. They are a pair, right? And Gertrude does
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: most of the actual cooking. Julian is essentially, he's a
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: man of, he's a jack of all trades. He's the handyman,
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  Speaker 1: but he does double duty as just a utilitarian, what
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  Speaker 1: do you need kind of guy around the estate.
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  Speaker 2: A honeydew.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: A honeydew.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: As my mother would say, yes.
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  Speaker 1: He also, when the family has visitors or they have
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: big dinners, he will play the role of the waiter
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: or the server. And things started off well enough, but
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Carlton had some demons, you guys.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Sure did.
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  Speaker 3: And over time, those demons manifested themselves in the form
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: of pretty severe paranoia. Something about his behavior became increasingly unhinged,
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: especially how he took up the habit of staying up
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  Speaker 3: super late at night, staring out of a window and
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  Speaker 3: brandishing a butcher's knife. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Red flag behavior, Ben.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And also, just to be clear, folks, when he's staring
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  Speaker 1: out of the window- There's not stuff going on. We
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  Speaker 1: told you this is a large estate. He's not watching
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: a parade or anything.
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  Speaker 2: No, staring off into the middle distance, as it were. Yes, yes.
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  Speaker 1: Seven-league, thousand-yard stare. His wife, Gertrude, also notices that her
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: spouse has begun sleeping with a hatchet in a bag
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: next to their bedside. And Frank and his mistress, Mama,
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  Speaker 1: they clock this and think, They're getting worried, too, and
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  Speaker 1: they're saying, all right, well, maybe this guy is not
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  Speaker 1: the best fit. So they eventually take out a classified
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  Speaker 1: ad in the local paper looking for a replacement handyman,
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  Speaker 1: replacement cook. On August 15th, 1914, Frank's people fire Carlton,
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  Speaker 1: and they say, this is going to be your last
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  Speaker 1: day with us. And the implication being, of course, that
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  Speaker 1: it'll be his wife's last day on the estate as well,
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  Speaker 1: since they're a married couple, they're a pair. Obviously, folks,
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  Speaker 1: nobody likes to lose a job for any reason, much
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: less to be fired. And there are plenty of people,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: even now in 2026, who file lawsuits or seek retribution
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  Speaker 1: when they feel an employer has treated them unfairly. Carlton
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  Speaker 1: takes this a step further. He's already furious at another
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  Speaker 1: guy who works in the area or works on the estate.
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  Speaker 1: It's a racist draft man named Emil Brodel. Emil had
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  Speaker 1: been treating Carlton like absolute crap and dirt for a
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  Speaker 1: while over the course of, again, this just one summer.
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  Speaker 1: So Carlton, when he learns he's going to get fired,
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  Speaker 1: he says, I'm going to take revenge on.
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  Speaker 2: That jerk Emil. Burn down the building, my stapler.
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  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: He said, and not just Emil, but I'm going to
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  Speaker 1: take revenge on everybody who works or lives at Towson.
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  Speaker 1: I am going to kill them all.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: That's where the name of the famous Metallica album came from.
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  Speaker 2: Don't fact check. It's podcast true. Exactly. Exactly.
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  Speaker 3: He planned this assault targeting the time of high noon
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  Speaker 3: when Borthwick, her visiting children, and the studio employees and
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  Speaker 3: personnel would be on opposite sides of the grounds, opposite
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: sides of the living quarters specifically, waiting for lunch to
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  Speaker 3: be served. Wright, at the time, was away in Chicago
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: completing that Midway Gardens project we were talking about, which
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: is the connection where this guy came from. Having just
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  Speaker 3: served soup to the Wright's mistress and her children, Carlton
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  Speaker 3: told his wife to skedaddle.
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  Speaker 2: He then returned to the.
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  Speaker 3: Porch, wielding that hatchet that he loved so well. I
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  Speaker 3: think it's such an odd detail that it was in
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  Speaker 3: a bag, that he slept with a hatchet in a bag.
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  Speaker 2: Maybe just put it under the pillow. The bag seems superfluous,
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: but I digress.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the bag seems strange, right? It's a little unnecessary.
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  Speaker 1: It's kind of a hat on a hat or a
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  Speaker 1: hatchet on a hatchet. So to be clear, we said
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  Speaker 1: this building or this complex is in three primary structures.
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  Speaker 1: The mistress, Mama, Mama, and her visiting children, who are
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  Speaker 1: 8 and 11 years old respectively– They are eating on
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  Speaker 1: one side of the compound and the employees slash disciples
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  Speaker 1: are way on the other side of the compound. So
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  Speaker 1: they're divided. And that's what we believe Carlton was waiting for.
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  Speaker 1: After he tells his wife, Gertrude, to get GTFO, he
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  Speaker 1: goes back to the porch. Like you said, he's wielding
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  Speaker 1: this hatchet. He attacks Mama Borthwick and her two children. Again,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: these are eight-year-olds. This is an eight-year-old and an 11-year-old.
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  Speaker 1: And Mama is killed by a single blow to the
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  Speaker 1: head from the hatchet. Her son, the 11-year-old John, is
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  Speaker 1: killed while he's still sitting in his chair. This guy's
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  Speaker 1: a literal axe murderer, Ben. Yes, very much so. This
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: is dark stuff. The eight-year-old is a girl named Martha,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: and she manages to get out of the area where
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: they're eating, but Carlton hunts her down and murders her
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  Speaker 1: in the courtyard, and then he douses the bodies and
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  Speaker 1: the floor with gasoline, and he sets a fire and
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  Speaker 1: proceeds to the other wing of the estate where the
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  Speaker 1: employees are eating.
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  Speaker 3: Talk about adding insult to injury, and literal scorched earth
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: type stuff. As the workers ate their soup in the
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: dining room, a 19-year-old draftsman by the name of Herbert
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  Speaker 3: Fritz and his fellow diners noticed something a bit unusual.
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  Speaker 3: And he had this to say about what he noticed.
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  Speaker 3: We heard a swish as though water was thrown through
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  Speaker 3: the screen door. Then we saw some fluid coming under
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  Speaker 3: the door. It looked like dishwater. That makes sense, because
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: gasoline can have a little bit of a bubbly appearance
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: at times. Or soapy, right? It has that refracting quality.
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  Speaker 3: It spread out all over the floor, he recalled. This was,
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  Speaker 3: of course, Carlton pouring more gas under the door than
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  Speaker 3: setting it on fire as well.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. And the reason we have this statement from Herbert
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  Speaker 1: Fritz is because he's one of the few people to
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  Speaker 1: survive the attack. He was able to break a window
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  Speaker 1: and escape. But in escaping, he also broke his arm.
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  Speaker 1: And if you've ever been in a terrifying emergency situation,
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  Speaker 1: you also know that once that adrenaline kicks in, you
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  Speaker 1: don't really feel your injuries until later, right? So he
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  Speaker 1: probably didn't realize immediately that he'd broken his arm. Carlton
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  Speaker 1: does attack that guy who was racist to him earlier.
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  Speaker 1: He wounds him with the hatchet. These wounds will later
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  Speaker 1: lead to Emil Brodel's death. Then he sets upon the
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  Speaker 1: other employees. A couple of them escape. A master carpenter
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  Speaker 1: named Billy Weston, who had helped build Towson, and the
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  Speaker 1: landscape gardener, a guy named David Lindblom. They're both super
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  Speaker 1: terribly burned, grievously wounded. So they, along with Herbert, manage
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  Speaker 1: to escape the estate and they run like a half
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  Speaker 1: mile or so because they're looking for the nearest house
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  Speaker 1: with a telephone. And they contact the authorities. People rush
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  Speaker 1: to the scene. They discover this horrific tableau of the
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  Speaker 1: murdered mistress, her children, two workers, and a 13-year-old boy.
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  Speaker 1: One of the guys who escaped, the gardener, David, also
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  Speaker 1: later dies as a result of his burns.
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  Speaker 3: Right. From there, Carlton, our axe murderer, flees to the
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  Speaker 3: basement where he attempts to take his own life by
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  Speaker 3: swallowing a vial of hydrochloric acid.
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  Speaker 2: What a way to go. He was, however, unsuccessful somehow
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  Speaker 2: and survived. Can't imagine that was very pleasant, though.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. All in all, seven people died. He survived his
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  Speaker 1: suicide attempt He was arrested. He was taken into custody.
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  Speaker 1: He was charged. Julian Carlton never gave a motive for
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  Speaker 1: his atrocity, but due to the damage that this acid
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  Speaker 1: wrought upon his throat, he died of starvation and an
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  Speaker 1: inflamed esophagus about seven weeks later.
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  Speaker 2: Painful.
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  Speaker 1: Slow.
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  Speaker 3: Ugh. His wife, Gertrude, was found nearby. She had no
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  Speaker 3: idea what had happened and was just waiting to catch
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  Speaker 3: a train to Chicago with her husband, where she said
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  Speaker 3: they were going to look for new jobs. So this
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  Speaker 3: was Taliesin I.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah. And Gertrude was questioned by police and detained. Eventually,
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  Speaker 1: she was released, and she was given a pretty small
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  Speaker 1: amount of money. She went back to Chicago, and we
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  Speaker 1: don't know what else happened to her, but— As you said,
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  Speaker 1: old Frank Lloyd Wright is out of town when this occurs.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: He's not in Wisconsin. And he returns to just find
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: a whirr past words, and he decides to rebuild the
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  Speaker 1: compound when a lot of other people would have just left.
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  Speaker 2: He moved quickly.
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  Speaker 1: He named this newly rebuilt structure Taliesin II. It's almost
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: identical to the first one. It has a few extra
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: bells and whistles, that fancy stuff we were talking about
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  Speaker 1: that ultimately was not very sustainable or practical. He moves quickly.
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  Speaker 2: He sure does.
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  Speaker 3: And around Christmas of that year, we're still in 1914,
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  Speaker 3: Frank also began communicating with a wealthy divorcee named Miriam
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  Speaker 3: Maud Noel, who had reached out after reading about the
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: fire and the mass murder. Like, I guess, yeah, almost
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  Speaker 3: like a fan, kind of. After meeting her in Chicago,
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  Speaker 3: in his offices there, Frank fell ill. head over heels,
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  Speaker 3: gaga in love with this woman. So by the spring
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  Speaker 3: of the following year, Taliesin II was finished. Maud had
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: also taken up residence there. And Frank's first wife, Catherine Kitty,
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  Speaker 3: finally granted him that divorce that he wanted in 1922
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  Speaker 3: with a bit of an odd condition, that Frank not
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: remarry for one year. So in the interests of you know,
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: getting this thing done.
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  Speaker 2: He agreed. Uh, but once that clock had run out
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  Speaker 2: on that year, he married his new, um, his new
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  Speaker 2: lady lickety split.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Lickety split, uh, is something we should emphasize because he, wow,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: he was just running out the clock. You know what
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: I mean? And unfortunately this second marriage also went kaput
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: and pretty quickly because Frank had initially found Noelle's madcap,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: somewhat eccentric or erratic personality to be stimulating and charming.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: But as the pair lived together, one-on-one, he started thinking
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: there was something seriously off about his new wife's behavior.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Ah, the honeymoon period.
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  Speaker 3: You know, it happens to the rest of us, even
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: when there aren't some pretty serious concerns at play.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Right, right. The honeymoon period in U.S. English is conventionally
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: referring to that, that those beautiful days early in a relationship,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: when you're not dating the actual person, you're dating their
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: impression of the person they think you will.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Like the most.
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: Romanticizing it, falling in love with the limerence, I think
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  Speaker 3: is the psychological term, where everything just feels like warm fuzzies,
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: and then the reality sets in. And in this case,
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: the reality of Noel's behavior was schizophrenia.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, later scholars would say this wasn't just oddball eccentricity,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: but an actual mental condition. And Noel eventually leaves Frank
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: in the spring of 1924. And that same year, she
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: leaves him, but she doesn't divorce him yet. And that
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: same year, Wright will go on to meet someone named
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Olga Lazovic-Hindenburg. or Olgivana to her friends. She moves in
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: with Frank in Taliesin in 1925. And soon after that,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: she becomes pregnant. So Frank is back to repairing his
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: career and his reputation. He again is in an estranged
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: marriage and has a mistress. And people are saying, you know,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: people are talking. Like you said, people can be catty.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: And weirdly enough, his reputation is kind of saved by
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: an earthquake. The Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 absolutely wrecks
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: parts of Japan. But the hotel he built earlier, the
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Imperial Hotel of Tokyo, survives the earthquake. And people are saying, look, man,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: do I think someone should marry him? No. But can
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: the guy build a building? Absolutely not.
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: I know. I mean, if having buildings survive earthquakes is wrong,
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: I don't want to be Frank Lloyd Wright.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: There we go. It's worth it.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: I've been waiting to do that for two episodes time.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Please put in the drum riff. So for a while,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Frank did not spend too much time at Taliesin II,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: probably because the tragedy was still fresh in his mind,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: but also because he was getting a lot of work now.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: His frequency of commissions was on the rise, and he
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: would often live near the construction sites of his newest projects.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: It was kind of a nomadic life. By 1922 or so,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: he really starts settling in until there is, get this folks,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: another fire.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: And you'll recall in part one, we teased the idea
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: of multiple fires.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: So we're getting to fire number two.
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: On April 20th, 1925, Frank has just finished dinner in
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: the detached dining room and he's walking outside because again,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: this is a beautiful layout. It's very much integrated with nature.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: So he's walking outside and he's going to be heading
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: back to his bedroom when he sees smoke billowing from
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: the windows in the doorway. And because it is kind
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: of late at night, most of his employees have returned
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: to their houses, to wherever they live off-site. So the
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: only people there are his driver and one of his
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: apprentices slash disciples. So because those other folks are there
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: and because there's not a murderer on the loose, Frank
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: and these two guys are able to get help immediately
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: and they're able to contact the town. But the problem is,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: There's a storm afoot, and the winds that night are
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: high and wild, so the fire is spreading quickly. The
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: living area of Taliesin 2 is destroyed.
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot of folks speculate that the fire may
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: have been caused by a lightning storm, which created an
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: electrical charge in the telephone lines, which then ignited a
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: fire by a telephone in Frank's bedroom. So that was
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: the end of Taliesin 2. Um, once again, Frank, uh,
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: quickly set to rebuilding and he named this new final
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: complex and a burst of creativity, as you like to say,
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: Ben Taliesin three. Ah, yes.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: Taliesin three. Uh, this was also not an easy reconstruction because.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: You know, your, your house has burned down twice. Now, uh,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Frank is deeply in debt following the, following the obliteration
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Taliesin two, he owes debt on the property. But his
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: divorce from Noel also forces him to sell a lot
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: of his farm machines. and livestock, which was a side hustle.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: And then he also had to sell off a lot
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: of his prized Japanese art at half value just because
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: he needed the money. And Taliesin got very close to
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: being a courthouse foreclosure auction The Bank of Wisconsin foreclosed
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: on it in 1927. Frank had to move out to California.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: At that same year, his divorce is finalized. And in 1928,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: he marries Ogeviana. And they were able to save Taliesin III.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: This is an interesting story. One of his old clients,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: a guy named Darwin Martin, came to Frank. and had
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: a really interesting pitch, and I can't wait to hear
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: what we all think of this. He said, I can't
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: give you all the money, but I got a plan.
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: He formed a company called Frank Lloyd Wright Incorporated that
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: would issue stock on Wright's future earnings. Many of Wright's
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: former clients and students bought in, purchasing stock in Wright,
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: and raised $ 70, 000. This is what you might call an IPO,
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: kind of?
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: Sort of a self-contained system of stuff. It's not like
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: it's publicly traded. Yeah, it is kind of like raising,
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: you know, venture capital or something like that, right? The
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: company successfully bid on Taliesin for 40 grand and returned
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: it to Wright's possession.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Yep, and so by October of 1928, he was back
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: at home. Now, we promised you, this Tuesday passed, we
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: promised you we had to talk a little bit about
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: the allegations of cultury. So in addition to Taliesin, the structure,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Frank and his third wife, Ogevana, started something called the
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Taliesin Fellowship. This was an architectural apprenticeship community that they
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: founded in 1932. And it produced a lot of iconic designs.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: A lot of people who went there went on to
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: have very storied careers themselves in architecture. But it was
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: seen as intense, insular, beyond cliquish. It was authoritarian. So
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: it's not a cult per se, but it's cult-like in practice.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: And if it walks like a duck and it quacks
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: like a duck, you know, how many more duck-like things
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: do you need, right?
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: People were living on the grounds, right?
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: Under the, you know, control of this one man who
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: was very magnetic.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: Kind of held sway over over these folks living in
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: his compound i mean it's yeah it's very cult-like especially
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: when you consider that dude had from the start had
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: kind of like almost a spiritual quality to his connection
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: with nature and you know how structures were extensions.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: Of nature and all of that stuff so i mean
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: it does.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Make sense yeah and it also to the spiritual point
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: When you signed up to study architecture under Frank and
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: live under his rule, you weren't just studying architecture. You
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: were also studying what they called spiritual development. And a
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: lot of that came from his third wife. We'll get
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: into that in a second. Twenty-three disciples signed up to
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: live and work there that first year. And overall, in
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Wright's lifetime, a total of 625 people would join the fellowship.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: But the living conditions were a source of controversy. The
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: quality of education, a.k.a. what are we actually learning, was
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: also controversial. And apparently, as he got older and older,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Frank was a very difficult guy to work with. Apprentices
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: were very– you know, it's kind of like hearing people
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: who worked in fine dining talking about working under celebrity
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: chefs who are jerks. because he's traumatized. These people seem,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: in some cases, traumatized, but they also say it was
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: worth it. One guy said, he, meaning Frank, is devoid
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: of consideration and has a blind spot regarding others' qualities.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Yet I believe that a year in his studio would
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: be worth any sacrifice.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I mean, you know, don't need to say
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: it again, but we'll say it again, truly began to
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: resemble a cult leader in his charismatic qualities, his emotional manipulation,
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: fraudulent behavior, domineering, his ability to attract plenty of acolytes
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: who were willing to more or less, maybe not sacrifice
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: like Jonestown, but sacrifice their comfort and their autonomy in
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: order to win a place at the table.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and this practice expanded to another construction in Arizona,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Taliesin West.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: Ooh, Arizona is a cold city too, man.
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: By this point, the fellowship required you as an apprentice
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: to pay for the privilege of studying, and you would
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: perform manual labor. You would do farm work. Scientology. Right.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: You would build Frank's Designs. So under the influence of Frank, oh,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: and we should mention his third wife, Elgivana, she was
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: a big-time follower of a mystic named G.I. Gurdjieff, G-U-R-D-J-I-E-F-F.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: This guy, his teachings or his beliefs heavily influenced what
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Elgivana would have members of the fellowship do. So they
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: blended this guy, Frank's inarguable artistic genius, with, like you said,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: total psychological control. So even though they never billed themselves
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: as a religion or as a cult, a lot of
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: people did think this was a cult in practice, and
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: some of those people were the FBI.
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they caught wind of what was going on over
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: there in Frank's various compounds, and they didn't like it
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: one bit. They, though, however, as they often do, might
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: have had a bit of an ulterior motive. If you
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: can imagine, this is also the time when anti-nationalism was huge.
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: There's sort of like a witch hunt kind of atmosphere
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: going on in terms of rooting out un-American activities, right?
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Very much the halcyon days of Hoover because
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Frank is the world's most famous architect at this time.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, at least in the Western world. But he
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: is also a huge proponent of anti-authoritarianism, anti-nationalism, pacifism. And
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: when the U.S. gets involved in World War II— The
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: FBI is starting to look closer and closer at Frank
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: and what's going on over at Taliesin because they're convinced
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: that he might be a spy or he might be
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: an anti-American element, like a fifth column of some sort.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: So they've got this huge stack of criminal accusations. They're
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: getting tips from quote-unquote concerned citizens, a lot of whom
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: are those– same people from Spring Green, Wisconsin, who already
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: didn't like him. And they say, okay, we've got enough
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: circumstantial allegations of suspicious behavior. Now this guy's FBI jacket,
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: his dossier, is deep. And J. Edgar Hoover kept his
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: agents bird-dogging Frank Lloyd Wright. They would take anything, you know,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: just real or made-up malarkey and just smack it in
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: the file.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because it's important to mention that, you know, a
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: lot of this stuff was true. I mean, they had
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: pretty good reason to be looking.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: At this guy.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's some suspicious, you know, activities going on
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: under his watch. But to your point, Ben, that axe
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: to grind that J. Edgar Hoover often had with folks
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: that he perceived as being anti-American really fattened up that
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: file pretty significantly with some imagined stuff as well.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because anybody could call in anonymously and leave a tip.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: There's a great piece for the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: by a historian named Jack L.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: High.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: Do check it out. He says that Frank Lloyd Wright
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: first came to the attention of the FBI full-time in
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: December of 1942 because a federal judge accused Frank of
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: going to his apprentices and disciples and telling them to
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: avoid the draft and say, hey, you're studying for me.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: You work for me, not the U.S. government, so you
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: are conscientious objectors. And the judge, a guy named Patrick T. Stone, said, mm-mm-mm,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: that doesn't work because you're directly harming the military of
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: the United States.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: Well, that's draft dodging.
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: It's illegal, yeah.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so this judge even sentenced one of Frank's
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: apprentices to prison Because he didn't report for the draft.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: And then we got to the point about wacky tips.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: We got one where an informant whose name is not
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: identified warned the FBI that Frank Lloyd Wright has, quote,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: been sounding off in the worst possible fashion and ought
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: to get his knuckles severely hurt. He's been making speeches
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: to the effect that we ought to let Japan have
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: what she wants in Asia, that they're really nice people.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: He did love the Japanese. He did.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: And the Japanese government did horrific things.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: Oh, no question about it. Yeah.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then other people would write letters and they
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: would say, Frank Lloyd Wright, we're not saying he's a terrorist,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: we're not saying he's a spy, but he's way too
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: friendly toward Japan and Germany, and I think he hates England.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's entirely possible. Hoover forwarded a lot
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: of these allegations to the U.S. Assistant Attorney General, Wendell Burge,
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: in a request to seek prosecution against Wright for sedition.
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: Burge refused to let the case go further and called
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: for the FBI to end its investigation of the architect,
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: just finding, you know, a lot of the stuff packing
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: out that dossier to be sort of spurless.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, hogwash, right? And so here's the deal, though. Hoover,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: in his day, was a lot like a moray eel.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: When he bit down, he wasn't going to let go.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: He was nothing if not tenacious.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: And slippery.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so, yes. And he said.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: He basically said.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Look, I'm going to get this guy on something. We're
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: going to find something. So if he is not guilty
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: of sedition, Big Hoof reasoned, then we can still charge
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: him with obstructing the draft. So in 1943, an FBI
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: field agent does a case report and says 26 members
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: of Taliesin have petitioned the draft board. in Wisconsin for
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: conscientious objector status. And Hoover's like, there we go. He
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: really hit, he had a hate boner for this guy.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: Uh, and that's good.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: And one agent, one FBI agent later, uh, interviewed a
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: member of the draft board because Frank Lloyd Wright had
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: spoken to some of them. And the draft board member said,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: this Frank Lloyd Wright guy, uh, He's too much— he didn't
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: say it this way, but basically he said he's too
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: much of a Colonel Kurtz. He is regarded by members
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: of the Fellowship, quote, as somewhat of an idol, a
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: tin god, or a master who could do no wrong,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: end quote. So, yeah, Noel, Max, I think it's fair
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: to say Frank did kind of have a cult.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: He sure did.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: And his wife, who we know was kind of the
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: driving force behind a lot of this— spiritualism stuff right
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: um arguably made it even weirder after frank's passing in 1959.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: Right it became um more mystical arguably and and a
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: lot of good work came out of talison right you
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: can learn more about it you can visit talison today
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: we recommend it um We're going to have to save
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: the rest of the evolution of Taliesin, perhaps for another day.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: But we do want you to know, folks, no charges
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: against Frank Lloyd Wright ever came out of those wartime investigations.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Yet the FBI, probably guided by Hoover's weird personal hatred
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: of Frank, they continue to monitor his activities and probably
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: break a few laws while they were monitoring him. all
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: the way until his death in 1959 at the age
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: of 91 years old.
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: You know, Ben, this is a wild story and something
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: that maybe feels like a topic we would typically handle
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: on Stuff They Don't Want You to Know, our sister pod,
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: which you all should check out if you haven't. We
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: do a ton of episodes of that show every day,
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: including one that ends up on Netflix, two rather, a
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: week that end up on Netflix.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: You can watch us there. and listener mail.
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: Episodes where you can actually be part of the conversation yourself.
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: But I'm glad that we did this on Ridiculous History, Ben.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: This is a bit of a change of pace. It's
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: a dark story, maybe a little darker than we typically handle,
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: but certainly has more than its fair share of ridiculousness.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: Big, big thanks to our super producer, Mr. Max Williams.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: Big thanks to A.J. Bahamas, Jacobs, Dr. Rachel, Big Spinach, Lance,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: and who else?
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: Who else? Oh, geez, Ben.
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: You know, Christopher Haciotis and Yves Tchefko here in spirit,
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: wandering this great wide world of sports.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: Jonathan Strickland, the quizster, A.J. Bahamas, Jacobs, the puzzler, who
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: you already said. We have to thank them in tandem.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: It's just the rules.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: And thank you for tuning in, folks. We'll be back
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: next week.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: We'll see you next time, folks.
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.