All the Wright Places

I enjoyed Susan Spano’s article on Taliesin West (“On the Wright Track in Arizona,” Nov. 8). She wrote that she stayed at the Arizona Biltmore and that was the closest she thought she would get to staying in a Frank Lloyd Wright house. Actually there are two Wright houses where the public can stay: Cheney House Bed & Breakfast in Oak Park, Ill., telephone (708) 524-2067, and Seth Peterson Cottage in Lake Delton, Wis., tel. (608) 254-6551, near the Wisconsin Dells.

Seth Peterson, designed in 1958, is only 880 square feet and is in the woods on the small Mirror Lake. Its reservation list is lengthy during most of the year. I just returned from staying there three nights during the fall color season, and it was wonderful!

I stayed at the Cheney House last May. This home was built for Edwin and Mamah Cheney in 1904; Mamah later became Wright’s lover and ran away with him to Europe in 1909. There are two suites downstairs and one bedroom upstairs. There are three other Wright homes on the same block.

DONN HOFFHINE, San Diego

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The excellent article on Taliesin West brought to mind a trip I took to Phoenix a few years ago, which included a tour of Taliesin West. I also visited the Arizona Biltmore and was surprised to see a small plaque in the hotel lobby that stated that the distinctive blocks used on the building’s exterior and interior were designed by Emry Kopta, not by Frank Lloyd Wright.

After reading Spano’s article, I decided to find out who actually designed the blocks. What I learned was that Albert Chase McArthur, the architect of record, had considerable trouble finding a sculptor who could make a model from Wright’s drawings of the block, so he made a model himself. Then he hired Kopta, a local sculptor, who produced the final version of the block.

JOHN APOSTOLOU, Los Angeles