In 1927, Frank Lloyd Wright came to Phoenix to consult on design elements for the Arizona Biltmore hotel. He fell in love with the Arizona desert. He determined to make the area his winter home, to escape the winters in Wisconsin and to utilize the openness of the desert for inspiration for himself and his apprentices. While he would spend a number of winters here over the next few years, it wasn’t until 1937 that he purchased a large tract of land to the northeast of the city. This site, with no electricity or running water, would become his camp. Over the next two years, a well would be dug, permanent buildings designed and constructed, and by 1941, Taliesin West was truly born.

For the next close to twenty years, until the architect’s death in 1959, Taliesin West would be his – and his staff’s – home for roughly half the year, with the other half being back in Taliesin, Wisconsin. (Hence the name here of Taliesin West.) And it is here that the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation currently operates, sharing the space with tourists and architecture aficionados who come to pay homage to one of the most influential architects in American history.

I am one of those fans of fascinating designs and their originators. I’ve had the good fortune to tour two of Frank Lloyd Wright’s buildings: Fallingwater in Pennsylvania and the Hollyhock House in Los Angeles. (Click here to read about Hollyhock.) But I’d never visited Taliesin West, despite more than two years living in Phoenix and probably dozens of trips back since.

While today Taliesin West is still on the outskirts of the Phoenix metro area, back in the 1930s and 1940s, this was truly remote. That is apparent when one drives onto the property, as the majority of the city is blocked from view by mountains. The property seems to be more for the plants and the birds than for people, melting into the desert landscape. And as I begin the audio tour included with the rather steep $44 admission fee, I quickly find out that it was intended to be that way.

The audio tour takes a bit over an hour, although one can pause it at any point to spend a bit longer in a given location. It works its way around the outside of the main buildings, and into five (by my recollection) rooms, all of which are public. There don’t seem to be any bedrooms at Taliesin West, and I find myself wondering where the Wrights and their entourage actually slept while here. Subsequent research also hasn’t unearthed any definitive answers, so I assume that there were cottages on the property or that accommodations were elsewhere in the city.

The tour begins by talking about the acquisition of the close to 500 acre property, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s love of the McDowell Mountains that face it. Those and the native flora inspired much of the design elements, along with rocks with native petroglyphs found on the site. It is important to remember that for most of the working years of Taliesin West, it was semi-open to the elements. Roofs overhead were often canvas, and the sides of rooms that are now glass were often just open to the air. As a result, it must have felt even more natural of a location than today, and that’s saying something.

As the tour works its way into Wright’s office, and then subsequent rooms in several different low buildings, two of the architect’s basic tenets come into focus. First, in all of his designs that I’ve seen, Frank Lloyd Wright had a way of bringing the outdoors inside. Here at Taliesin West, the mountains and the desert sun were his tools. Roofs are often at a slant, mirroring the rise of a ridge behind them, with wooden beams to resemble the washes down their sides. And those slants give way naturally to high ceilings on one side, better to play up the natural light as the sun passed.

Some rooms, like the Sun Room, seem almost to be outdoor spaces entirely. This lovely open space, used for evening entertaining for the group, sits around a rock fireplace made of locally sourced stone, again reflecting the mountains. And the largest wall, where the slanted roof is at its highest, holds huge windows (and were once just open air) to a courtyard outside, so the eye focuses on the back of the courtyard – and not the room – as its natural endpoint.

Second, Frank Lloyd Wright designed many of his structures to feel freeing inside, via a subtle compression and then release. Think of a medieval church, where one enters through small doors, only to find a huge airy room on the other side. So it was with Wright, and so we find here at Taliesin West. Entrances to rooms are on the low side of the slanted roofs, made via doors that seem even smaller. The resulting feeling of the larger-than-expected room on the other side is one of freedom and relief.

Outside, the structures are of wood and stone, with local plants and water features (the water comes from a well on the property) playing as accents. But the eye is always drawn to the mountains, or to the mirrors of them – like stone towers – on the building facades.

Graded paths and breezeways add to the feeling of being outdoors in nature, with openings specifically placed to allow views of those features Wright wanted highlighted.

The largest room on the tour is the studio, where Frank Lloyd Wright and his apprentices would work. While here, the architect designed many of his most famous buildings, from the Guggenheim Museum in New York to a number of local projects. Sketches are on display, and it is fun to think of standing at a desk working on one of them.

Frank Lloyd Wright is inexorably tied to Phoenix. His elements at the Arizona Biltmore are easily visible, but his other projects around the city are numerous. After visiting Taliesin West, it is easy to spend a couple hours traversing Phoenix to view some of them, which range from Arizona State University’s Gammage Auditorium to the First Christian Church and its pyramidal spire and tower.

Or check out the Lykes House, the final commission the architect took in his life. Also called the “Circular Sun House,” it was designed to blend into the mountain behind it while maximizing space in its simple three bedroom frame.

Frank Lloyd Wright remains one of the most influential American architects of all time, with a building catalog that is varied and dizzying. But here in Phoenix, working from his winter headquarters at Taliesin West, the man did so much of his best work. A visit here teaches us about his life and his philosophies, and lets us see why the Arizona desert was a place he held so dearly.

Thank you to the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation for hosting my visit to Taliesin West.

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