"Romantic genius, artistic iconoclast, heroic individualist: these were the labels Wright attached to himself, these the standards against which he measured his own behavior. When he told clients to throw away their belongings or when he cajoled them into spending far more than they had ever intended on their houses, he was serving his vision of an ideal truth. Given his own perennial indifference to money, one can almost imagine that he literally had trouble regarding it as real. When he underestimated costs, he may sometimes have fooled himself as much as he did his clients, for the money (perhaps even the client) was just a means to an end. Indeed, Wright went so far as to suggest that money actually acquired its value by enabling his genius to create, and was as good as worthless if not pressed into the service of some higher good. “Money,” he told his apprentices, “becomes valuable because you can do something with it. If you take away all the creative individuals, all the men of ideas who have projected into the arena of our lives substantial contributions, money would not be worth anything."
-- "Inconstant Unity: The Passion of Frank Lloyd Wright" by William Cronon

Frank Lloyd Wright was born Frank Lincoln Wright in Richland Center, Wisconsin in 1867. After beginning his career auspiciously in Chicago, he moved back to Wisconsin to build his dream home, a home "at one with nature," Taliesin, for himself and his mistress. A servant murdered his mistress and 4 others and set fire to the place. Taliesin caught fire again later, probably due to "lightning."

He built a second Taliesin in Arizona late in his life. Taliesin means "Shining Brow" in Welsh and is the name of the "chief of poets" in Welsh myth.

Links

• http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/1469/flw_life.html