Exploring Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater



I'm behind a coal truck.  Actually, four coal trucks.  With one lane of PA 381 closed as a piece of heavy machinery cuts away at a mid-summer mudslide, I find myself waiting for the traffic signaler to change the sign to "slow," while wondering how long it will take the behemoths ahead to complete their slow crawl up the hill, where my trip terminates in less than a mile.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about Fallingwater is not the combination of nature and engineering that Wright called organic architecture, but the very tenacity it took to place it there.  This is not the easiest weekend home to find; and according to my tour guide, the leisurely two-hour trip from Pittsburgh was three to four for the original owners.  Even today, curvy, spottily marked roads, often lacking a shoulder, lead to this sanctuary from the Steel City.

Fallingwater was built in 1935-36 for the Kaufmann family, owners of a large department store in downtown Pittsburgh.  Kauffman's moved to my own hometown as part of an expansion in the 1980's; with the acquisition of the May Department Stores by Macy's, the name has largely been erased, except in Pittsburgh, where the original store is being repurposed into a mixed retail-residence building.  The Kaufmanns themselves have died out.  Their only child, Edgar, Jr., who never married, donated the home to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy in 1963.

A long driveway leads to lots and overflow lots for the home.  A visitors' center, built under the supervision of Edgar, Jr.'s partner in 1980, closely mirrors the fusion of nature and architecture found in the home itself.  Guides lead groups of about 15 down to the house along Bear Run.  The first thing you notice, at least if it's been raining recently, is the sound of rushing water.


Fallingwater's tour begins on a bridge over Bear Run.  Just three days before my visit, Fallingwater had its most serious flash flood in fifty or sixty years.  Waters reached the third stair from the top of the picture to the left, damaging a sculpture on the lower patio, and coming close to flooding the main room.  

There were no floods that day though, and the cool mountain wind was already a refreshing change from the summer air.  Entering the house, Wright's open living and dining room (interior photography is not allowed) is a breezy space, cooled in part by the open hatch to the creek below.  Polished sandstone blends with wrap around windows to bring the outdoors inside, and the natural rock formation of the Earth below rises up at the fireplace to become part of the room itself.  Wright's unique, low-slung furnishings dominate; the Kaufmanns added a few other pieces noted by our guide.  Terraces open on either side, and on the right balcony (from the inside), I notice one of the unexpected features of the home: a sense of vertigo!  Most photos do not capture the plunge from the terraces to the bottom of the falls below, and that feeling only grows as the tour proceeds to the upper levels.

Wright's design was meant to push the home's occupants to the living room and outdoors.  Ascending to the second level, the ceilings of the bedrooms are low, the halls narrow and dark, and the bedrooms themselves undersized even by 1930's standards.  The master bedroom opens to its own terrace, directly above the living room on the 2nd floor, and windows in each of the rooms are almost fully retractable, allowing for fresh air to flood the home.  Reaching the 3rd level of the home, meant for Edgar, Jr, one senses a profound solitude.  An architect and art historian who was a junior apprentice to Wright at Taliesen in the years before the construction of Fallingwater, he was 26 when the home was built.  Books line the built-in shelves and the stair to the lower level.  

It's nearly impossible not to mention the unusual circumstances of the Kaufmanns.  A Jewish family, the kitchen is not set up for kosher, and as art collectors, images of the Virgin Mary are an unexpected touch.  Having a gay son at that time was, of course, not accepted socially, and so this weekend retreat seems to have been equally a retreat into privacy.  This is one of the few homes in which Wright did not dictate the art used for decoration. There is a work from Tiffany Studios in each room, but arts from the Middle Ages to the Modern era can be found in the home.

The guest house, added in 1939 above the main house, is reached by a covered outdoor stair, and is by contemporary standards more accommodating.  The ceilings are higher, and the space seems more like small home, with a stream-fed swimming pool to the side.  Walking back around to the bridge, we see for the first time how the home is built into the hillside itself, the weight of the upper levels house pushed downward on stone to create the cantilever that the living room rests on.  

The classic view of the house, as seen in the photo at the top, is accessible from a nearby trail, and a second nature trail is also available.  Fallingwater is located inside of Bear Run Nature Preserve, so if you wear the right shoes, you can easily enjoy another hour or two of hiking at the site.

Some of my friends have made it a point to visit in each season.  The fusion of the indoors and outdoors makes it ideal for that kind of tourism... just allow extra time for weather, getting lost on unmarked roads, and coal trucks.

Fallingwater
1491 Mill Run Rd.
Mill Run, PA 15464

Basic Guided House Tour $30/$18 Youth with other tours available
Closed Wednesdays

© 2017 Randall Stewart






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