Spring Green Wisconsin

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We had fun learning about cranberries in central Wisconsin but it is time to continue south. We have one last stop planned for the state. Our destination is Spring Green - about 35 miles west of the state capital. The main reason for picking this town is to be able to visit one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s homes. We are big fans of his style of architecture. Generally we don’t plan a travel stop based on visiting one of his homes but one of his more famous residences is in Spring Green. This location would also work well for visiting Madison Wisconsin to tour the capitol and wander around the University of Wisconsin campus. We have only been able to tour a few of his homes: Falling Water in Pennsylvania, Taliesin West in Arizona and the Dana-Thomas House in Illinois plus a whole campus in Florida that he designed - Florida Southern University. Taliesin in Spring Green was one of his primary residences and is now run as a museum offering tours. We had selected Wisconsin Riverside Resort for the four nights we plan on being here. This is the type of campground that requires reservations well in advance during the summer months. Coming here in early October, the place was barely half full so getting a site was not an issue. It was a fairly straightforward drive of 113 miles from Warrens.

Taliesin - Our Reason for Stopping in Spring Green

There are several different tour options of Taliesin ranging from 90 minute self paced tours for $40 up to a 4 hour estate tour for $102. Chris was convinced we should go for the long tour and booked tickets for the next morning. It is only a few miles from the campground to the main visitor center at Taliesin so we didn’t need to get up exceptionally early to make it there for our 9 AM tour time. The tours start from one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s last buildings - Riverview Terrace overlooking the Wisconsin River. Our group was about a dozen people and the tour guide. We hop on the small bus which takes us over to the main estate.

Riverview Terrace

Spire Detail

Taliesin View from Bus

The full property is about 800 acres and has a multitude of buildings scattered throughout. We start at the main residence on the north side which is more of the service entrance with garages and similar mundane uses. We work our way into the main courtyard where we are better able to see the size of this building.

Chinese Guardian Lion

Side View

Courtyard

Taliesin is purposely built into the brow of the hill rather than at the crest. There are lots of elevation change in the courtyard with beautiful stonework and art pieces all around.

Garden Sprite Statue

This is a big home - around 37,000 square feet. It was built over the period of decades so it was more of an ongoing project than a single large build.  There were a couple of fires over those years that gave Frank ample opportunity to work new concepts into the building over time. We head inside and start to tour the main rooms.

Unusual Floor Lamp

Our tour guide seemed to know all the information regarding Wright and Taliesin so we learned a lot about the man and this property as we toured between rooms.

Walls of Windows and High Ceiling

Detailed Artwork

Given how this place was added to over the years, I would have expected to have obvious discontinuities from one section to another, but for the most part, the flow was pretty seamless. Wright does utilize a theme of “compression and release” in most of his designs that might feel a bit strange to how homes are built nowadays. Many of the hallways and entrances have low ceilings and narrow passages that tends to drive people from one room to the next where the visitor is presented with some bright, open room often with incredible views  out the massive walls of windows.

Work Area

Dining with a View

One of the things that we both noticed was the rather primitive furniture. In my mind, I associated Wright with mission and craftsman furniture - specifically Gustav Stickley. We had purchased some Stickley pieces over the years after we build our craftsman style home. I’ve even made several tables and bookcases in that vein. I just assumed Taliesin would be loaded with beautiful quartersawn white oak furniture. So it was a bit shocking to see that many of the pieces of furniture were built out of simple pine or worse - plywood! I asked the tour guide at one of our breaks about this observation and she says that much of the furniture Wright designed for this home was more like test pieces to try out a design and they would be built with cheaper wood products. I guess it makes sense but was a bit unexpected.

Cozy Desk Nook

Fireplace

Music Corner

Given the size of the home, it takes quite some time to explore it all especially when the tour guide has all sorts of fascinating stories to share along the way.

Frank Lloyd Wright Signature Tile

Old Musical Instruments

Wright has a bit of a reputation for building homes that are beautiful and blend in perfectly with the surrounding landscape but often have blatant operational issues like leaky roofs. One of the rooms with a large wall of windows even has a window that forms a 90 degree angle with no support in the corner. It looks amazing but when a took a closer look at how it was done, I notice there was over a quarter inch gap all along the two pieces of glass. It’s not too bad of a problem on a nice day like today but could be an issue during the typical Wisconsin winter or a rain storm. It sounds like the maintenance to keep this and the other buildings on the property is a bit of a challenge and I’m sure our tour fees help pay for repairs.

Wright Head and Beautiful Lamp

Cantilevered Walkway

The bedrooms are on one side of the house with some nice outdoor walkways that overlook the surrounding fields. Wright had a penchant for the orient so there are a ton of pieces of art all over the house reflecting his tastes.

Bedroom

Artwork Wright Collected on His Travels

We head back outside for one last look around the perimeter of the house. I will say that Wright picked a beautiful property and designed the home to work into it perfectly. Owning this much land has its perks because most homes would have been surrounded by housing developments by now instead of active farm fields.

View Into Courtyard

Another Angle of Taliesin

Dramatic View from Taliesin

Speaking of farm fields, this property was actively farmed back in the time Wright lived here. Today, the fields are leased out to local farmers so the property can maintain its rural nature. We walk over to the Midway Barn built in 1949. At 200 feet long, it’s a big barn. The “Milking Tower” was designed by Wright which was rather unusual. The tour doesn’t take us inside to see how the cow stalls were designed but it was probably unique as well.

Huge Barn

Milking Tower

We continue on beyond the barn and stop to see the house Wright built for his sister in 1907. This home was restored in 2017 and is sometimes used as housing for some special guests. There are a couple other cottages built nearby that were used for fellows attending Wright’s programs. One of the is currently a private residence so no touring of this place.

Cottages Near Sister's House

Private Residence

The most unique building on this part of the property is the 60 foot tall windmill. Dubbed “Romeo and Juliet”, this 1897 structure was built to pump water for the nearby school built on the property for his aunts. When asked to build a water tower, Wright felt the need to make it be unlike any other water tower. It is actually two structures combined. The diamond shaped “Romeo” was oriented to shield the shorter “Juliet” tower from the prevailing winds.

Romeo and Juliet

We head down the hill to the Hillside Complex which started out as the home school building in 1887 but evolved over its early years into a larger school which ran until 1915. During the 1930’s, Wright repurposed the building to become the area where his Taliesin Fellowship members would work out of.

Hillside Complex

There are some very large rooms where Wright’s fellows would draw up plans for homes or commercial buildings for his wealthy clients. The tour guide had all sorts of fascinating stories to tell about how the design process worked.

Overlooking Lunch Area

Main Drafting Area

We end up in a theater that is still used on occasion for local events and lectures. It was recently restored and can seat 100 people. We conclude our tour at this point and head out to the waiting bus that would drive us the mile or so back to the main visitor center where we had started. It was a bit after 1 PM by now and we were hungry. It would have been a quick drive back to camp for lunch but since Riverview Terrace has a functioning restaurant, we decide to have lunch in the dining hall that Frank designed. It was definitely a long tour but well worth the time and money.

Theater Seating

After lunch, we drive just down the road to Unity Chapel - one of Wright’s earliest works from 1886. This is where he was laid to rest in 1959 At nearly 92 years of age. There was a foundation renovation project taking place so we could not check out the chapel very closely.

Since this part of Wisconsin was new to us, there were a few counties in the area that we should find geocaches in. Technically it wouldn’t be too challenging to get 3 counties since Spring Green is in the southwest corner of one county with another across the river and the third just a few miles to the west. But when we looked at the geocaching map, we spotted a highly favorited cache at some sort of sculpture park. From the pictures, Dr. Evermor’s Park was definitely an unusual looking place. It was close to a 25 mile drive but we decided to to come up with a route that would include a stop there. We worked in a stop at Arena Cheese. There wasn’t much to see through the windows of cheese production, but this might be our last chance to get some fresh cheese curds while in Wisconsin.

We make it to the parking area for Dr Evermor around lunch, so we ate our food we had brought along before heading in. I was somewhat surprised by the number of cars here today. It wasn’t the nicest day and it was a Monday so I was expecting us to be the only visitors but it turns out a handful of others were drawn here as well.

Dr Evermor Park

This isn’t a huge place - maybe couple acres -  but there is a lot of “artwork” on the grounds.

Ostrich?

Really Big Bug

Closeup of Big Bug Eye

Some of the pieces are quite large and complex topping out at 40 to 50 feet tall.  I wouldn’t say there was any consistent theme at least to someone being of sound mind. I’m not saying Tom Every - the creator - was crazy but it would seem he was at least a bit quirky.

Epicurean

Largest Sculpture

There was one section of the park that seemed to have a large number of musical based sculptures. He worked as a demolition expert and industrial wrecker, so that would at least explain how he came into acquiring so much scrap metal. After looking around the grounds, we set off to find the geocache that is hidden here. The problem is that with this much “stuff” laying around, it could be just about anywhere which gave us a needle in a haystack feeling. It wasn’t clear if anyone wandering around was a caretaker that might know about the cache hidden here. But after a few minutes, I spotted something a bit suspicious and made the find.

Tall Spider

Bird Beak

On the drive back to camp, we stopped by Peck's Farm Market. It’s a big place and with Halloween coming up in a few weeks, it was jam packed with pumpkins and supposedly had farm animal which Chris hoped included goats.

Peck's Farm Market

Large Pumpkin

The skies had clouded up even more and we got a couple of sprinkles but it never truly rained so we could wander around. They did indeed have a few types of goats as well as ducks, cows, miniature horses and even white deer.

Saying Hello

Ducks and Geese

Miniature Horses

White Deer

There were a few of the outbuildings that were decorated like haunted houses with a wide assortment of scary creatures. We picked up a homemade treat and finished up the day back at camp waiting for the weather to clear up.

Free Haunted House

Alien Autopsy

Pirate Themed Haunted House

The weather turned nice again for our last full day in the area. This was good news since we were hoping to spend the day wandering around Madison. Touring inside the capitol building would be fine on a rainy day, but we also wanted to walk the campus at the University of Wisconsin. Both of our destinations are just a couple of miles from one another. We choose a parking garage in between them and set out the next morning to explore Madison.

Wisconsin State Capitol Building

There are guided tours of the capitol building on the hour frequently throughout the week. We shoot to be there for the 10 AM tour. We are directed to the place where the tours start and ask if there is room for the next tour. We are informed that a couple bus loads of schoolchildren are coming and there will be multiple tours starting as soon as they arrive. We look around the main area beneath the dome while it is still relatively quiet.

Inside the Rotunda

Lots of Murals

Under the Dome

A few minutes later, the rotunda is filled with noisy grade school students and lots of teachers and chaperones. They get divided up into smaller groups and are given a tour guide. We survey the situation and realize there isn’t necessarily a way to know which group will be the best for us to tag along with. Our group heads into the state Supreme Court chamber where we are asked to sit and learn about the judicial branch and the history of the building.

The Children Arrive

State Supreme Courtroom

I got the feeling that these tour guides have done multiple large groups before because they seemed to move us from one area to the next and not really run into the other groups along the way. We proceed into the house chambers and learn about the state animal - the American badger. The North Hearing Room has a beautiful stained glass ceiling and elaborate historical paintings around its perimeter.

Wisconsin Badger

House Chambers

North Hearing Room

It seemed like the tour went smoothly and quickly. Afterwards, the tour guide caught the few adults that had joined in on her tour and explained some of the other areas we should check out on our own as they aren’t part of the tour or at least not when it is a huge group of kids. As we head off on our own, we spot many of the kids sitting in small groups down on the main floor and being very quiet. I couldn’t tell if they were working on some questions from the tour or eating lunch but at least it was fairly calm in the building.

We work our way past the senate chamber that we never got to see and go to the stairs to the observation deck. Some of the kids were up there so the guide asked us to wait until they came down the spiral stairs and once they were gone, we would have the deck to ourselves. We find the views of downtown very nice. The building is situated on a small sliver (about half a mile wide) of land between two lakes - Lake Mendoza to the northwest and Lake Monona to the southeast. This makes the Wisconsin capitol the only one built on an isthmus.

View from Observation Deck

Statues Above Observation Deck

Inside the building just below the observation deck are a lot of displays explaining all about the construction of the building and some of the novel systems built into it. For instance, this building had a pneumatic clock system. Iron piping runs from the master clock on this upper floor went to all 170 secondary clocks throughout the building and a puff of air every minute advanced all these clocks so every one displayed the same time. We enjoyed our visit here. It would have been better if our tour group hadn’t included 25 kids but we still learned some things.

As we leave the capitol building, our plan is to walk the 1.5 miles west to the UW campus. Since it was close to noon, Chris had previously researched places to eat and had chosen State Street Brats for lunch. Since she knows I like brats and they are kind of a Wisconsin specialty, it was clear I would enjoy stopping there. Apparently they had a wide enough of a menu to allow her to find something she would like as well. UW is a campus intertwined in the city so there are lots of students walking the streets going to and from classes. We get our food and grab an outdoor table so we can people watch and eat.

After lunch, we continued onto campus. Chris had investigated things to see and do here so we had a bit of a planned mission. We worked our way north to the edge of the one lake. It is definitely a pretty setting for a campus that is in a big city.

Soothing Granite Fountain

Wisconsin Badger Mascot

Along Edge of Lake Mendota

There are lots of neat old buildings but also a mixture of brand new construction. There seemed to be lots of students wandering around and it didn’t seem to be limited to just the breaks between classes.

Looking Across Library Mall

Beautiful Science Building

Music Hall

One of the buildings we visited was the Chazen Museum of Art. This free museum has rotating art displays and is fairly large so there was a lot to see inside.

"The Generation Below Them"

Beautiful Rabbit Sculpture

Another stop on campus is the Wonders of Physics. Being geeks at heart, we felt we needed to check this place out. There are numerous interactive displays that were actually very interesting and even baffling. The only problem was the a team of students that were in the middle of creating a video to show off the displays so we needed to keep out of the way as they worked.

The geology museum was of interest to us as well. We have done our fair share of geology stops this year with many stops while we were in the Upper Peninsula earlier this summer. Admittedly it’s just a bunch of rocks that we were staring at but we still enjoyed it. The fluorescent minerals always seem to be fascinating. First you see them under normal daylight conditions and then the room lights are turned off and ultraviolet lights come on and make them all look vibrantly different.

University Logo in Flowers

Great Stained Glass

Fluorescing Minerals

Globe

We went as far west as the Allen Centennial Garden. Our reason was mainly to find a geocache hidden along the paths but we found the place was pretty nice as well.

Building at Allen Centennial Garden

To head back to the car, we decided to take the walking path that follows the shore of the lake. Being a beautiful afternoon, it was a very busy place but still pretty. We eventually needed to cut back south onto city streets to work our way back to the parking garage and our car. It was well after 4 PM by now and we were tired from all the slow walking around Madison so we were content to hop in the car and head back to camp.

Outside St Paul Student Center

Over the next several days, we will need to make some distance to get to our next reserved campground in southern Indiana outside of Evansville. It will be 4 travel days covering over 550 miles and 3 states. It’s a bit faster pace than we like but that’s how the plans worked out.