It’s (Not) Just a House

Let’s agree to disagree today (one of my favorite catchphrases). You see things one way while I see them another. Perspective, angle, viewpoint – choose your word – we all come to our conclusions on different roads. Which is ironic, because four of us came to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater on the same road three weeks ago.

I blogged about Fallingwater in Perfect Harmony a couple of years ago.  The post was meant to be a primer on what makes the house an iconic work of American architecture.  At the time I was also building LEGO’s version, which is as close as I thought I’d ever get to the real thing.  Today I can say I’ve checked an up close and personal visit off my bucket list.

Fair warning: there’s no convenient route to travel to Fallingwater, which shouldn’t surprise you about a house hidden in the forest.  You’ll drive ninety minutes southeast of Pittsburgh on two-lane roads, some in desperate need of repair. And watch carefully for the driveway entry; it kind of pops up out of nowhere.

You won’t get to see Fallingwater without booking a reservation beforehand.  Despite my dismay in last week’s post about required reservations in Rome they make a ton of sense with Fallingwater.  It’s a small house after all, so it’d be overwhelming if visitors just showed up and walked in.  We took the final tour on a Saturday and our guide said 600 others had already been through the house earlier in the day.

Fallingwater’s Visitors Center

Thanks to the resources of the Frank Lloyd Wright Conservancy (which is still buying up property around Fallingwater), the experience begins before you ever see the house itself.  The driveway wanders past a guard house to a modest parking lot.  From there you walk to a beautiful Visitors Center nestled in the trees.  A central outdoor seating area is surrounded by a small museum of Wright’s work, a cafe, and a gift shop that offers much more than shirts and postcards.  Frankly, the Visitors Center is a nice little work of architecture all by itself.

The walk to the house begins down a kind of woodsy nature trail, so you can see the rocks, trees, and other materials used to construct Fallingwater in their native forms.  What impressed me most about the tour is how you never see the house until you’re practically at its front door, making for a dramatic reveal.  Your walk descends through the canyon of Bear Run (the river over which Fallingwater is perched) until the house’s signature cantilevered forms emerge from the dense forest.

As I described it in Perfect Harmony, Fallingwater looks like it was “constructed entirely offsite and dropped gently within the forest by pushing aside a few tree branches”.  After seeing the house in person, I wouldn’t change a word of that statement.  The design is a marvel, not only in how the indoor/outdoor spaces integrate with their natural surroundings, but also in how it was built as if floating over the waterfall below.

Enough with the fawning over Fallingwater, am I right?  After the four of us took the tour we had a chance to process what we’d seen, and my wife’s and brother’s reactions were clear: it’s just a house.  It’s not even a nice house, with its low ceilings, dark spaces, and anything-but-cozy use of rock, concrete, and glass.  Fallingwater is hard to get to, and it’s in the middle of nowhere.  And with its hundredth birthday not far off, everything about the house has a decidedly dated feel.

I did my best to explain why I love Fallingwater.  My sister-in-law, who appreciates everything about the arts, understood the significance of the house.  She “got” what Frank Lloyd Wright was conveying in the design, and allowed the sacrifice of comfortable living for the sake of the indoor-outdoor interplay.  She probably took in the house the way she would a painting at the Louvre.  My wife and my brother, not so much.  For them the ninety minute tour was probably sixty minutes too long.

Fallingwater promotes the thought: “one person’s junk is another’s treasure”.  My treasure is architecture (so much so I studied it in college).  Yours is probably something entirely different.  It fascinates me how my brother spent years and years of research, consulting, and money to restore a 1960s vintage Ferrari in his back garage.  To me, cars get you from Point A to Point B; a mere convenience.  My brother could spend hours explaining why his Ferrari goes worlds beyond that statement.

Still lingering on my bucket list is a visit to Paris, where among the city’s many wonders stands the Eiffel Tower.  I want to see this engineering/architectural masterpiece from far and near, and of course, ascend it’s many levels to fully experience the structure itself.  For now however, I’ll have to settle for building LEGO’s version.  As with Fallingwater, we can all agree to disagree. The Eiffel is (not) just a tower.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

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Author: Dave

Five hundred posts would suggest I have something to say… This blog was born from a desire to elevate the English language, highlighting eloquent words from days gone by. The stories I share are snippets of life itself, and each comes with a bonus: a dusted-off word I hope you’ll go on to use more often. Read “Deutschland-ish Improvements” to learn about my backyard European wish list. Try “Slush Fun” for the throwback years of the 7-Eleven convenience store. Or drink in "Iced Coffee" to discover the plight of the rural French cafe. On the lighter side, read "Late Night Racquet Sports" for my adventures with our latest moth invasion. As Walt Whitman said, “That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.” Here then, my verse. Welcome to Life In A Word.

21 thoughts on “It’s (Not) Just a House”

  1. I would probably fall somewhere between you and your wife on the “appreciation” scale. While I would somewhat grasp the uniqueness of design, the outdated decor would disappoint me (I remember that from the Frank Lloyd Wright house we visited in Arizona). What I would enjoy more than the house is it’s surroundings… it sounds lovely!

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    1. Yes, the natural setting would appeal to anyone. Then you start to think about the house itself, the tight spaces, living remotely and so on, and I understand why it’s not everybody’s cup of tea.

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  2. Dave, as you know the phrase touted by realtors is “location, location, location” and I remember the secluded aspect of this Frank Lloyd Wright home from your past blog post “Perfect Harmony” because that remoteness appealed to me and it does in this blog post as well. I liked your description of how it was as if Fallingwater was “constructed entirely offsite and dropped gently within the forest by pushing aside a few tree branches”. I think the remoteness adds to its charm and I like the idea that as this house nears its 100th anniversary, everything remains just as it was when constructed, just like historical landmarks, like Henry and Clara Ford’s estate (although ongoing restorative efforts have stolen some of the uniqueness and genuineness of that property).

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    1. Our tour guide made sure we considered the Pittsburgh of a century ago, with its steel mills and other smoke-producing industries. The need to escape to “fresh air” (literally) was even more of a need back then. With that in mind, the more remote the better!

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  3. I would love to see Falling water and would likely just love it. I’ve been to Paris, and I’d go back in a heartbeat. It’s a bit touristy, has pickpockets and scammers (be warned) but there are so many things to do and see. There are a lot of great art museums, but I’d avoid the Louvre — it’s over crowded to the point of not being able to really see anything. I did walk under and around the Eiffel tower, but didn’t go up. We hadn’t bought tickets in advance and one of the elevators was under repair. Also my wife is afraid of heights and I didn’t feel like waiting for hours to see it alone.

    and yeah, a Lego Eiffel tower sounds like just the thing.

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    1. A long, guided tour of Paris would absolutely appeal to me. I wouldn’t even care if we didn’t have time to go inside a single building. I’m sure there’s plenty about the city itself that would appeal to me, even with crowds and pickpockets seemingly at every turn.

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  4. Taliesin West in Arizona is really easy to get to if you are in the Phoenix area! We sure learned a lot about the what’s and why’s of the house from the tour – sure would not have appreciated it as much without the tour guide! Like Falling Water, you have to book the tour well in advance.

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    1. We’re in Tucson in November for a wedding but without enough time to drive north to Phoenix, which is a shame. I’d love to take a tour of Taliesin West, especially since it’s been transformed into a kind of homage to Wright. TW is probably another one of his works where most don’t “get it”… but I do 🙂

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  7. Sorry, but I agree: “it’s just a house.  It’s not even a nice house, with its low ceilings, dark spaces, and anything-but-cozy use of rock, concrete, and glass.” I’ve never been charmed by Frank Lloyd Wright architecture, but my father was incorporating some of the concepts in a room addition to our house.

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    1. Apology unnecessary 🙂 After my wife’s and brother’s takes on Fallingwater, I gained a straight-up perspective I’d never had before. It’s a work of architecture yes, but far from the most functional, desirable form of “house”.

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  8. I am a sucker for the historic. I probably would have hated Fallingwater when it was built, but I love it now, precisely for all the reasons your brother in law dislikes it.

    My son works in Oak Park, IL. Someday I would like to spend a day looking at Wright’s work there.

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    1. I took the Oak Park tour in college. It’s wonderful to have so many of Wright’s residential works in close proximity. If I’m not mistaken, the tour also includes the Unity Church and his first home/studio. Well worth it.

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  9. May I have my cake and eat it too? IF I could hire an architect the caliber of F. L. Wright, and IF I could find a gorgeous remote location that wasn’t more than 20 min. from civilization, I’d design a house with lots of windows (that someone else would clean, since I’m imagining), spacious enough not to feel cramped, and with ceilings at least 10 ft. high. I’m sure Wright had his reasons for fewer windows and lower ceilings, but most of us prefer light and space! Nonetheless, the design of Fallingwater is highly intriguing–and certainly ahead of its time!

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    1. Key words in your comment: “…caliber of…”, Nancy. Wright was notoriously miserable to work with, especially because he wouldn’t compromise on the smallest of details. Hence those high ceilings would never work for him (in fact, I can’t think of a single one of his designs with high ceilings). Fortunately most architects out there are happy to design to their client’s preferences. Here’s wishing you your cake… and to be able to eat it too 🙂

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  10. At first I was like, wait. When did this post? I remember reading about this on here before, but that was January 2023. Holy cow time flies. I remember the Legos and everything. I think that’s about the time I started following you.

    The place sounds fascinating. I would probably lean toward your sister-in-law’s view of it, but also might find 90 minutes long. I would also, however, listen to your brother talk about his Ferrari for a while. I might max out at 20 minutes there, though. I’m more interested in the house. I love that it’s so in tune, if you will, with nature. So happy for you that you got to cross this off your list!

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    1. All you’d have to do now is listen to my wife talk about horses for twenty minutes and you’d make everyone in my family happy, Betsy! Love that you remember the original post. Don’t love thinking it can’t possibly be that long ago that I posted it 🙂

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