Fallingwater is a house museum in Stewart Township in the Laurel Highlands of southwestern Pennsylvania, United States. Designed by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, it is built partly over a waterfall on the Bear Run stream. The three-story residence was developed as a weekend retreat for Edgar J. Kaufmann Sr., the owner of Kaufmann's Department Store in Pittsburgh, and his wife Liliane. The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy (WPC), which has operated Fallingwater as a tourist attraction since 1963, maintains surrounding the house.
Edgar Kaufmann Sr. had established a summer retreat at Bear Run for his employees by 1916. When employees stopped using the retreat, the Kaufmanns bought the site in July 1933 and hired Wright to design the house in 1934. Several structural issues arose during the house's construction, including cracked concrete and sagging terraces. The Kaufmanns began using the house in 1937 and hired Wright to design a guest wing, which was finished in 1939. Edgar Kaufmann Jr., the Kaufmanns' son, continued to use the house after his parents' deaths. After the WPC took over, it began hosting tours of the house in July 1964 and built a visitor center in 1979. The house was renovated in the late 1990s and early 2000s to remedy severe structural defects, including sagging terraces and poor drainage.
The house includes multiple outdoor terraces, which are cantilevered, extending outward from a chimney without support at the opposite end. Fallingwater is made of locally–quarried stone, reinforced concrete, steel, and plate glass. The first story contains the main entrance, the living room, two outdoor terraces, and the kitchen. There are four bedrooms (including a study) and additional terraces on the upper stories. Wright designed most of the house's built-in furniture. Many pieces of art are placed throughout the house, in addition to objects including textiles and Tiffany glass. Above the main house is a guest wing with a carport and servants' quarters.
Fallingwater has received extensive architectural commentary over the years and it was one of the world's most discussed modern–style structures by the 1960s. The house has been the subject of books, magazine articles, films, and other media works over the years. Fallingwater is designated as a National Historic Landmark, and it is one of eight buildings in "The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright", a World Heritage Site.
Site Fallingwater is situated in Stewart Township in the Laurel Highlands of southwestern Pennsylvania, United States, about southeast of Pittsburgh. The house is located near Pennsylvania Route 381 (PA 381), between the communities of Ohiopyle and Mill Run in Fayette County. It is variously cited as being either in Bear Run, the stream that runs below the house, or in Mill Run, though the building's deeds give the locale as Stewart Township. Nearby are the Bear Run Natural Area to the north, as well as Ohiopyle State Park and Fort Necessity National Battlefield to the south. The nearest city is Uniontown, to the west. Fallingwater is one of four buildings in southwestern Pennsylvania designed by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The others are Kentuck Knob, about a drive to the southwest, as well as Duncan House and Lindholm House at Polymath Park in Acme, Pennsylvania.
Geography and structures Fallingwater is named for the location of the main house, which is oriented roughly south-southeast. It sits above the Bear Run stream, a tributary of the Youghiogheny River, which has an upper falls about high (where the main house is situated) and a lower falls about high. At the house, Bear Run is above sea level; contrary to common perceptions, it does not pass through the house. The stream sometimes freezes during the winter and dries up during the summer. There is a layer of buff and gray sandstone under the site, which is part of the Pottsville Formation. Prior to Fallingwater's construction, several sandstone boulders were scattered across the grounds. In contrast to other country estates, Fallingwater is not located on a geographically prominent site and is not easily visible. Canopy cover from the surrounding forest hangs above the house.
Atop a hill to the north of the main house is Fallingwater's guest wing, which is about away from the main house. The guest wing, an "L"-shaped building, is connected to the main house by a curved outdoor walkway (see ). The house's visitor pavilion, which is not visible from the main house, includes five open-air wooden structures with connecting pathways. The pavilion includes glass-walled wings with bathrooms, exhibit areas, and a child-care center, in addition to an open-air ticket office. Approximately from the main house is the Barn at Fallingwater, which consists of two barns built and in the early 1940s.
The grounds include a small mausoleum for Edgar and Liliane Kaufmann, which has doors designed by Alberto Giacometti. Edgar Jr. was cremated after his death, and his ashes are spread around the house. There are paths throughout the grounds, including a pathway to the waterfall. Wright designed a set of gates for the house's driveway, though these were never installed. George Longenecker designed a gate that was used at Fallingwater from 1995 to 2005; it weighed and measured across. Wright also designed several unbuilt structures for the estate, including a gatehouse, farmhouse, and various expansions.
Previous site usage In the 1890s, a freemasonry group from Pittsburgh developed a country club on a plot of land that includes the Fallingwater site. By 1909, this clubhouse had been acquired by another group of masons who turned it into the Syria Country Club. The club went bankrupt in 1913. A map from that year shows that the grounds included the clubhouse, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Bear Run station, and 13 other buildings (none of which are extant). One of the structures was a cottage on the site of Fallingwater's guest wing, while the clubhouse was about to the southeast.
Edgar J. Kaufmann Sr., the president of Kaufmann's Department Store in Pittsburgh, had established a summer retreat at Bear Run for his employees by 1916. Up to one thousand employees used the retreat each summer. In 1922, Edgar and his wife Liliane built a simple summer cabin on a nearby cliff, which was nicknamed the "Hangover" and lacked electricity, plumbing, or heating. The Kaufmanns' permanent residence, at the time, was La Tourelle in Fox Chapel. Kaufmann's employees eventually bought the Bear Run site in 1926, and the Hangover was expanded in 1931. After Kaufmann's Department Store employees stopped using the summer retreat,; the Kaufmann family bought the site in July 1933.;
Development Edgar and Liliane Kaufmann became familiar with Wright's work through their only child, Edgar Kaufmann Jr.. The younger Edgar had studied in Europe under the artist Victor Hammer from 1930 to 1933. After returning to the United States, in September 1934, Edgar Jr. traveled to Wright's Wisconsin studio, Taliesin, and began apprenticing under Wright. Edgar Jr.'s parents met with Wright that November while visiting their son.; ; The architectural historian Paul Goldberger credits Edgar Jr. as the second-most influential figure in Fallingwater's development, behind Wright himself.
Planning
Fallingwater was one of three major buildings that Frank Lloyd Wright designed in the 1930s, along with the Johnson Wax Building in Racine, Wisconsin, and Herbert Jacobs's first house in Madison, Wisconsin. When Wright was hired as Fallingwater's architect in late 1934, he was 67 years old, and he had designed only two buildings in six years.; Wright wanted to select a site "that has features making for character", and Edgar Jr. recalled that when Wright visited Bear Run, he had been excited by the landscape he had seen. The Kaufmanns wanted Wright to design a building set far back from the road. In late December 1934, Wright visited Bear Run and asked for a survey of the area around the waterfall. His team drew up models of the house and site in Arizona, and Wright asked the Kaufmanns to list every tree species on the site. A map of the site's boulders, trees, and topography was completed and forwarded to Wright on March 9, 1935.
The Kaufmanns asked Wright to include a large living–dining space, at least three bedrooms, a dressing room, and a guest and servant wing. Edgar Sr. wanted to pay between $20,000 and $30,000 for construction. Wright's apprentices Edgar Tafel and Robert Mosher were the most heavily involved in the building's design, while his employees Mendel Glickman and William Wesley Peters were the structural engineers. Wright postponed his sketches for Kaufmann's country home while designing another project for Kaufmann. Concurrently, Wright continued to formulate plans for the house's orientation, materials, and general shape and size. Edgar Sr. called Wright on September 22, 1935, to inform the architect that he would visit Taliesin. Wright's apprentices disagree on what exactly happened next, but the sketches were complete when Edgar Sr. arrived two hours later. Contrary to common claims that Wright had ignored the design for nine months before hurriedly sketching it, he had already devised the plans mentally and had written about them to Edgar Sr. multiple times.
Wright's plan called for a structure with exposed cantilevers. The house was to be placed on Bear Run's northern bank, oriented 30 degrees counterclockwise from due south, so that every room would receive natural light. It also included terraces that resembled rock ledges. Edgar Sr. had expected that the house would be downstream from Bear Run's waterfalls, allowing the Kaufmann family to see the cascades. This meant that the house would have faced north, with suboptimal amounts of natural light, so Wright instead designed the home above the waterfall. As he explained to Edgar Sr.: "I want you to live with the waterfall, not to look at it." Wright sent preliminary plans to Edgar Sr. for approval on October 15, 1935, after which Wright visited the site again. The Kaufmanns were impressed with the design, which Wright continued to work on.
By January 1936, Wright's team had completed detailed drawings, which were largely unchanged from the initial sketches. The next month, Wright's team sent the plans to Edgar Sr. for review, and workers began building a sample wall. Edgar Sr. asked engineers in Pittsburgh to review the blueprints for the highly experimental design. The engineers recommended against constructing a building on the site, citing at least eight structural issues. Either Wright or Edgar Sr. reportedly ordered the report to be sealed inside the building, though Edgar Sr. is known to have kept a copy of the report. By early 1937, Wright's team was on its eighth set of drawings. In the final plans, Wright added a third floor and rearranged some rooms.
Construction Edgar Sr. wrote that he constantly thought about the house, "which has become part of me and a part of my life". Wright visited every four to six weeks, appointing Mosher as his on-site representative. Wright hired Walter J. Hall, a contractor from northern Pennsylvania. Hall's former employee Earl Friar was hired as a reinforced-concrete consultant. Edgar Jr. was heavily involved with the project and acted as an intermediary between his father and Wright, and several Kaufmann's employees and extended family members also worked on site. Work was carried out by local laborers, many of whom were inexperienced; they were paid between 35 and 85 cents an hour depending on their skill level. The project was characterized by conflicts between Wright, Kaufmann, and the contractors, as Wright prioritized the house's esthetics over any structural concerns. Due to Hall's careless attitude and clumsiness, Mosher ended up supervising most of the work.
Concrete and masonry work