The doors into the Garden Club have been causing me a great deal of grief. They are unique and trying to get their proportions correct has been a nightmare. I'm working on them a lot more right now and I can't believe the problems they're causing. Most of the trouble comes from the fact that they are obscured by curtains in the one historic photo I have. This isn't too big a problem for the doors, but it makes this tricky for the side windows. When I first drew them, I had assumed that the side windows were just rectangles. However, looking at some of the drawings in Kruty's book, it seems that there is a vertical sliver to the side of each door that has an angled top, continuing the slope above the door. So far, I haven't been able to make it work, but I'll get there.
Another thing I'm curious about with these doors is what the glass was like behind those curtains. I had always assumed it was clear, but in Julie L. Sloan's book there is an illustration showing some elegant art glass in the doors and the aforementioned vertical panels. I have a feeling these were never included, whether by design or just as a cost cutback. However, since my Midway Gardens is the ideal Midway Gardens, I'm going to include them.
The wall these doors are in has a mural on it in the photograph. This is actually a photo of the Tavern, which was on the other side of the building. The Midway Garden Club was it's mirror image, though the room was a somewhat different configuration. We don't have any photos of the interior of the room, but I think it's safe to say it was very similar to the Tavern. We do know, however, that the Tavern was the only room where the Wright designed murals were actually installed. I'm sure the Midway Garden Club would have had some as well, but we have no information on these and they may never have been designed. I'd really like to put something there, even if it's just over the door. I don't want to do an exact copy of what was in the Tavern, but I want it to be an accurate Wright design. The Tavern had two murals-one at the door and one at the cigar stand. I think I will use the cigar stand mural, make it fit the entrance wall (the overall dimensions are nearly identical) and possibly reverse it just to make it look a bit different. I think this would be preferable to nothing, which is my only other option.
I decided to make the wall base black in this room. I was looking at some of the Tavern photos and in one of them the base looks like it's actually shiny, like it was lacquered. It definitely looks sharp with the yellow brick and once you get the red white and black windows in place, the room will really pop.
On a totally unrelated note, I got in touch with a professor who worked on a model of Midway Gardens back in the day. He wrote me with an incredibly kind offer of help and his email got me jazzed up about this project like I haven't been in a long time. I'm really excited to see where this will go. Thanks Bruce!
