WILLIAM WESLEY PETERS, ARCHITECT WITH WRIGHT

chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1991-07-18-9103200531-story.html

Kenan Heise

William Wesley Peters, 79, the structural engineer for many of `s important architectural commissions, was chairman of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and senior architect of Architects Ltd., a continuation of Wright`s firm.

Mr. Peters was married to Wright`s daughter, Svetlana, and, after her death, was married for a short time to the daughter of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

Mr. Peters, a resident of , near Scottsdale, Ariz., and Taliesin, near Spring Green, Wis., died Wednesday in St. Mary`s Hospital in Madison, Wis.

''Wes` mark is left indelibly on the works of Mr. Wright, on the works of his own creation and on the hearts and minds of the Taliesin Fellowship and countless others whose lives he touched,'' said Richard Carney, chief executive officer for the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.

Among the many Wright-designed buildings on which Mr. Peters served as structural engineer and project architect were theFallingwater residence in Mill Run, Pa. (1938); the S.C. Johnson and Son Administration Building in Racine (1936); and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City (1956).

In his 50 years as an architect, Mr. Peters designed 120 of his own distinctive projects. He also designed a palace and a college in .

Mr. Peters enrolled in the Taliesin Fellowship in 1932, becoming Wright`s first architectural apprentice. In 1935 he married Wright`s daughter. She and one of their sons died in an automobile accident in 1946. In 1970, he married Stalin`s daughter, . They had a daughter, Olga, before they were divorced in 1973.

Survivors include a son, Brandoch; a daughter, Olga Peters Evans; and a sister.

A memorial service will be held 10:30 a.m. Saturday in St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church, a church he designed, in Spring Green.

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