{"id":35730,"date":"2017-07-09T18:00:31","date_gmt":"2017-07-09T23:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/?p=35730"},"modified":"2017-07-09T18:59:14","modified_gmt":"2017-07-09T23:59:14","slug":"revisiting-frank-lloyd-wrights-fallingwater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/?p=35730","title":{"rendered":"Revisiting Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to July. We decided at the last minute to take last week off, and it was great.\u00a0 Yankee, Little Miss, and I, along with my brother and his wife, spent a long week-end with my parents in Lexington.\u00a0 Lexington does such a great July 4th celebration, and we dodged rainy weather to take part in most of the activities.\u00a0 During our down-time, we were splashing in the pool and just enjoying being together.\u00a0 That being said, it is always good to be back here on the blog with you, and we are going to start out the month with a revisit of the fabulous Fallingwater.<\/p>\n

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For the fifth time in six years, Mr. Right and I planned a bicycle ride from Pittsburgh to Washington, DC. a few weeks ago.\u00a0 Two days before we were scheduled to leave, I developed a respiratory infection, and it knocked me flat.\u00a0 There was no way I could ride a bicycle.\u00a0 So, we went to a Plan B.\u00a0 We drove to Pittsburgh and spent the night there.\u00a0 The following morning Mr. Right rode out alone, and I drove.\u00a0 We decided I would drive each day and meet him at each of the bed and breakfasts we had already booked.\u00a0 We spent our first night at Connellsville, PA.\u00a0 After reading this\u00a0<\/a> book a couple of years ago, visiting Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater was added to my bucket list.\u00a0 Fallingwater is located just 14 miles from Connellsville.\u00a0 Biking to Fallingwater is not encouraged because the roads are so steep and mountainous, but since I was driving this time, I was able to go. After driving to Fallingwater, I was sooooo glad we were told we couldn’t cycle there. <\/h3>\n

\"Fallingwater<\/p>\n

To give you some background info, Fallingwater is a summer cottage built in 1935 for the Kaufman family of Pittsburgh, PA. (They owned a famous department store and were loaded.) \u00a0 They hired Frank Lloyd Wright, who was then in his 60’s, to design it.<\/h3>\n

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\"Fallingwater<\/h3>\n

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The house is built right on top of a water fall, and that’s how it got its name.\u00a0 Wright used rocks as part of the foundation and built the house using them.\u00a0 Part of the fireplace is a rock that is sticking out of the floor.\u00a0 He was the one who started open-concept living.<\/h3>\n

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\u00a0\"Fallingwater<\/h3>\n

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It is considered an architectural wonder, and it put FLW back on the map after his career had started to slow down.\u00a0 Although it was not my style, I was blown away by the design, the concept behind the design, the engineering it took to pull it off, the details he put into it, and the fact that it is still standing after all of these years.<\/h3>\n

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\u00a0\"Fallingwater<\/h3>\n

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We were not allowed to take photos inside, but I was glad.\u00a0 Sometimes we spend so much time getting the photos that we aren’t in the moment, and I wanted to soak in every element of that house.<\/h3>\n

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\u00a0\"Fallingwater<\/p>\n

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Not only did FLW design the home, but he also designed the furniture, the lights, etc.\u00a0 It was somewhat compact.\u00a0 He stood 5 feet 8 inches tall, and he built the homes to fit someone of his stature.\u00a0 The average price of a home in Pittsburgh at the time was $4,500, and Mr. Kaufman budgeted $20,000 for the cottage.\u00a0 It ended up costing $150,000.\u00a0 When you consider that it was built during the depression, that’s a lot of money to spend on a week-end home.\u00a0 They used the home almost every week-end.\u00a0 It was located in the absolute middle of nowhere on their 2,000 acres, and they either drove or took a train to get there.\u00a0 They only had one son who did not marry, and he turned it over to a non-profit who owns and runs it today.<\/h3>\n

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\u00a0\"Fallingwater<\/h3>\n

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The following day I was able to visit Kentuck Knob, another one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs.\u00a0 It is located in the same area as Fallingwater, just a few miles away.\u00a0 It was built for the Hagan family who owned a local ice cream company.\u00a0 Hagan ice cream is still being sold, and I had a cone when I visited Kentuck Knob.\u00a0 It is much smaller and not as grand as Fallingwater.\u00a0 The Hagan family lived there full time for 20\u00a0 years, and Mr. Hagan commuted to work every day driving on the curvy, mountainous road to his company.<\/h3>\n

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\u00a0\"Fallingwater<\/h3>\n

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Kentuck Knob is now owned by a British family ( Mr. and Mrs. Peter Palumbo), and they visit a few weeks each year but stay in another house on the property.\u00a0 Like many British families who own expensive estates, they open the doors to the public to help cover the expenses of maintaining it.\u00a0 The day I visited, it was dark and stormy, and the house was dark on the inside.<\/h3>\n

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\"Fallingwater<\/h3>\n

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There was also a sculpture garden that the Palumbos have added.\u00a0 We were not allowed to take photos indoors there either, and the exterior shape of the house made it difficult to get a good shot.<\/h3>\n

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\u00a0\"Fallingwater<\/p>\n

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If you are ever in the area and only have time to visit one of the homes, choose Fallingwater.\u00a0 Be sure to buy your tickets ahead of time online.\u00a0 They do advance sells to control the number of people who are there at any one time.\u00a0 All tours in both homes are guided by knowledgeable docents.\u00a0 The parking lot is small.<\/h3>\n

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\u00a0\"Mr.<\/p>\n

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In case you are wondering, Mr. Right did make it to DC.\u00a0 He pedaled every mile alone, bless his heart.\u00a0 I met up with him in DC, and we stayed a few days with our son Cory and his wife Josie before driving back to Lexington.<\/h3>\n

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Take care.<\/h3>\n

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Cheers!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to July. We decided at the last minute to take last week off, and it was great.\u00a0 Yankee, Little Miss, and I, along with my brother and his wife, spent a long week-end with my parents in Lexington.\u00a0 Lexington does such a great July 4th celebration, and we dodged rainy weather to take part […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31761,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35730"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35730"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35854,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35730\/revisions\/35854"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}