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.”

Frank lloyd Wright always said you should own the view from your house. The next best thing might be to have the view owned by a nature preserve.

The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation is working with McDowell Sonoran Preserve Commission to preserve the hillsides surrounding Taliesin West. Since Wright designed the campus with the desert views as an integral part of the design, preserving the view is a vital concern for protecting the site.

“They’re trying to provide a permanent solution to land that should remain open space,” Cafarella said. “Both Taliesin and the city want to ensure that the hillside behind Taliesin is preserved in perpetuity.”

Although the commission’s agenda stated the closed discussion would be about the potential “purchase, sale or lease for inclusion in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve” of land at Taliesin West, Cafarella said talks with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, which operates the campus, have included a wide range of options for desert preservation there.

Construction on Taliesin West, a National Historic Landmark, began in 1938. The site hosts a school of architecture and attracts about 150,000 tourists a year.

The campus sits on 491 acres of the Sonoran Desert, with spectacular views across the Valley. The land slopes upward to the northwest toward Thompson Peak in the McDowell Mountains.

Eventually, Scottsdale hopes to set aside a total of more than 36,000 in those mountains for preservation.

“Certainly the foundation supports the city and the aims of the McDowell Sonoran Preserve in seeking to protect the open desert lands,” said Mark Lynch, foundation spokesman.

Interior repairs of cracked walls and ceilings will be completed this week, while exterior fixes for “critter damage” and rot will begin (and be completed) in May.

The bill for the repairs is expected to be around $18,000.

After 25 years of discussion with the city, local landmark designation was finally approved by City Council in 2002. Two current proposals, however, threaten the district’s character.

The former Chicago Athletic Association and YWCA buildings have been slated for rooftop additions, despite the limitations of height and scale enforced in landmark districts. The towers are designed to be set back from the historic façades, but call for considerable demolition of the existing buildings. Their height and mass would greatly disrupt the historic skyline as viewed from Grant Park and the lakefront. Should these projects gain approval from the city, they would set a precedent for high-rise additions in landmark districts and weaken the local landmark ordinance.

Landmarks Illinois is an active, 30-year-old, statewide preservation organization that counts the Reliance Building and the Marquette Building among its successes.

A group of about 20 adjacent neighbors is fighting plans to reopen the house to the public, arguing that the house should be sold to a private owner. They say that re-opening it will again create havoc on a tiny street that was never intended to host visitors, conferences, fundraisers, movie shoots, or parties (Gus Brown was notorious for loud parties and for constantly allowing movies to film there). They add that local zoning prohibits any house in the neighborhood from hosting public visits or events, and point to a letter signed by the foundation in 2005 assuring them that the house would not be re-opened to the public.

“It’s not a shrine, it’s a home,” said Frank Masi, who along with Donna Kolb is leading the group of opposed neighbors. “We want to restore the house to what it was meant to be — a single-family residence.” He added that a recent proposal from the foundation was inadequate because it called for hosting events or tours over 200 times a year. He says he might consider a compromise, but still prefers a sale, preferably to a reputable realtor who would be able to find a respectful owner. The house is landmarked, so its exterior could not be changed.

The Ennis House Foundation hopes to allow some public access to the building, and is working to find a solution, though sale to a private owner is a possibility.

A news item on the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy’s site updates — with good news — the status of the Charnley Cottage in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Thanks to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, funds for restoration are available, and a preservation easement has been given, protecting the site for the future.

Phase I (stabilization and new foundation) and Phase II, restoring the structure on the new foundation, finishing walls, roof and all exterior features, have been approved and are ready to start. Original building plans have been obtained, and the structure will be rebuilt according to its original configuration before the open porches were enclosed. Phase III, refinishing the interior with as much original material as can be salvaged, and replicating the rest, is soon to be approved.

The site needs a buyer, and the Building Conservancy may be able to assist with aspects of the purchase.

The other two buildings on the site — the Charnley Guest House and Sullivan Cottage — one, the guest house is slowing being restored by its owners, but the Sullivan house was totally destroyed.

Of the six Wright designs on West Burnham Boulevard (four duplexes and two single family homes), the group has bought two — one duplex and one single family — and has been restoring the home and offering regular opportunities to see the interior.

The Historic Preservation Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, School of Architecture and Urban Planning, helped research the house’s original condition, Lilek said. Its work, along with that of Italian conservator Nikolas Vakalis, can be seen in swatches of color on the walls that show the original paint.

Vakalis had 17 samples of finishes, plaster, stucco and paint analyzed by a lab to determine the composition so they could be replicated. They will try to restore as much as they can, but not if it won’t hold up, Lilek said.

Eventually, they will also have furniture made, based on Wright’s drawings. Wright saved space by adding a folding door to the kitchen, a built-in kitchen table and chairs and built-in closets, which are all still there.

[ … ]

The group eventually wants to refurbish the exterior of the duplex, which is now a rental property. But what will be done, if anything, to the remodeled interior has not been decided, Lilek said.

Their intent isn’t to make each house into a museum. “We’re going to try and turn these back to owner-occupied buildings,” he said. “I don’t know if me or you would move into a building in its 1916 condition.”

The single-family home is open one Saturday a month (the next dates are April 14 and May 12) and more information about the homes on West Burnham is available on the group’s website, including an article by Michael Lilek.

Jean Marinos, president of Wright on the Park Inc., said she was interviewed Wednesday by an upstate New York radio station, and the Washington Post published an article Thursday about Wright architecture in Mason City and a film featuring the Park Inn Hotel.

“We’re putting the fund-raising in high gear — really high gear,” said Marinos. “Right now we’re focusing on foundations and corporations and businesses in the community.”

More than $500,000 has already come in pledges to Vision Mason City, a group that is raising money collectively for various projects rather than doing it individually.

[Update: Reading something else, I’m not sure the source I used below was correct. A few days ago, it was reported that the Vision Iowa grant of $9 million was *expected to go towards the Park, fund for the Mason City library and an interpretive center for the Wright-designed Stockman House.

Good news either way.]

The State of Iowa has awarded $9 million to the Park Inn restoration efforts, through the Vision Iowa grant program. The grant must be matched by $4.3 million in six months to guarantee funds.

Carra’s hour-long film, which is unfortunately rather muddled in its effort to draw together too many threads, shows the tragic decline of Wright’s hotel over the years, until it is hardly recognizable as a Wright building either inside or out. Plastered with signs, chopped up inside, Wright’s hotel eventually played host to go-go dancers. Music Man Square may remind people of Willson’s famous song about moral turpitude — we’ve got “trouble with a capital T, and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool” — but Wright’s neglected hotel lived the whole sorry drama of decay.

Actually, the writer spends almost the whole article talking about things only tangentially related to the film, and, though he mentions the restoration of the Park Inn, it’s unclear if the current work on the hotel renders the film pointless.

A positive review on IMDB reads:

From 1909 to 2008, The Park Inn witnessed alterations and downgrading, while Mason City dealt with a Dillinger Bank robbery in the 1930s, an economic downturn in the 1960s, and the label ‘Porn City’ in the 1970s. While the city struggled to fund renovations of The Park Inn in the 1990s in an effort at heritage tourism, it also attempted an economic revival with a 20 million dollar tribute to the musical comedy, ‘The Music Man,’ based on Meredith Willson’s boyhood in Mason City.As a last resort, the city decided to place the Park Inn on Ebay. Through an intoxicating blend of rare archival footage, period music and a first look at stunning Wright masterpieces in the Midwest and Japan, THE LAST WRIGHT offers a provocative, ironic tapestry of an American century