But before that, it was envisioned as the background for House on a Haunted Hill, a classic horror film made in 1959 directed by William Castle, notoriously regarded for his B-rated movies. The house has taken several beatings, first in the 1994 Northridge earthquake and then from torrential rains in 2004, and has since been bought by a private owner to maintain its costly structure. According to Robert Twombly, who wrote Wright's biography, the architect and his work were never the same.įlickr user Scott Beale / Laughing Squid Ennis House in Los AngelesĬompleted in 1924 in Los Feliz, Calif., for Charles Ennis, a men’s department store owner with an enthusiasm in Mayan art and architecture, the house is considered a perfect example of domestic Mayan Revival architecture and one of Wright’s masterpieces. Devastated by the tragedy, Wright promised to rebuild Taliesin in the spirit of Mamah, but did not return for nearly a decade after completing the renovation. Wright was away in Chicago completing the Midway Gardens. One of the estate’s workers was able to save Wright’s studio by alerting neighbors and dousing the fire with a hose. Unfortunately, this came to a gruesome end in August 1914, when Julian Carlton, a 31-year-old man from Barbados who came to work for them as a chef and servant, lit the residential area of Taliesin on fire and then murdered Borthwick, her two children, and four others with an axe and lit some of the bodies on fire. After moving in during the winter of 1911, the couple and Cheney’s children, John and Martha, enjoyed a life filled intellectual hobbies such as Japanese art, and translating Swedish literature. Taliesin, located on a 600-acre plot of land in Spring Green, Wis., became a safe haven for Wright and Martha “Mamah” Borthwick Cheney when headlines surfaced about their affair.

Haunted House by Rick Wood