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fered Ruis $1.7 million to buy the building from him. The next day,
Ruis replied that he would need a 50% deposit on the property
by 5 p.m. or demolition would continue. The funds necessary to
pay the ransom could not be raised in that short time. That night,
while preservationists scrambled and lawyers consulted, Ruis ex-
ercised his property rights. By morning, the Lockridge Clinic, one
of Wright's final works, was gone. It was the first time in four de-
cades that a Wright building had been demolished.
It fell, not with a fire, as did Taliesin in 1914, or with a disastrous
blight, as did the Como Orchard Project, with the investors left
holding worthless land, or with a freak lightning strike and faulty
wiring.
Rather, it fell by right of property, at the behest of land developers
who felt free to erect a strip mall in its place. Now, those passing
over that ground have no inkling of its connection to a national ar-
chitectural movement that has itself vanished and been replaced.
Two of Wright's buildings are still here in Montana, part of the
Alpine Meadows Ranch near Darby, where they have become a
luxury vacation rental listed on the site Third Home Exchange,
where members post and swap their properties.
In the listing, the present owners say, "By staying here, you will
not only enjoy a secluded, nature-filled getaway, but will also help
us restore our organic apple orchard and the over 200 acre grazing
project to heal our soil and revive FLW's full vision of a working
apple farm."
Wright's utopian community of Chicago professors, each mak-
ing passive income from their ten-acre parcels, never material-
ized. But the buildings remain, offering what they were always
meant to offer: escape, beauty, and a particular vision of freedom
in Montana—for those who can afford a bite of the apple.
