The Taliesin Massacre

Frank Lloyd Wright.

A brutal multiple murder involving the lover of probably the most famous Welsh-American of all, the pioneering architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

Taliesin was, and is, a beautiful large home, set atop a hill in Wisconsin. The valley that it sits in was settled during the Civil War by the Lloyd Joneses, Wright's maternal family.

This was Wright's second house, begun in 1909, as he left his Oak Park home and wife behind to have an affair with Mrs. Martha Borthwick Cheney in Europe. They settled in Taliesin in December 1911, along with her two children, John and Martha. The house was a fully functioning studio for Wright, and at the time of the incident a work crew was there in addition to the now Ms. Borthwick and her children.

The staff of the household was a couple from Barbados, Julian and Gertrude Carlton. Gertrude was the cook, and Julian filled a variety of roles, from general handyman to butler. He was both intelligent and well educated, with an apparently affable character; however many in the house viewed him with suspicion. Testimony later described him as hot-headed, recalling incidents where he got into arguments with the tenants. He once decried everyone in the household as "picking on him," which put him continually on the defensive.

One night, seemingly without provocation, Julian Carlton set fire to the house and took a hatchet to everyone who tried to escape.

He was dead before anyone could acquire a clear motive.

Murders at the Taliesin.