Come to Desert, Find Peace

massive majesty in this maze of mystery. Scottsdale, Arizona. This will be your armchair vacation and mine to the Valley of the Sun. Before I started this project, I thought Scottsdale, Arizona was the Southwest mecca for retirees, and I was right. But it's also the place where spent Lana Allelujeva's life would change forever. How exactly she wound up there and why she would end up staying has always mystified me, no matter how many times I read her books or

poured over her letters. So now I'm traveling in her footsteps to find out exactly what happened. All right, you go first, time for everything. I'm deak Atrocer and this is spent Lana. Spent Lana. You wake up in the morning, you live your day, and then you do it tomorrow and over and over again and over again and act one. We are waiting for you here now, before we all go with set Lana to Arizona, I need to tell you one small detail. I want you to remember that

spet Lana's grandmother's name was Olga. Everybody got that, Okay, put in your pocket. Forget about it. We'll come back to it later. When we last left set Lana, she was in Princeton, New Jersey, reeling from a broken relationship and a KGB smear campaign, but also celebrating the release of her second book, called Only One Year. The book is a small triumph, written, translated, and published on spet Lana's terms. It was very happy settled in Princeton. I

just published two books. I had friends, I had I was planning next book. I was planning to go to Hawaii in summer. I had my own I was the first time in my life doing what I wanted. She still misses her children and doesn't know when or if she'll be able to see them. But Slana is trying her best to focus on the future. She gets a

driver's license, she buys her dream home. Alone in the quiet of her beloved house, she spends her days chit chatting with locals and answering letters from people all over the country. Regular every day Americans can't stop telling her how much they admire her and connect with her, sharing deep thoughts about their own families and histories and feelings. Here she is that fall. Well, I got several marriage proposals and companied by photographs. Yes, yes, accompanied by photographs

and the have you ended it? Replied to any of these, Oh, well, I did not reply because I felt I feel just funny about the idea. But then there's one letter that stands out among the rest. It's on trifolded stationary with oversized cursive handwriting from a woman on the other side of the country who has read her book and found it extraordinarily powerful. We found a copy of this letter at Columbia University's Avery Archives. The woman, by the way,

is from Montenegro, so she sounds like a vampire. Dear sweet Land, I have been thinking of you ever since I read your beautiful book only one year. It is hard to believe that after so much sorrow you have emerged pure in spirit. But I suppose those fearful experiences one suffers strengthens the soul, no matter how high the price.

The letter, one of a series of letters, phone calls and telegrams, contains a cordial invitation to a place fet Lana has never heard of called tally Essen West, and its signed who is love Old Gavanna Lloyd Right, old Gavanna Lloyd Wright, as in Frank Lloyd Wright, the great American architect. But who is this old Gavanna and what is tally Essen West? Set Lana has heard of? Neither?

Olga Vanna, As that Lana comes to find is the third wife of Frank Lloyd Wright, married to him for more than thirty years until his death in nineteen fifty nine. Here's what Olga Vanna actually sounds like. Talking to a TV news interviewer in nineteen sixty six, I was born in city in Montenegro. I was trying to identify her slight accident, but she said she wants to lose, which

I find very charming. My accent was pretty good, right, Olga Vanna Lloyd Wright is adamant that's that Lana Alla Lujeva, Joseph Stalin's daughter come to Arizona for a visit. And she's not the only one here's fet Lana. Every member of the fellowship brought me a letter member a fellowship? What is this? Lord of the Rings? Was Gandalf there and Sam Wise. I tried to read the Lord of the Rings trilogy for this podcast and found nothing. Turns

out it's a completely different fellowship. You're welcome. I just saved y'all a thousand pages worth of orcs. But this fellowship was founded by Frank Lloyd Wright and his wife Olga Vanna. And there's even a book about it called The Fellowship, written by Harold Zelman and Roger Friedland. My producer Adam and I tracked them down. Yeah, I feel like Adam and I were looking we're looking into our future.

We're so excited. Just you mean Old, you know, just just two other Jews who are excited about Frank Lloyd right, Okay, Yeah, the los in the anti semi fantastic. We'll hear from how Old and Roger a lot throughout this podcast, as well as an interview they recorded with spet Lana in two thousand while writing their book how did you feel about Mrs Right? Mrs Right bombarded me. She bombarded me with letters, finally telephone calls. When are you coming? You

must come, you must come here. Olga Vanna was pitching spet Lana hard. She sent press pieces and literature about her community of like minded architects and artists who lived and worked together, supporting Frank Lloyd Wright's vision during his life and carrying it on after his death. Speed Lana didn't know much about architecture, and before I started this project, I didn't really know much about architecture either, Like I know walls, doors, windows, but how and why they fit together?

Twas a mystery. And Frank Lloyd Right, well, he was the only architect I knew by name, which must mean that he was pretty good. Right. The Encyclopedia Britannica says it flat out, Frank Lloyd Wright was the most abundantly

creative genius of American architecture. Stet Lana was receiving literature about the wonders of Frank Lloyd Wright's universe, and I assume she was slowly but surely learning bits and pieces about Right the same way I was that his most iconic founding principle was what he called organic architecture, believing buildings should emerge from the ecosystem, both in materials and design. Right didn't like the idea of a castle on top of a hill, but thought a house should be built

around its base or on its brow. It's why he named his Wisconsin home the Fellowship's headquarters, tally Yessen, which in his ancestral Welsh means shining brow. As a bald person I feel seen. Stet Lana probably also found out that Right was dead. He had died a decade earlier, and many of his apprentices and their spouses still lived together, with Old Havanna and her daughter Yavannah, spending summers at tally Essen in spring Green, Wisconsin, and winters in Scottsdale, Arizona,

at Wright's desert home tally Essen West. This is lomcca of American architecture. For more than forty years, tally Essen has molded young Americans people who have gone on to change the face of the earth. What Old Gavanna was sure to impress upon stet Lana is that tally Essen was not just an architecture laboratory. It was a fully self sustained community where you studied, worked, socialized, even cooked together. But part of their life with tali Essen, students sometimes

switched from gathering stones to baking schols. So what kind of misfits are those gonna be? Jared's? So in case you couldn't hear that, Jerry's making scones, that's the thing that's fent. Lana and I are learning before we even set foot in the joint that creativity in all forms was required. Fellows were not only architects and accomplished sconemakers, but painters, sculptors, dancers, musicians, and, judging by the photos, hotties. I put aside their protractors and pick axes in the

evenings and dress up for dinner. But scones, pick axes and protractors cost money, and with Frank Lloyd Wright dead and buried, it was up to Olga Vanna to keep the operation alive. She was constantly fundraising and publicizing. Kali Essen sustained itself on free labor, fellowship tuition, architectural commissions and donations from wealthy benefactors. Olga Vanna had become the protector of her husband's legacy and vision. Only a few

new students are admitted each year. Candidates are accepted only after Mrs Wright decides stabled all Olga Vanna was the matriarch, the queen, the CEO. Hashtag girl boss. So this is the woman that keeps beckonings fed Lana to come to the desert, and the tally Essen letters keep coming. They sent her photographs of the compound. Every member of the fellowship writes to her. One person I talked to said they even sent her a silver necklace. But it wasn't

the jewelry that pushed spent Lana over the edge. It was something deeper, something richer, something profound. Dear, here's fent Lana again. Cis Lana? Something goes about my name? Clana was some kind of a mysieur is thing, you know, comes at Lana from Russia. We are my family who are from Georgia. And Mrs Right lived in Georgia and her first Atlanta was born there in the fleece. So, as Mrs Wright said, there are karmic ways. Wait, what

did she just say, her first spent Lana. Mrs Wright lived in Georgia and her first Atlanta was born there in the fleece tiflis Karma another speed Lana. That's right? Or shall I say that's right with a W Not all jokes working podcasts, But here's the team. Olga Vanna had a daughter who died in a car crash some twenty five years earlier, and her name was speed Lana.

And now in seventy Olga Vanna seems to believe that speed Lana, our speed Lana, might in fact be, in some weird cosmic way, a reincarnation of her dead daughter. Spent Lana. Confused, great me too, And it's about to get even confused here because Olga Vanna's name is not really old Gavanna. That's a nickname. Her first name is actually Olga. And do you remember when I told you to put spet Lana's grandmother's name in your pocket, Well it's time to fish it out. What was feed Lana's

Grandmother's name Olga? So spent Lana's Grandmother's name was Olga, and Olga Vanna's daughter's name was feed Lana. There are two spet Lana's, two Olga's. Oh and wants some more bullshit with names? Well, when the first speed Lana died in that car crash. Her two year old son died with her, and you know what, His name was Daniel, and that's my name. Coincidence, not if you're gay. So there are two Olga's to speed Lana's to Daniels. And what does all of this mean. It means that an

Olga Vanna's mind. Because feed Lana had a dead grandma named Olga, and because Olga Vanna had a dead daughter named spent Lana, the two were faded to meet. It was destiny. And this, this story of multiple Olga's and multiple speed Lana's, this is what set my imagination a flame when I found out about the story seven years ago. I knew from the moment I heard about all these Russian names that I had to write a play about them. I needed to know what happened when these two worlds collided.

By early March, speed Lana finally accepts the invitation. She had always wanted to travel to the West Coast, so she decides she'll go to taliesin West for one week, then make her way to California and Hawaii. I had my I could buy the ticket and go wherever I wanted, So I said, all right, I'll go and meet her because she's so persistent. So finally, on March fifteenth, seventy's fed, Lana gets on a plane and makes her way to

the Phoenix International Airport. She flies over the stretches of farmland of the Midwest, the grains of the planes, the rivers, and the rockies, until she touches down in the desert. She had never been to the desert before. When she emerged from the airport, the sun must have smacked her in the face, but once her eyes settled, they would have found a perky brunette about her age standing by a bright red sports car ready to take her to her destiny. In November, I decided to go to taliesin

West in Scottsdale, Arizona. Myself. Here I am stepping out of the airport and into the sun. Okay, if I get a red car, that's you know, that's a sign they're booking at at it's white. It is a white Honda Odyssey. So begins my tally Essen Odyssey. In my Honda Odyssey more after the break, act two, I hope you will be my sister. Oh there's my Honda Odyssey. All right? Long, Dan, Hi, are we going to tally esen are you are you long? No? Wait, I'm the

wrong person. There's two white hondas. Stead Lana's journey begins a little more glamorously. She sees her first, Yavana Lloyd Wright Olgavana's daughter. She's wearing a brightly colored short dress. She has long, curly brown hair that looks like it has been tossed by the wind, a thin frame, and an excited grin. She has plenty of makeup on lashes, an eyeliner, and then Yavanna's perfectly done eyes land on

spett spent Lana. She cries loudly, maybe too loudly, and runs over to spit Lana, enveloping her in a long, maybe too long hug. This makes ft Lana slightly uncomfortable. She grew up in Soviet Russia without a mother. Long amote of hugs in public weren't exactly commonplace, but speed Lana is polite. She hugs back, and moments later, Yvanna welcomes her into her bright red sports car and begins to drive. I are you long? I went there's another

white van minivan I went into. Yeah. Yavanna is loud and bossy and takes to the highway like she owns the road, zooming well passed. Whatever the speed limit is. Well spent Lana takes in the epic sky, the lad and our mountains. In the backdrop the stretches of sand Polka dotted with Seguero cacti. Vanna mentions her deceased sisters fed Laana and says to our sped Laana, I hope you will be my sister. I have to be honest. That sounds creepy to me, but maybe sped Lana felt differently.

Here's Rosemary Sullivan. I would say at that moment, this is a fun adventure. And having this young woman sit beside her and say, you know you could be my sister, I don't know that you would have taken it that seriously and truly. At this moment, spent Lana is more focused on the road. Today. Route one on one is a two lane highway from Phoenix to Scottsdale, but back in it was a one way road. If another car

was coming your way, good luck. As Yavannah cranks up the speed, spent Lana compulsively presses her foot down to a phantom break. Vana notices her passengers terror and nonchal. Wantley says, oh, we always speed through these spaces, and then she laughs ha ha ha, and then svet Lana laughs ha ha ha ha ha ha. They finally take

the exit off of one oh one to Scottsdale. They passed suburban homes and orange groves and make the turn onto Frankloyd Right Boulevard, the dividing line between residential Scottsdale and tally Es and West. The car turns up a slow, winding, graveled path. It's probably about a mile from the boulevard, and on either side you can see the vast expanses of desert sped Lana said she felt bewitched by all of this, and I have to admit I was two. Okay, so this is it. This is tally Es and West.

We're going off. We got trees on either side. We're entering private property, the Franklin Right Foundation all right. Now, we got tangles of cactus, capti and shrubs, so it looks like a movie set. Speed Lana drinks in all of the colors and fragrances of the desert spring as Ivanna drives them up the winding way. Spent, Lana catches sight of some bright red bougainvillias, a flower she first came across in India. She hadn't seen the flowers since.

Was it a sign from her beloved bridges reaching out from the other side. Maybe all this talk of a reunion of souls the two Olga's, the two speed Lana's, I hope you will be my sister. Maybe set Lana is in fact about to be reunited with her mother, who had taken her own life nearly forty years before. Ivannah parks the car and the two walk through an interlocking maze of short sandstone buildings lined with wooden beams painted in Frank Lloyd Wright's signature burnt orange, a color

he called Cherokee red. Remember it's not racist. If it was before Obama, this was tally Us in West. After they weave through more bushes of bougambilias, they probably emerge at the open expanse at a triangular pool. All of Scottsdale beyond them, mountains behind them, and they're like a mirage in the middle of the desert. A semicircle of men in tuxedos and women in brightly colored ball gowns flank a statuesque woman with black hair and twin streaks

of white, wearing a large turquoise hat. These men and women are the architect apprentices and their spouses, all living and working together here at Tallys and West. And the woman in the center with penetrating dark eyes, along swan like neck and strong jawline. She's one of those women who only gets more beautiful with age. She sparkles, she glows. She's Olga Vanna Lloyd right and spent Lana. She was

blown away. I would say, you know, very kind of timmid and shy and dressed in my very conservative clothes from New Jersey. Yes, and they were all very bright, the jeweled women. And there was Mission right herself, black hair and two quiz could this woman a monta negrin with her grandmother's name? Could this woman be spet Lana's mother. As the men in tuxedos and women in ballgowns look on, Olgavana steps towards spet Lana. In that moment, spet Lana

looks for her mother in Olgavona's eyes. But before set Lana can do or say anything, Olgavona has wrapped her long taught Dancer's arms around spet Lana in a tight embrace, clutching her Olgavonna rock spet Lana, saying her name over and over again, chanting it like a spell. Spent Lana, Speed Lana, Speed Lana, speed Lana. Here spet recalling that

moment to Meryl seek rest. She's called the whole thing about my name was and the gate see everybody was supposed to see me is reincarnation of another Setlanta, reincarnation of another spet Lana. You know, throughout this story will track the many cycles that spet Lana finds herself trapped

in with men with work with where she lives. And if episode one was forty years and episode two is just a couple, this episode is really about a series of moments, transitional moments, transcendent moments, and this moment with fet Lana buried in the arms of another spet Lana's mother, well, this one takes the cake. She's in the middle of the desert, surrounded by dozens of architects who have all been eagerly waiting for her like she's Jesus or that

pizza you order when you're a little high. And then it comes when you're very high and a motherly figure is embracing her, saying her name over and over again. Svet Lava, sveth Lava. Could it be possible that after all of her running away, she somehow finally come home more after the break? Act three sad hot selsa Guy. I am standing in the courtyard of tally Us in West. We have this incredible sunset that I can hardly believe. I mean the color, the color of like the bright

pink orange clouds against the light blue sky. Overlooking the Camelback Mountains, the little lights of Scottsdale. Often a distance spelt like running towards them is a field of shrubs and cacti. It is stunning, lee beautiful. That's me at the end of my first day at taliesin West. While on tour there, I learned that a big part of the ethos of the fellowship was if you need something, you just make it yourself. The architects considered their living

quarters a laboratory. The stone buildings, with their skylights and exposed beams, are candied with sculptures and ornaments, and filled with mid century modern furniture and Japanese art. You can spend hours wandering around the campus and you'll find surprises everywhere. An iron dragon jutting out in one walkway, a giant pool and another I'd live there. When I walked through tally esin West, I kept bumping my head everywhere. The walkways and entrances of any Francloyd Right home or building

are always in credibly low. There are two major theories why this is so. Theory number one, Frank Lloyd Wright believed in the idea of compression and release that when you start your way into a structure, it should be dark, short, narrow, and then when you get into the main room it should expand extravagantly. The other theory as to why the ceilings were particularly low at taliesin West was because Frank Lloyd Wright was fucking short. Speed Lana isn't exactly wowed

by the architecture. She thinks the houses are shallow and low and look like graves. But tally Essen is so much more than its architecture. Speed Lana is told that that night there will be a banquet held for her and her honor. Performances and parties in the evening are a regular event, so speed Lana should gussie up. Look fabulous. It's what everyone does it tally Essen. They have plenty of ball gown Speed Lana can borrow if she needs to, but Speed Lana refuses. She shows up to the extravagant

dining hall in her own bulk clothes. They all like, you know, Christmas tree. And then one peculiarly tall man emerges sticking out from the rest box is cold Man. I hope outreach cold color and Leavender s. This man's name is William Wesley Peters, but everybody calls him West. West was Frank Lloyd Wright's very first apprentice at the Fellowship, having joined when he was just nineteen. He's fifty seven years old now and is the lead architect of the firm.

Everyone knows them, everyone loves him. He was a very charming man, and there's no doubt about it. But he didn't h He was sad, silent, paul charming man, that's what he was. That Lana is taken by this shy, sad man. When she helps herself to the Mexican catering, he utters his first words to her. And here he spoke first time because I was putting Salza bra and he said this suce is very hot. Yeah, careful, the salsa might be hot, but this meat cute is definitely mild.

But quick question. Was he very very pleasant? He was really really pleasant. Oh cool, cool, cool, that's what I thought. His face was very sad. He didn't big lives, lives, very good face. He showed no interest to me. Mrs Right was pushing kids because he looked at us, and she said, I am so glad that West answered Lana, I'm bad. Anyway, it was silence. If you couldn't hear that. What Olgamona says is I'm so glad that Wes and spent Lana finally met. It's been a long time since

West sat with a woman. His own wife had died some twenty five years earlier. And can you guess who his wife was. That's right, the man that our spet Lana is sitting next to at this wild Mexican banquet held in a concrete hexagon in the middle of the desert, was married to the first spet Lana, the dead one. Anybody who looked at that because Westlana, it hits meaning for them in as so, this is a momentous meeting. West is meeting another stepas meeting a substitute. Oh, that's

what she meant. All of this happens on day one. She's had this fabulous party, driven there by a woman who said is that she could be your sister, hosted by another woman who says that she could be your mother, and sitting next to a man who had been married to a woman with her name, And she's surrounded by all of these people who have devoted their lives to art. How different this must have been from Soviet Russia, where writers were regularly censored and imprisoned. It must have been weird,

but it also must have been exhilarating. The next day, Olga Vanna puts West in charge of schauffeurrings fet Lana around. He drives her in his Cadillac through downtown Scottsdale. Here's Cassie again, readings that Lana's words smoothly rolling along the straight highway through the flat rocky valley, I suddenly felt security and peace near this man, something I had not experienced for a long time. I watched him with a

very keen eye and found nothing I could note. It was a long, wordless trip, about twenty minutes long, but it meant a lot to me. While the Cadillac rumbles through Scottsdale speed, Lana can read into West's silence. He's holding tragedy, the loss of his own speed Lana and their baby Daniel. That sadness, that sense of loss sped. Lana isn't afraid of it, She's drawn to it. Said, Lana found herself falling in love with Less, and apparently there was an erotic attraction. Uh, and he was so

so sad, so poignant. When you are attracted by someone's sadness, it's because you think you can heal them. The week rumbles by like that cadillac, flashy and jaw dropping. Every week at Taliessen was filled with any number of cocktail parties and performances. Olgavano holding court, breakfast, lunch, and dinner with her spiritual talks. There are some recordings of those talks.

I've listened to them. They're slow and deliberate and maybe all over the place, but still her meditative quality makes you think you're listening to genius. Live as richly as you can provide it. You've heard no one, including yourself or Tony Robbins, and don't let yourself go too far and too deep into criticism. Then you drop into the mind and pretty soon you are pulled out or maybe

a prophecy. If you do not see it and strive to go in the direction of the interior line, you'll be constantly returning and returning back to the same earth. Spe Lana doesn't know quite what to make of it all. He's drawn to this place, but maybe wary of it too. She'd fought so hard for her freedom in Princeton, but suddenly she's being pulled into a beautiful world run by an enchanting woman and charmed by a sad, hot salsa guy. It must have all felt like a dream, but something

was weighing on her mind. Is this all too good to be true? Something about it? Something about it. I have to be careful. I have to be care And she's right, because guys, two weeks later, she and Wes will be married, and she will no longer be sped Lana Alla Lujeva. She will become sped Lana Peters, the same name as Wes's dead wife. On the next episode of Sped Lana. Sped Lana. Sped Lana speed Lana is a production of iHeart Podcasts and the documentary Group I'm

Your Host Dankatrocer. The show is written and produced by me Adam Weber, Alison Joy, and Catherine Isaac. We also serve as executive producers at the documentary Group. Our executive producers Joe but Silhouettes, with production oversight by Stacy Cleeker and additional support from Tom Yellen and Gabrielle Tennenbaum. Our I Heart Team is supervising producer Casey Pegram and executive producer Maya Howard. Editing assistants from producers Christina Loranger and

Joey pat Original music by Ellen Isakov. Production counsel by Slaus eck House, Dasty Haynes Locko, Clearance counsel by Ballard Spar Back checking assistance by Megan Trout, Research assistance by Sophia Derso and Emily n. Special thanks to my husband Jordan's Siegel, Rosemary Sullivan, author of the book Stalin's Daughter, and Harold Selman and Roger Friedland, authors of the book The Fellowship, who kindly granted permission to include excerpts from

their taped interview with stet Lanna. Excerpts from spet Lana Alujeva's book The Faraway Music are provided by Chris Evans and performed by Cassie Greer h