Index: modules/facet/src/test/org/apache/lucene/facet/taxonomy/directory/TestIndexClose.java
===================================================================
--- modules/facet/src/test/org/apache/lucene/facet/taxonomy/directory/TestIndexClose.java	(revision 1196963)
+++ modules/facet/src/test/org/apache/lucene/facet/taxonomy/directory/TestIndexClose.java	(working copy)
@@ -130,8 +130,8 @@
         return new InstrumentedIndexReader(super.openReader()); 
       }
       @Override
-      protected void openIndexWriter (Directory directory, OpenMode openMode) throws IOException {
-        indexWriter = new InstrumentedIndexWriter(directory,
+      protected IndexWriter openIndexWriter (Directory directory, OpenMode openMode) throws IOException {
+        return new InstrumentedIndexWriter(directory,
             newIndexWriterConfig(TEST_VERSION_CURRENT, new MockAnalyzer(random, MockTokenizer.KEYWORD, false))
                 .setOpenMode(openMode));
       }
Index: modules/facet/src/java/org/apache/lucene/facet/taxonomy/directory/DirectoryTaxonomyWriter.java
===================================================================
--- modules/facet/src/java/org/apache/lucene/facet/taxonomy/directory/DirectoryTaxonomyWriter.java	(revision 1196963)
+++ modules/facet/src/java/org/apache/lucene/facet/taxonomy/directory/DirectoryTaxonomyWriter.java	(working copy)
@@ -76,14 +76,13 @@
  * algorithm used.
  * <p>
  * This class offers some hooks for extending classes to control the
- * {@link IndexWriter} instance that is used. See {@link #openIndexWriter} and
- * {@link #closeIndexWriter()} .
+ * {@link IndexWriter} instance that is used. See {@link #openIndexWriter}.
  * 
  * @lucene.experimental
  */
 public class DirectoryTaxonomyWriter implements TaxonomyWriter {
 
-  protected IndexWriter indexWriter;
+  private IndexWriter indexWriter;
   private int nextID;
   private char delimiter = Consts.DEFAULT_DELIMITER;
   private SinglePositionTokenStream parentStream = new SinglePositionTokenStream(Consts.PAYLOAD_PARENT);
@@ -171,7 +170,7 @@
   throws CorruptIndexException, LockObtainFailedException,
   IOException {
 
-    openIndexWriter(directory, openMode);
+    indexWriter = openIndexWriter(directory, openMode);
     reader = null;
 
     FieldType ft = new FieldType(TextField.TYPE_UNSTORED);
@@ -212,8 +211,7 @@
    * {@link org.apache.lucene.index.IndexDeletionPolicy}, different RAM size
    * etc.<br>
    * <b>NOTE:</b> the instance this method returns will be closed upon calling
-   * to {@link #close()}. If you wish to do something different, you should
-   * override {@link #closeIndexWriter()}.
+   * to {@link #close()}.
    * 
    * @param directory
    *          the {@link Directory} on top of which an {@link IndexWriter}
@@ -221,7 +219,7 @@
    * @param openMode
    *          see {@link OpenMode}
    */
-  protected void openIndexWriter(Directory directory, OpenMode openMode)
+  protected IndexWriter openIndexWriter(Directory directory, OpenMode openMode)
       throws IOException {
     // Make sure we use a MergePolicy which merges segments in-order and thus
     // keeps the doc IDs ordered as well (this is crucial for the taxonomy
@@ -229,7 +227,7 @@
     IndexWriterConfig config = new IndexWriterConfig(Version.LUCENE_40,
         new KeywordAnalyzer()).setOpenMode(openMode).setMergePolicy(
         new LogByteSizeMergePolicy());
-    indexWriter = new IndexWriter(directory, config);
+    return new IndexWriter(directory, config);
   }
 
   // Currently overridden by a unit test that verifies that every index we open
@@ -279,7 +277,11 @@
    */
   @Override
   public synchronized void close() throws CorruptIndexException, IOException {
-    closeIndexWriter();
+    if (indexWriter != null) {
+      indexWriter.close();
+      indexWriter = null;
+    }
+
     closeResources();
   }
 
@@ -313,17 +315,6 @@
   }
 
   /**
-   * A hook for extending classes to control closing the {@link IndexWriter}
-   * returned by {@link #openIndexWriter}.
-   */
-  protected void closeIndexWriter() throws CorruptIndexException, IOException {
-    if (indexWriter != null) {
-      indexWriter.close();
-      indexWriter = null;
-    }
-  }
-
-  /**
    * Look up the given category in the cache and/or the on-disk storage,
    * returning the category's ordinal, or a negative number in case the
    * category does not yet exist in the taxonomy.