Frank Lloyd Wright wintered in Scottsdale from 1937 on because his health could not take the bitter cold of his native Wisconsin. He and a group of dedicated apprentices built Taliesin West as his winter home and the headquarters of the Taliesin West Fellowship, which is now the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, the smallest architecture school in the country. It offers docent-led tours of the midcentury icon seven days a week. Our guide was rather dull, but we enjoyed getting a closer look at the beautiful if sometimes impractical spaces he created. We were told that every time you see an indoor plant, you can infer that the roof is leaking there.

Read more about my favorite things to do in Phoenix-Scottsdale.