Thomas Casey
b. 23 October 1924- d. November 11, 2005
Role
Taliesin architect
Dates of Involvement
July 1, 1964 (Department of Interior awards Taliesin architectural design services)- June 24, 1967 (Dedication Ceremony)
Context
The Beginning: Determining the Location of Beaver Meadows Visitor Center
Thomas Casey of Taliesin was the architect for Beaver Meadows Visitor Center at Rocky Mountain National Park. In the summer of 1964, William Wesley Peters and Casey travelled to RMNP to survey their two designated potential sites for the visitor center. They inspected the present location of the visitor center and another, which was about one mile further into the park, on the opposite side of the road. (See attached photo for a 1957 photo of the site pre-construction). The location of the visitor center was a contested matter, but record holds that Casey designed Beaver Meadows for the exact location it sits upon today. From correspondence and documents concerning Beaver Meadows Visitor Center Construction, Casey was limited by Superintendent Liles’ desires to improve the park’s relationship to the surrounding town of Estes Park. [1]
Visitor Center Construction Plans
The design of Beaver Meadows Visitor Center is strikingly similar to Taliesin West located in Scottsdale, Arizona. In their simplicity and use of natural materials, both structures draw attention to their surrounding landscape. The construction materials Casey chose for Beaver Meadows were intended to wear away naturally in time. Native stones were brought in from the nearby town of Lyons, Colorado, and the exterior steel was intended to rust to create a brownish-purple hue in time. (See Casey’s blueprints of Beaver Meadows below.) As Casey recalled in a 1998 telephone interview, the Lyons stone was found in an abandoned government-run quarry, leftover from the construction of Denver’s first federal courthouse. When the Taliesin architects stumbled upon the quarry, and found the red sandstone perfectly weathered and fitting the thickness of the stairs at Beaver Meadows, all they needed to do was haul the stones to the visitor center construction site. [2]
Planning the Seating in the Visitor Center
In July 1965, Kunz Construction Company broke ground. As construction continued throughout 1966, Taliesin and RMNP superintendents began to focus their work on interior decoration. As was the practice of Wrightian design, Casey and other Taliesin architects planned the seating, tables, upholstery, wood grain, and other furnishings of Beaver Meadows. Olgivanna Lloyd Wright was intensely involved in all design aspects of Beaver Meadows. In a December 1966 letter, Superintendent, Fred J. Novak wrote to Casey requesting that he provide alternate seating for the auditorium. Casey had chosen custom-made double seats for the auditorium, however Novak preferred stackable, more mobile, fiberglass chairs. This correspondence can be seen in the attached photo [3].
Compromising
Casey also worked with Olgivanna Lloyd Wright as well as Dale Devine of Rocky Mountain National Park in obtaining the furniture. Casey had to find a financial compromise between Wright’s choices and Federal Supply Schedule furnishing options. Casey was also the final approver for the light bronze duranodic finish on the stair handrails in the visitor center.[4] Duranodic was as common Alcoa trade name for an electrochemical treatment to aluminum that slowly develops color in time and also protects against oxidation. Duranodic finish most common in the early 1960s and was often found in storefront construction. [5]
Education
After serving in the United States Air Force for five years, Casey received his B.A. in Architecture from University of California, Berkeley on January 26, 1950. It was in his final year at Berkeley that he and other classmates became “enamored” (in his own words) with the design of Frank Lloyd Wright. A month after his graduation, Casey joined Taliesin Fellowship, later renamed to the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture.[6][7]
