The Deadliest Dinner Parties In History

Frank Lloyd Wright had built a 20,000 square foot home on his 600-acre estate in 1911 in Wisconsin so he could be "alone together" with his former neighbor and client’s wife, Martha “Mamah” Borthwick Cheney. The press called the building, now known as Taliesin North, the “Castle of Love.” Cheney had divorced her husband but Wright’s wife, Catherine Lee "Kitty" Tobin had refused to do the same. The scandal brought Wright’s incoming commissions to a halt. 

On August 15, 1914, Mamah and her two children were having a luncheon on the porch while Wright’s architectural firm’s employees were taking lunch in the main dining room. Lunch was prepared and served by Julian and Gertude Carlton, a married couple who worked on the estate. Julian previously worked at a high-end Chicago caterer. Julian served the family on the porch a soup course and went into the kitchen and told his wife, who was cooking, to leave. He then went to the porch with a hatchet, attacked Mamah and her children with it, doused the porch and side of the house with gasoline and lit it on fire. 

As the lunchers tried to escape, Carlton attacked them with his hatchet. A draftsman, a master carpenter, and a landscape gardener managed to escape and run to the next home. Seven out of the nine diners died, including the draftsman who succumbed to burn wounds. Wright was distraught but rebuilt Taliesin North, won the commission to build the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, successfully divorced Kitty, and married a woman that had written him a particularly touching condolence letter. His rebuilt Taliesin burnt down again in 1923 and today you can rent Taliesin III for “cocktail reception, dinner, private concert, social gathering, corporate retreat, or party.”