Frank Lloyd Wright created some of the most celebrated buildings in American history, from the Guggenheim Museum in New York City to Fallingwater in rural Pennsylvania.
But behind the professional acclaim was a personal life scarred by scandal, betrayal and tragedy.
It was the summer of 1914 when the foundations of Wright’s carefully constructed world were figuratively and literally set ablaze – and one of his most treasured designs became the backdrop for a gruesome massacre.
Then 47 and working primarily in Chicago, Wright was already notorious across the Midwest for his years-long affair with Martha ‘Mamah’ Borthwick Cheney, the wife of one of his former clients, while he remained married with six children.
When the couple fled to Europe together in 1909, headlines followed. Details of their relationship were splashed across newspapers nationwide, turning the affair into one of America’s earliest celebrity scandals.
Social outcasts in Chicago and desperate for solitude from reporters and public scrutiny, Wright set out to build them a secluded lovers’ retreat atop his favorite hill near his hometown of Spring Green, Wisconsin.
He named it Taliesin.
The 800-acre estate was designed as a defiant monument to Wright’s love for Borthwick. But it would soon become synonymous with horror as the site of one of the grisliest murder sprees in Wisconsin history.
Frank Lloyd Wright, above in the 1950s, is considered one of the most influential architects in American history
In 1909, Wright became notorious across the Midwest for his affair with Martha ‘Mamah’ Borthwick Cheney, the wife of one of his former clients
In August 1914, Borthwick and her two children, eight-year-old Martha and 12-year-old John, were murdered alongside four others by Wright’s hatchet-wielding butler, Julian Carlton, who set fire to Taliesin before fleeing into the surrounding wilderness.
Carlton, 30, was eventually captured but died in custody seven weeks later, never revealing a motive.
More than a century on, what drove him to commit the atrocity still remains a mystery.
Seeking answers is best-selling true crime author Casey Sherman, whose new book, The Killer and Frank Lloyd Wright, offers a forensic examination of the architect’s life, loss and the dark secrets surrounding Carlton’s past.
‘This story is like Romeo and Juliet meets the Shining,’ Sherman told the Daily Mail. ‘On the one hand, you have this dramatic love story – and then you have the axe-murderer.’
Wright was 180 miles away at the time of the killings, working in Chicago on Midway Gardens, a beer hall and entertainment center in Hyde Park.
It was through the Midway project that Wright and Carlton’s paths collided.
Wright was looking for a live-in butler for Taliesin when prominent restaurateur John Z Vogelsang recommended Carlton and his wife, Gertrude, for the job.
Vogelsang offered a glowing review of Carlton and Gertrude but neighbors of the African American pair on the city’s South Side would later paint an entirely different picture.
Wright built a secluded lovers’ retreat atop his favorite hill near his hometown of Spring Green, Wisconsin, and named it Taliesin
Julian Carlton, above in the only known photo of him, murdered Borthwick, her two children and four others in August 1914
The Killer and Frank Lloyd Wright, by Casey Sherman, is published on May 26
‘I didn’t like Carlton and was afraid of him,’ one neighbor told the Chicago Tribune, as quoted in Sherman’s book. ‘He always did look queer to me. I thought he was off. His wife was afraid of him, too.
‘She said he’d get spells when he was wild-eyed and do such strange things that she feared for her life.’
Others later recalled violent mood swings, including one incident in which Carlton exploded in anger after losing a game of cards, sending bystanders fleeing.
None of this would be known to Wright until it was too late. He was preoccupied with the Midway Gardens project and seldom visited Taliesin during the summer months of 1914.
Taliesin was bustling that summer as Wright hired draftsmen and laborers to transform the estate into a working farm and apprentice studio.
At the time, Wright and Borthwick were still attempting to rebuild their reputations, and Taliesin helped. Local journalists celebrated the prairie-style property as an architectural feast for the eyes and fawned over Borthwick as its intellectual and captivating crown jewel.
Despite the couple’s improving image, many local townspeople and clergymen refused to go near Taliesin, believing it to be cursed on account of Wright and Borthwick’s sinful beginnings.
The Carltons, though, were welcomed with open arms and wasted no time ingratiating themselves with Borthwick and her two children, who were visiting for the summer.
Wright (left) was married to Catherine ‘Kitty’ Lee Tobin Wright at the time of his affair with Borthwick. Conspiracy theories suggested that she may have been in cahoots with Carlton
Wright is famed for designing the iconic Guggenheim Museum in New York City
Borthwick praised their work ethic and enjoyed their company, once telling a friend: ‘They’re simply too good to be true.’
The two children were often found hovering around Gertrude in the kitchen, according to Sherman.
It appeared to be going swimmingly until, two weeks before disaster struck, Gertrude noticed a troubling escalation in her husband’s already erratic behavior.
According to Sherman, Gertrude had hoped that leaving the rough streets of Chicago for the tranquility of the Wisconsin countryside would soothe Carlton’s agitation. Instead, his condition only worsened.
She would later recall being startled awake by her husband as he climbed out of bed in the dead of night and peered through their bedroom window, listening for the sound of approaching footsteps.
‘They’re trying to get me,’ Carlton whispered.
After that, he began taking a small hatchet to bed.
In his book, Sherman questions whether Carlton was suffering from mental illness or reacting to fears shaped by the racial violence of the era. The lynchings of black men remained commonplace at the time in his home state of Alabama and across the South.
A few days later, Carlton took a mysterious trip to Chicago before purchasing hydrochloric acid from a Spring Green pharmacy for what he claimed was ‘farm work.’
He warded off sleep and spent the darkened hours staring out the window, clutching his hatchet for the next several nights.
Carlton set Taliesin ablaze during the massacre. He was found in a furnace inside the home still clutching the weapon. Wright, above, surveying the damage in 1914
Then, on August 12, came a potentially significant altercation. One of Wright’s hired draftsmen, Emil Brodelle, ordered Carlton to saddle his horse. Carlton refused.
Brodelle, outraged that an African American had refused his demand, launched into a racist tirade in front of several other workmen.
Carlton later told Gertrude that they were leaving Taliesin and instructed her to inform Borthwick of their resignation.
But with several dinner parties planned, Borthwick persuaded the couple to remain for a few more days while replacements were found, according to Sherman.
Carlton’s odd behavior continued to build until the violent crescendo on August 15.
He and Gertrude were preparing lunch in the kitchen in the late morning.
It was a stiflingly hot day, and Borthwick asked to have lunch with her children on the porch overlooking the Wisconsin River.
The workers, including Brodelle, were served in a dining room about 25 feet away.
After setting their food down, Carlton quietly bolted the dining room door from the outside. He then returned to the porch to serve Borthwick and the children their soup.
As Borthwick leaned down to eat, Carlton brandished his hatchet and brought the blade crashing down on the back of her head.
Her son was killed next in the same way, dying instantly where he sat.
Carlton struck Borthwick with his hatchet, above, using such force that he almost split her skull in two
Martha ran into the field but Carlton quickly caught her, striking her three times in the back of the head.
While the men were eating, Carlton poured gasoline under the dining room door and lit a match.
As the workers tried to flee the flames, he picked them off one by one.
Townspeople who rushed to the scene at the sight of smoke found the charred bodies of Borthwick, her two children, Brodelle, another worker and a 13-year-old boy. A gardener later succumbed to his burns, bringing the death toll to seven.
Both Gertrude and Carlton fled. She was found hiding in a cornfield, while Carlton was discovered barely conscious inside the basement furnace of the house, having swallowed a non-fatal dose of hydrochloric acid.
A mob of locals wanted to lynch Carlton but the local sheriff stepped in and carted him off to jail.
Carlton refused to tell police his motive, offering a bizarre claim of self-defense.
He was also questioned about his mysterious trip to Chicago but declined to provide details.
Rumors soon circulated that Carlton had not acted alone.
Wright died in 1959 aged 91 after becoming one of America’s most celebrated architects
Designed in 1935, Wright’s Fallingwater in rural Pennsylvania is one of the world’s most famous homes
Casey Sherman likened the grisly tale to Romeo and Juliet meets The Shining
The conspiracy theories included speculation that Carlton had met with the Chicago mob, who were angry with Wright over the stalled and bloated Midway Gardens project, or perhaps he’d been hired by Wright’s scorned wife, Kitty Wright, who wanted Borthwick dead for stealing her husband.
Adding to the mystery was a cryptic remark Carlton made shortly before he starved himself to death in custody, hinting that there was more to the story than anyone knew.
‘If I die, you’ll never hear the full story,’ he hoarsely whispered, according to Sherman. ‘They’d better keep me alive if you expect to find out something.’
Gertrude told police she believed that her husband suffered a mental breakdown. She returned to Chicago before his death and was never heard from again. She was not suspected of any wrongdoing.
Carlton’s body was donated to scientists who examined his brain to determine whether a head injury may have triggered the spree. Those findings were never made public.
Did Carlton mastermind the bloodshed? Did someone else instruct him? Or did he simply snap in the moment?
For Sherman, a definitive answer remains elusive.
‘I think Carlton was dealing with some serious, undiagnosed mental disorder,’ he said. ‘I think he was somebody who snapped but his movements before the massacre – which are still largely unaccounted for – indicate there was likely some planning.
‘But what his motivations were remain a mystery 100 years later.’
Wright was devastated by the loss of Borthwick. Though consumed by grief, he refused to abandon Taliesin, rebuilding the estate after the massacre, only for it to be ravaged again years later by a second catastrophic fire.
He spent the rest of his life returning to the hilltop home, reshaping it into both an architectural laboratory and a shrine to the woman he lost there.
By his death aged 91 in 1959, he had consolidated himself as one of America’s most celebrated architects.
But for all the acclaim attached to his name, the horror at Taliesin remains one of the darkest and most enduring shadows cast across his legacy.
The Killer and Frank Lloyd Wright, by Casey Sherman (Source Books), is published on May 26.
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