Licked roofs and windows have long been plagued by the famous house in Pennsylvania. Experts say
Fallingwater is located in the Bear Run Nature Reserve in the Laurel Highlands in Pennsylvania.
Fallwater / Western Pennsylvania Conservancy
The legendary house, which was known as a fallwater, was built on a 30-foot waterfall in the 1930s. As it turns out, the name of the house does not only refer to its unique place. Fallingwater has had a leaking problem since his construction.
The house is currently in the middle of a three-year renovation project of $ 7 million, with which this problem is to be fixed, which should be completed next spring. The workers have replaced and reinforced the roof, the outer walls of Falling Water, window and door frames. Fallwater is located in Pennsylvania and is both a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the national historical landmark and is looked after by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy.
The renovation project of the conservancy aims to eliminate the challenges of water infiltration, says Justin Gunther, director of Fallingwater, says it Washington Post'S Ashley Stimpson. “In the Wright Community, we describe our houses by how many buckets it takes to grasp all the leaks. … We hope that we cannot reach buckets.”
Fast fact: How big is Fallingwater?
The famous house extends over 9,300 square foot, including 4,400 square foot outside terraces.
The Wright, born in 1867, became a leader of the Prairie School of Architecture, who tried to build structures that were in harmony with nature. “The weather is omnipresent and buildings have to be left out in the rain,” said Wright once. However, some of the most famous characteristics of Fallingwater – such as its terraces, flat roofs and expansive windows – made them particularly susceptible to the precipitation of the southwest of Pennsylvania.
“Since Fallingwater is so integrated into his landscape, the effects of time and weather have really urged the building systems to end the ends of their usage life,” says Gunther in a video made by the preservation.
Time -lapse of the scaffolding, which is built near Fallingwater to support the ongoing maintenance work
The house was built as a private holiday home for Edgar J. Kaufmann, a department store in Pittsburgh, who used it as a weekend retreat for his family and guests. Despite its seclusion, the house was “hardly circled with the fame,” remembered businessman Edgar Kaufmann Jr. in 1963, when the House of Conservation was entrusted. Fallwater opened for public tours in 1964 and has received more than 6.3 million visitors since then.
As early as 2000, the Conservancy carried out an important project for structural strengthening, Clinton E. Piper, the Senior Administrator of Special Projects from Fallingwater, tells Smithsonian Magazine. Apart from regular maintenance, the current renovation has been the first important maintenance efforts of the organization for 25 years. The workers also create a 3D scan of the building that would contribute to repairs in the future catastrophe.
“There are different technologies that we can now use than what Wright originally used,” says Piper. “But still to maintain the same integrity and the same materials … it is a challenging undertaking.”
The river below Fallingwater ran high in April 2024.
Fallwater / Western Pennsylvania Conservancy
According to the blog of the Conservancy, the workers have installed the walls of the conservancy into the walls of Fallwater and injected almost 12 tons of joint mortar into the Fallwater walls.
The house is filled with individual furniture and paintings by Pablo Picasso and Diego Rivera, which makes it a fragile work area. “If you are working on fallwater, you can't drop anything” Washington Post. “No nail, no drill, nothing.”
According to Morrison, the prestigious house requires slow, careful interventions. “You can't do things halfway with Fallwater,” he says Washington Post. “What would she normally need an hour to do at home – you can't do it here.”
The scaffold surrounded the building in winter 2024 and 2025
Fallwater / Western Pennsylvania Conservancy
During his entire career, Wright's artistic vision allegedly outweighed practical, structural concerns. The self -proclaimed architect admitted to giving “honest arrogance” and “would often joke that his architecture like the art in the rain,” says Gunther the London Just'George Grylls.
Around the same time when he designed Fallingwater, Wright also created WingSpread, a pin wheel -shaped manor house in Wisconsin. As his new owner, the businessman Herbert F. Johnson Jr., Wright called to complain about a leak in the ceiling, the architect replied: “Well, hib, why don't you move your chair?”
“He pressed the limits of the traditional building methods,” says Gunther the Just. “That meant that there were always some challenges to keep the water away.”