In 1914, after a disgruntled employee set fire to the living quarters and murdered Borthwick and six others, Wright rebuilt the Taliesin residential wing, but he used the second estate only sparingly, returning there in 1922 following the completion of the Imperial Hotel, Tokyo.

Many of Wright's acclaimed buildings were designed at Taliesin, including Fallingwater, the Jacobs I house, the Johnson Wax Headquarters, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and Taliesin Preservation operate numerous public programs on the campus, and the farm is still in use today by tenant farmers.

While in Fiesole, Wright was particularly inspired by Michelozzo's Villa Medici because it was built into a hill, had commanding views of its surroundings, and featured gardens on two levels.

[15][30] Wright returned alone to the United States in October 1910, publicly reconciling with his wife, Catherine, while working to secure money to buy land on which to build a house for himself and Borthwick Cheney.

[32][33] Late in the summer, Mamah Borthwick (having divorced Cheney and legally reverting to her maiden name)[34] quietly moved into the property, staying with Wright's sister, Jane Porter, at her home, Tan-y-Deri.

[56] The tea garden also included a large plaster replica of Flower in the Crannied Wall, a statue originally designed by Richard Bock for the Susan Lawrence Dana House, by Wright.

[58] He planned the assault, targeting the noon hour, when Borthwick, her visiting children, and the studio personnel would be on opposite sides of Taliesin's living quarters awaiting lunch.

As only two survived that day and there was no criminal trial, the sequence of events have been posited based on details from the two survivors (William Weston and Herbert Fritz), and evidence found at the scene.

[70] After a few months of recovery, aided by his sister Jane Porter, Wright moved to an apartment he rented in Chicago at 25 East Cedar Street.

[71] The attack also had a profound effect on Wright's design principles; biographer Robert Twombly writes that his Prairie School period ended after the loss of Borthwick.

Already in 1916, he had secured a commission[84] to design the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, Japan; when the building was undamaged following the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923, Wright's reputation was restored.

A few days later clearing away the debris to reconstruct I picked up partly calcined marble heads of the Tang-dynasty, fragments of the black basalt of the splendid Wei-stone, Sung soft-clay sculpture and gorgeous Ming pottery turned to the color of bronze by the intensity of the blaze.

[92] Wright's interaction with Taliesin lasted for the rest of his life, and eventually, he purchased the surrounding land, creating an estate of 593 acres (2.4 km²).

[121] Notable fellows include Arthur Dyson, Fay Jones, Shao Fang Sheng, Paolo Soleri, Edgar Tafel, and Paul Tuttle.

[141][142] UNESCO ultimately added eight properties, including Taliesin, to the World Heritage List in July 2019 under the title "The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright".

These included injecting concrete into the soil to prevent the house's foundation from settling, re-plastering the walls, adding a foam covering to the roof, and insulating the ceilings.

[4][152] The National Trust for Historic Preservation also listed the site as one of America's Most Endangered Places[153] due to "water damage, erosion, foundation settlement and wood decay".

[169][170] Kohl and U.S. representative Scott Klug also cosponsored legislation to convert Taliesin into a National Park Service site, though the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation would have continued to own the complex.

[167] The same year, due to the deterioration of the Taliesin Dam, Wisconsin officials asked the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation to either repair or abandon it.

[172][173] The commission held an architectural design competition for the visitor center, and it selected Tony Puttnam to redesign the structure,[172] which opened in June 1994.

That May, the federal government agreed to give Taliesin a $1.15 million matching grant from Save America's Treasures on the condition that TPI raise an equal amount.

[185] According to the Wisconsin State Journal, Taliesin's preservation was "fraught with epic difficulties", because Wright never thought of it as a series of buildings with a long-term future.

[193] The Wisconsin State Journal reported in 2009 that, despite increased attendance over the preceding two years, TPI still needed to raise $50 million to restore the rest of the complex.

[203] In 2018, Taliesin received a $320,000 grant for the Hillside theater's restoration through the Save America's Treasures program; the project included improving drainage, upgrading mechanical systems, and adding rooms to the basement.

"[210] The Wall Street Journal wrote in 1985 that, even though the Taliesin complex was not Wright's most elaborate or expensive design, they are still compelling statements about shelter and about nature".

[214] In "House Proud", an article in Boston Globe Magazine by the Pulitzer Prize–winning architecture critic Robert Campbell, Taliesin was described as "my candidate for the title of the greatest single building in America.

"[216] Paul Goldberger, the architectural critic for The New York Times, similarly wrote in 1994 that "there is no better way into the soul of Frank Lloyd Wright than to tour this house".

[173] The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote the next year that the complex's design provided insight into "the career of a man who reinvented the language of architecture".

[209] A writer for Madison magazine wrote in 2024 that "trees growing into and out of the structure, moss-covered stones and ramshackle facades" at Taliesin were in keeping with Wright's experimental nature and love of organic architecture, but that the estate was hard to maintain as a result.