The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation has completed the final step for placing part of the Arizona campus on the historic register of the city of Scottsdale.
The Taliesin West Historic Preservation Plan was recently approved by the Scottsdale Historic Preservation Commission.It governs the 10.6 acres of structures the renowned architect began in 1937 on the 490-acre grounds.
In 2006, Scottsdale conferred the historic designation, pending completion of the preservation plan. Typically, such plans are created by the city’s historic preservation staff, but the foundation prepared its own plan because it already had one under way and was preparing a related request to rezone the entire Taliesin tract, northeast of Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard and Cactus Road, as a Special Campus.
Most of Wright’s property has been zoned as 1-acre Residential. Though I suspect that the danger of the Foundation bulldozing it and throwing up a new subdivision of McEyesores was non-existant.
The new status does give the city of Scottsdale a role in any future changes to the exteriors of the structures in the 10.9 acre “core” where Wright constructed his buildings.
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation will follow the preservation plan when making restorations or designing new construction on the property. The city, according to the document, will use these guidelines when reviewing the “appropriateness” for any exterior work done at Taliesin West that requires a building permit and in “evaluating the appropriateness of any city public works project or capital expenditures within and adjacent to this historic district.”