Frank Lloyd Wright Woodside Marion,Indiana Plans for Woodside were imminent in 1950, when Dr. Richard Davis met the architect Frank Lloyd Wright at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota (Davis 1). It was there that Dr. Davis was a fellow in surgical training under Dr. Charles W. Mayo. Mr. Wright was scheduled for surgery with Dr. Mayo due to a chronically inflamed gallbladder. Dr. Davis was the first assistant in charge of Dr. Mayo’s surgical service. While Davis was making rounds the night before surgery, Wright expressed to him that he had changed his mind concerning the surgery. Wright said he was feeling much better and that he had too many projects to attend to back in his office in Taliesin, Wisconsin. In a conversation with Davis, Wright asked whether he was to stay on at the Mayo Clinic when he finished his fellowship. Davis replied that he would be returning to his hometown in Indiana to join his orthopedic surgeon father and general surgeon brother and build their own clinic.
Wright was intrigued at the thought that Davis was a third generation physician, his grandfather having been a horse and buggy doctor in the same town. They also discussed Davis’s interests other than medicine. Dr. Davis told him of his interest and background in music. His mother had been a concert pianist and was well recognized not only in music, but the art world as well. His father had been an accomplished reed instrument musician who also played the piano (Davis 2). His brother was a cellist and there were always two pianos in their living room. In addition, Davis’s wife, Elaine, was a music school graduate from Indiana University and was an accomplished pianist. The Davis family had one 2-year-old child and another child well on the way. Upon hearing the background of Dr. Davis, Mr. Wright suggested that he could build a house to complement his family’s lifestyle. As Mr. Wright was dismissed from the hospital, he suggested that the couple come visit him at Taliesin and talk about their house.