It's no secret that I am a huge Frank Lloyd Wright fan. I adore his creativity, his love of nature, his philosophy of living, his brilliance with just a touch of arrogance... my husband has a lifetime goal of seeing every Shakespeare play; mine is visiting every Frank Lloyd Wright building that's still standing --  even if it's not a public building and that means I have to beg to be admitted and/or I have to sneak in uninvited. But that's another story for another day... you know.. after the statute of limitations has passed.

 Fallingwater is incredibly close to us so that means this is one I need to see at least once each season.  I've been there before, but I hadn't been there at the peak of fall when the leaves were really beautiful.  As it turns out, we missed the peak color by a few days, but still Pennsylvania did not disappoint. 



There are so many great FLW houses.  This one is by far the most famous.  And while it's not my favorite, it's up there near the top.  It definitely my favorite FLW house that's been on the cover of Life magazine and featured in a postage stamp.  I love some of the other lesser known buildings, each for different, unique and very personal reasons.  That being said, if I had the chance to live in this one, even for a day, I'd give up vital parts of my anatomy to do so.

 With Fallingwater, the story of the family that lived in it, the Kaufmans, is almost as compelling as it's designer. How they supported his work, the community, nature around them, and art is fascinating to me.  The fact that they battled Wright's legendary ego over this masterpiece, and even won sometimes, yet remained friends with him throughout his life is something I both admire and am pleasantly bewildered by.  There is some of my favorite art in the world in this house and photography inside is prohibited so add taking pictures of the interior to that list of things I'd give up vital parts of my anatomy to do.



 There are lots of better pictures here and around the internet, so if you really want to see the inside and some great photography of this place, feel free to consult The Google and move away from this place.  But for a truly impressive feat of photography, scroll down and note the fact that while this place was crawling with people, I managed to get off a few clicks off with relatively few people in the frame.







This is my favorite piece of art on the property.  I'm reasonably certain I was not supposed to take a photo, but it was outside while we were walking from one part of the house to the other so I decided better to beg forgiveness than ask permission and be denied.



This is not art.  Well not permanent art anyway.  I got to take it home with me.



The bridge that leads to the house.

Stairway that leads down to the waterfall.

The stairs from across the bridge.







 


This is not Fallingwater.  This is my living room.  Since the day I found this house and walked through it, I was drawn to it. We stopped at the open house on a whim; we had pretty much decided we weren't going to try to move that year.  Afterward as we got in the car to leave, I said to The KoH, "I hate how much I love this house."  Then we spent the better part of the next year trying to buy it.

 

We love the mid-century modernness of it and often refer to it as our "Fake Unsonian," even though there's not really very much Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired about the design of our house. That's okay, no one has any idea what we're talking about when we say it.  I even had to explain it to the appraiser who was here this week.  It's mostly a run-of-the-mill house.  But when I walked into the great room of Fallingwater and got the same feeling of being in the trees I get from getting up in the morning and watching the sunrise before anyone else in my family is awake and up, I realized maybe the source of original reaction to this house.