Area residents asked for information about Wright-designed home and its first owner
By Vicky Wedig
Editor
An area author is leaving no stone unturned to learn as much about the original resident of Penwern, a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed estate on Delavan Lake, before putting to bed a book about the home and the man.
Racine photojournalist and author Mark Hertzberg is soliciting help from anyone who might have had ties to Penwern’s first owner, Frank B. Jones, or his cohorts.
“We’re looking for any information that anybody has that we don’t know we don’t have,” said Hertzberg, who began research for the book in May 2013 at the request of current owners John and Sue Major. “We have found out many things about Mr. Jones, about Penwern and about Wright’s work on Delavan Lake. We’ve debunked a lot of commonly held assumptions or myths as well.”
But, Hertzberg said, lines of questioning might need to be followed that he doesn’t know to ask.
“The tantalizing thing is that one doesn’t know exactly what one does not know,” he said.
For example, Hertzberg said, he learned through newspapers clippings that John Buchholz in Delavan had that Jones was involved in a plan to build a hospital in Delavan in 1929. The plan fell through, Hertzberg said, but before that bit of information was uncovered, he didn’t know to ask about the hospital plans.
“This was an entirely new avenue of inquiry for us,” he said.
He also learned from a short article Buchholz had from the Delavan Enterprise or Republican that Jones and three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan were good friends in school – a connection he didn’t know to ask about.
Hertzberg and the Majors are taking out advertisements in the Delavan Enterprise, other area newspapers and the paper in Pittsville, Ill., where Jones grew up, asking people if they have any information.
Hertzberg said he has been able to surmise what drove Jones to Delavan Lake and how Wright came to design homes on Delavan Lake through his research but wants to find out what else there is to learn.
“I don’t want to wrap up the project until we’ve exhausted every lead,” Hertzberg said. “You turn a corner, go down a path of inquiry and suddenly you find a door open that you didn’t know existed before, and that leads you to another hall you want to go down.”
Hertzberg is hoping to find Delavan people with connections to or information about Tunis Moore, the contractor who built Penwern and longtime resident Allen Buzzell’s parents’ home on the north shore of Delavan Lake.
“We don’t know if he left any documents behind,” Hertzbeg said. “We tracked a distant descendant of his, and we didn’t find anything.”
He and the Majors hope to find out what, if any, church Jones attended in Delavan and learn details about his social connections.
“We’re just looking for every nugget that will help tell this story,” he said.
Jones’ relationship with Dora Mortimer is one avenue of inquiry they hope to learn more about, Hertzberg said.
“Mr. Jones was a bachelor. He had a very close friend Dora Mortimer,” he said.
Hertzberg learned from a social note in the newspapers that Mortimer and her husband visited Penwern in 1904 and 1905.
According to U.S. Census information, Mortimer was widowed by 1910, and she and Jones sailed to the Orient together in 1922, Hertzberg said. Mortimer and Jones traveled around the world together in 1924, and he left her a significant gift in his will when he died, he said.
“We’re still trying to define the nature of their relationship,” Hertzberg said. “We don’t know if there was a romantic relationship or if they were travel companions and friends.”
Hertzberg’s wife turned over a stone at the historical society in Griggsville, Ill., near where Jones grew up, when she looked in a box behind a chair in the corner of a room and found four photo albums of Jones’ and Mortimer’s 1924 trip, he said. In the albums, were three pictures of Jones including one of Jones and Mortimer on camels in front of the Egyptian pyramids.
Later someone from the Delavan or Walworth County historical society stumbled upon a notice that Jones broke his leg while in Egypt, which explained why Jones was in a wheelchair in one of the photos from the trip, Hertzberg said.
Hertzberg said he also hopes area residents might know or have information or anecdotes about people who were servants at Penwern.
He said finding new information is a stretch as time passes and 1933, when Jones died, is further in the past.
Anyone with information about Jones or Penwern should email John Major at jmajor@mtsg.net.
Herzberg began working on the book about Jones and Penwern at the Majors’ request in May 2013 and will complete the book when the work is done, he said.
“I don’t want to do it forever,” he said. “I’m enjoying the research. This is a fascinating project. I’ll wrap it up when there’s no stone left unturned.”
Much has been written about Wright, Hertzberg said, but relatively little is known about his work on Delavan Lake. He said the information is important for Delavan because it’s a historic landmark for Wright’s work, and he and the Majors are trying to bring that history to life for the Delavan area and people everywhere interested in Wright’s work.
“This is a story that goes beyond Delavan,” he said.
