Walking tour/Nature Walk, ~1.25 mi
~100 ft elevation gain
Hiked 9/12/25
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallingwater
Toured the famous Frank Lloyd Wright house, Fallingwater. Finished in 1939 and now a World Heritage Site, it is built on top of a waterfall section of Bear Run stream, it is meant to be a part of the landscape. The free flowing and cantilevered structures are a sight to behold.
Vertical shot of the exterior of Fallingwater from The View.
Angled side view of Fallingwater. This is the main view guests would have had as they arrived.
An angled side view of the house, showing the stream flowing beneath the cantilevered structures.
Living room area of the main room.
Fireplace area of the main room. The large stew pot on the left side may swing over the fireplace- used for mulled wine. Also notice the bedrock jutting out from the floor, as a decent amount of this area is natural landscape.
View of the main area of the guest house. Personally, the guest house seemed like it would have been far more comfortable to actually live in.
View of the cantilevered roof, as seen from in front of the guest house. All of this is concrete from a single pour and had 3 or 4 more of the 'steps' leading down the walkway.
Yeah, if I heard correctly from one of the guys doing some of the upkeep, it cost 8 million a year to keep it up! Although I think that includes a all upkeep for the property like employees, grounds, and things other than just maintenance. But even so, it sounds like it is a constant battle with the place to stay on top of the upkeep. Also, it now being a unesco World Heritage Site now apparently comes with a lot of required projects that cost money, although I couldn’t name any.
A fairly large renovation was done maybe 18 months ago I believe, and then when I was there they were finishing up for the year with a bunch of work on the roofs and bridges, basically anything that was poured. I believe the poured concrete used river rocks as opposed to crushed rocks and as a result it doesn’t hold together well and is in constant need of attention. A friend of the family who is a civil engineer said they also did a big project almost 20 years ago working on the anchors for all of the cantilevered things, but I’m not sure any of the derails for that.
..Yeah the tour guide said as long as I didn’t impede the flow for the tours then he didn’t care if I went nuts on the photos, so I definitely did haha.