Architectural block from the Imperial Hotel, Tokyo

15 August 1914

Tragedy at Taliesin

While Wright was working in Chicago, the servant Julian Carlton set fire to Taliesin's living quarters and killed seven people with an axe, among them Mamah Cheney and her children John and Martha. The fire almost entirely consumed the residential wing.

1917–1922

The Japanese years

In Japan Wright designed the Imperial Hotel, the Jiyu Gakuen school (from 1921) and the Yodoko Guesthouse. The Japanese architects Arata Endo, Takehiko Okami, Taue Sasaki and Kameshiro Tsuchiura carried out his designs; after Wright left in 1922, Endo completed the hotel.

1923

Death of his mother

Wright's mother, Anna Lloyd Jones Wright, died. According to his autobiography, she believed her first child would build beautiful buildings and decorated his nursery with engravings of English cathedrals.

November 1923

Marries Miriam Noel

Having obtained a divorce from Kitty in 1922 and waited the required year, Wright married his mistress Miriam Noel. Her morphine addiction wrecked the marriage in less than a year.

1924

Meets Olgivanna

Separated from Miriam but still married to her, Wright met Olga (Olgivanna) Lazović Hinzenburg. In 1925 they moved in together at Taliesin, and their daughter Iovanna was born on 3 December 1925.

20 April 1925

A second fire at Taliesin

A fire caused by crossed wires in a newly installed telephone system destroyed Taliesin's living quarters and a collection of Japanese prints Wright valued at $250,000–500,000. He rebuilt the house and named it Taliesin III.