Friday, October 24, 2008

The night Frank Lloyd Wright Spent in Hennepin County Jail

Reader and blogger Aaron M. Renn reminds us that we forgot to mark the 82nd anniversary of the arrest of Frank Lloyd Wright at the kitchen door of his cottage at Wildhurst, Lake Minnetonka, where he was in illicit domicile with "Montenegrin dancer" Olga Milanoff, who would become the third - and final - Mrs. FLW after he married her less than two years later.

Wright, who was writing - and apparently generating material for - his autobiography at the time, had been charged with infidelity by Mrs. FLW #2. and "alienation of affections" by Mme Milanoff's aggrieved husband. You can read a splendidly dramatic and evocative front-page account of the incident by Minneapolis Tribune reporter Ben Weltner here.

If you missed commemorating the actual October 21st anniversary date this past Tuesday, I'm sure FLW wouldn't mind if you chose to belatedly mark the occasion with the traditional drinking game of thumbing through 1950's magazine profiles and downing a shot each time "Frank Lloyd Wright" and "world's greatest architect" occur within 12 words of each other.
(Minneapolis Times photo courtesy Minneapolis Public Library)

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