25 MUST-SEE CULTURAL MUSEUMS

SUMMER 2019

Dive
In
ENJOY CARIBBEAN’S
WARM WATERS
& SOFT SANDS

PLUS
SAVOR ICONIC
STATE CUISINE
WOODSTOCK’S
50TH JAM PARTY
COPTERS, CAVES,
CAMPS & CRUISES
 MIDWEST | IL L INOIS

Laurent House
Rockford, Ill.

Built by Design
Frank Lloyd Wright Trail
pays homage to renowned architect
BY LISA DAVIS

T
he creative works York, span 38 states and reach wood and capitalized on outdoor
of architecture as far as Japan. But it was in views with eye-level windows
genius Frank Illinois where Wright spent the that ringed a room.
Lloyd Wright first two decades of his career The Land of Lincoln now has
include more and pioneered his American another claim to Wright’s fame:
than 500 Prairie style of architecture a new tourism trail that links
structures, including the famous that incorporated indigenous visitors with Wright’s handiwork,
Guggenheim Museum in New materials such as stone and from as far north as Rockford

114 GO ESCAPE | SUMMER 2019

 ROCKFORD
CHICAGO

ILLINOIS
SPRINGFIELD

Frederick C. Robie
House, Chicago

and south to the state capital

of Springfield. “Visitors have a
strong interest in learning about
Frank Lloyd Wright’s ties to
Illinois, and the trail gives them
an easy way to see his public
works,” says Jan Kemmerling,
acting director of the Illinois
Office of Tourism. “Oak Park (near
Chicago) itself is home to 25
buildings designed or redesigned
by Wright, more than anywhere
else in the world.”
The self-guided trail comprises
13 public sites, including
The Rookery multiple attractions in Chicago,
Chicago the Laurent House in Rockford,
which is the only Wright
structure that was designed to
be fully wheelchair accessible,
and the Dana-Thomas House in
Springfield. Wright fans could
easily spend a weekend viewing
his architecture in Chicago and
ILLINOIS OFFICE OF TOURISM; MAP ILLUSTRATION: AMIRA MARTIN

its historic suburb of Oak Park.

There are 80 Wright structures
in the Chicago metro area, six of
which are on the trail, including
the Unity Temple; Wright’s
private home and studio in
Oak Park where he worked and
lived from 1889 to 1909, the first
two decades of his career; The
Rookery building in the Chicago
Bradley House Loop where Wright redesigned
Kankakee, Ill. the famed light court; the Emil
Bach House in Chicago, which >

115
 MIDWEST | IL L INOIS
is the only Wright residence
in the Windy City available
for vacation rentals; and the
For more Frederick C. Robie House
information in Chicago’s Hyde Park
about Wright's neighborhood. The Robie House,
legacy and with a fully restored interior, is
other available new on the trail this year.
tours, go to
“The renovations better
flwright.org
fit Wright’s vision when he
designed it in 1910,” notes
Kemmerling.
For those who want to see
more of Wright’s works, trail
itineraries can be downloaded
from EnjoyIllinois.com. One
itinerary features a 110-mile road
trip from Chicago to Rockford,
with stops in Oak Park, Geneva,
Belvidere and Hampshire, includ-
ing the Muirhead Farmhouse
surrounded by nearly 800 acres
of prairie and the only known
116 GO ESCAPE | SUMMER 2019
EMIL BACH
HOUSE
Chicago
For details on
how to rent this
restored 1915
Wright home for
special events or
vacations, go to
emilbachhouse.
com.
existing farmhouse to have
been designed and built by
Wright. Another option maps a
roughly 240-mile journey from
Chicago to Springfield, dropping
by Oak Park; Kankakee, where
visitors can tour one of Wright’s
earliest Prairie-style creations,
the Bradley House, and check
out the Wright-inspired murals
downtown.
Another way visitors can see
Wright’s works in person is by
participating in the Frank Lloyd
Wright Trust’s annual Wright
Plus Architectural Housewalk
(flwright.org/wrightplus). This
year's event will include tours
of eight private residences and
two landmark buildings that
were designed by Wright and his
contemporaries in the Oak Park
neighborhood. l
FIND MORE
WRIGHT TIES
IN WISCONSIN
Wisconsin is Frank Lloyd
Wright’s birthplace and where
architourists can follow a
200-mile trail that showcases
nine public Wright sites. The
self-guided tour stretches
from Racine on Lake Michigan
to Richland Center, where the
architect was born in 1867
and where he designed the
A.D. German Warehouse in
1915. Once a repository for
sugar and tobacco, it now
houses a gift shop, theater
and photo murals illustrating
Wright’s work.
Another Wisconsin Wright
stop is Taliesin near Spring
Green, the home, studio and
school Wright built with native
yellow limestone and cypress
wood and topped with
slanted roofs to resemble the
surrounding hills. His mistress,
Martha Borthwick Cheney, her
two children and four others
were murdered in 1914 at
Taliesin, which the local press
named the “Love Cottage.” It
was set on fire in the mas-
sacre, and was restored by
Wright. It burned down again
in 1925, and the architect
rebuilt it a second time.
Wright’s work can also be
found in Madison, the state
capital, where he proposed
a “dream civic center” on
the shores of Lake Monona
in 1938 that included an
auditorium, rail depot,
marina, courthouse and city
hall but was defeated by the
county board. In 1997, the
Monona Terrace convention
ILLINOIS OFFICE OF TOURISM
center opened in the original
location and was renovated
in 2014 to include designs
honoring Wright’s style.
— Lisa Davis