A fatal incident at the Scottsdale-based Taliesin West was determined to be “weather-related,” according to the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, which operates the historic site.
The Scottsdale Police Department made that determination following “a thorough safety inspection of the site, including its roofing and structures,” Joseph Specter, the foundation’s president and CEO, said in an emailed statement on Oct. 22.
The Arizona Republic has not yet independently confirmed those findings with Scottsdale police.
Specter’s update on the matter came roughly a week after windblown roofing material broke free from the building, striking and killing Brother Rogério Renato Mateucci, according to Scottsdale police.
The department confirmed that a piece of
acrylic glass struck Mateucci, a 55-year-old Brazilian university leader who was visiting the site on Oct. 16.
Taliesin West has remained closed since then amid the investigation, Specter said.
The foundation plans to reopen the site to the public on Oct. 24, after adding weather station technology that it believed will enhance existing safety procedures.
Such technology, Specter said, is meant to assess temperatures, wind speed, air pressure and rain, giving the foundation “localized safety data” when determining its daily operations.
“With these actions and safety assurances in place, we feel confident that Taliesin West is safe for visitors,” Specter said.
Established in 1937, Taliesin West was Wright’s winter home and studio in Scottsdale. The foundation owns both the Arizona property and Taliesin, his home and studio in Spring Green, Wisconsin.
When was the last time the property was inspected?
Over the past decade, the foundation completed a few projects at Taliesin West, according to Scottsdale’s Planning Department.
City records showed that in 2016, the foundation got the OK to replace a portion of Taliesin West’s kitchen roof.
Then in 2020, it received a building permit to convert a storage room into a bathroom on the lower level of the Music Pavilion. The work was done the following year.
Most recently, the foundation completed some work on the property’s water, sewer and fire alarm systems in 2023, the Planning Department said. There haven’t been any permitted projects or inspections at Taliesin West since then.
Kristen Landry is the Planning Department’s spokesperson. When asked whether the foundation needs the city’s approval before reopening the site, she said it can operate even if there are plans to complete permitted work.
She stressed, though, that the department hasn’t received any permit application for a project and that there’s no reported code violation. Therefore, Landry said, “a city building inspection is not necessary.”
The building has no record of reported code violations, Scottsdale police confirmed.
Whether anything needed to be repaired at the building since the fatal incident remains unclear, Landry noted.
“If significant work requiring a permit needs to be done,” she said, “then the Foundation or their contractor could apply for a permit, and then inspections would take place to ensure the work was being done according to code.”
Who was killed in the accident?
Mateucci was rector of Brazil’s Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná. He was among four university leaders visiting Arizona with a larger delegation of Brazilian university officials, said Vice Rector Vidal Martins, who traveled with him.
Martins, who did not witness the incident, said he learned what happened by phone and later went to Taliesin West. He questioned why a single piece of material came loose and whether it had been properly secured.
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Shawn Raymundo covers Scottsdale and Maricopa County. Reach him at sraymundo@gannett.com or follow him on X @ShawnzyTsunami.
Rey Covarrubias Jr. is a reporter for The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com. Email him at: rcovarrubias@azcentral.com, and connect with him on Instagram, Threads, Bluesky and X (formerly Twitter) at @ReyCJrAZ.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Taliesin West to reopen after weather-related death, foundation says
