60 Years of Caring for Fallingwater

VOLUME LX XV • SUMMER/FALL 2023

60 Years of Caring for Fallingwater

CONTENTS 3

In Edgar jr.’s Own Words: His Gift to the Conservancy and the World

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The Gift of Bear Run Nature Reserve

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The Evolution to a Transformative Visitor Experience

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Improvements to Accessibility Create Enjoyable Experiences for All

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Fallingwater Institute Continues Kaufmanns' Legacy of Inspired Thinking

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New Tour Experience Gives Context for Discovery

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Buildings With Rich History Get Second Life

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Fallingwater Enhances Education, Interpretation for Young Learners

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Fallingwater, The Westmoreland Collaborate on New Exhibitions

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Field Notes: A Year (with Sheep & Chickens) at Fallingwater

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Become a Sustaining Member

Cover Photo: Frank Lloyd Wright’s

Fallingwater in Fayette County, Pa.

For information on WPC & Fallingwater membership: 412-288-2777 Toll Free: 1-866-564-6972 info@paconserve.org WaterLandLife.org Fallingwater.org

Message from the President Every time I am at Fallingwater, I think of what foresight Edgar Kaufmann jr. had in donating the property to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy.

The house could have been donated to and shared with the public via a narrower house museum nonprofit, dedicated just to the one site. How differently things would have evolved in that scenario.

But the Kaufmanns had long been involved with the Conservancy, and they knew the depth of approach the Conservancy would bring to the house and site.

It allowed the property, its management and how it is shared with the public to progress in a way that, over time, has melded historic preservation, architectural history, conservation, the arts, and a deep and broad sense of how the house is so superbly important in the history of architecture and the history of this region.

At the time of the gift, Edgar Kaufmann jr. said, “…why are these acres and this house given as a conservation, in the care of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy? Because conservation is not preservation: preservation is stopping life to serve a future contingency; conservation is keeping life going.”

The Conservancy was a wonderful choice for preserving and sharing the house in all the decades since. And adding Fallingwater to the Conservancy’s holdings did so much for this organization that protects the region’s best resources for people to enjoy.

When I am at Fallingwater I also often think of its origins—a weekend home for a family—and of the approach the Kaufmanns took by hiring Frank Lloyd Wright. It was a weekend retreat, but commissioned and designed in such a way that immediately it was on the cover of Time Magazine. A special and extraordinary place from the beginning.

It has been 60 years since Edgar Kaufmann jr. made this extraordinary gift. The Conservancy opened the site to the public the next year, in 1964. And recently, in 2019, it was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. We are honored and humbled to manage this site, one of the most important works of modern architecture.

We hope we continue the Kaufmanns’ legacy in the work we do at Fallingwater. We have expanded the initial acreage provided with the house to more than 5,100 acres of protected lands surrounding Fallingwater at the Bear Run Nature Reserve. We offer a broad range of arts programming and education at Fallingwater. And we work constantly to preserve and maintain the house and its ancillary structures for all the world to enjoy.

This issue of Conserve is dedicated to Fallingwater, 60 years after that initial gift to the Conservancy. We hope you enjoy it, and we appreciate all that so many of you do to support the Conservancy, Fallingwater, its preservation and its programming.

Thomas D. Saunders PRESIDENT AND CEO

The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy protects and restores exceptional places to provide our region with clean waters and healthy forests, wildlife and natural areas for the benefit of present and future generations. To date, the Conservancy has permanently protected more than 265,000 acres of natural lands. The Conservancy also creates green spaces and gardens, contributing to the vitality of our cities and towns, and preserves Fallingwater, a symbol of people living in harmony with nature.

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OFFICERS

Debra H. Dermody Geoffrey P. Dunn Daniel S. Nydick Bala Kumar

Chair Vice Chair Treasurer Secretary

PRESIDENT AND CEO

Thomas D. Saunders

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Alfred Barbour David Barensfeld Franklin Blackstone, Jr.* Barbara H. Bott E. Michael Boyle Marie Cosgrove-Davies Beverlynn Elliott Donna J. Fisher Susan Fitzsimmons

Paula A. Foradora Dan B. Frankel Dennis Fredericks Felix G. Fukui Caryle R. Glosser Carolyn Hendricks Candace Hillyard Thomas Kavanaugh Robert T. McDowell

Paul J. Mooney Stephen G. Robinson Samuel H. Smith Alexander C. Speyer III K. William Stout Megan Turnbull Joshua C. Whetzel III Gina Winstead * Emeritus Director

In Edgar jr.’s Own Words:

His Gift to the Conservancy and the World

"The union of powerful art and powerful nature into something beyond the sum of their separate powers deserves to be kept living.”

— Edgar Kaufmann jr.

WPC President Dr. Charles Lewis, Pennsylvania Governor William W. Scranton and his wife, Mary, and Edgar Kaufmann jr. at the October 29, 1963, dedication ceremony.

Fallingwater Archive, 1994.22

Years before Fallingwater was conceived, the Kaufmann

family members were not only department store moguls and trendsetters, they were nature enthusiasts who recognized the importance of the natural beauty, fresh air, mountain streams and forested ridges of the Fayette County landscape.

Fishing, swimming and other recreational activities were their amusements away from the constantly smoky and heavily industrialized Pittsburgh area communities.

Edgar Kaufmann jr. was introduced to nature at a young age and that affinity only strengthened when he began studying design and architecture as a Taliesin apprentice with Frank Lloyd Wright in 1934. A year later, the family commissioned Wright to design their summer retreat that would embrace the surrounding natural features and beauty of Bear Run, and the cascading waterfall they adored. Edgar jr. described Bear Run as “a place of vigorous beauty, of self-renewing enchantment, of adventuresome picturesqueness.”

Fallingwater’s audacious design still embraced its Appalachian setting. Edgar jr. further explained this integral relationship at the ceremony of transmission of Fallingwater to the Conservancy in the fall of 1963:

The house was hardly up before its fame circled the earth; it was recognized as one of the clearest successes of the American genius Frank Lloyd Wright. Such a place cannot be possessed; it is a work by man for man, not by a man for a man.

Over the years since it was built Fallingwater has

grown ever more famous and admired, a textbook example of modern architecture at its best. By its very intensity it is a public resource, not a private indulgence.

Edgar jr.’s gift to the Conservancy was made in memory of his parents, as they also desired for everyone to experience the architecture and nature in the same way. He told those attending the dedication ceremony that he felt the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy was the ideal steward of the house and its natural setting:

The union of powerful art and powerful nature into something beyond the sum of their separate powers deserves to be kept living. As the waterfall of Bear Run needed the house to enter the realm of art, so the joint work of art, Fallingwater in its setting, needed the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy to enter a new life of public service.

I believe the happy coincidences that have marked this enterprise from the start will continue to favor its new existence in the hands of the Conservancy.

I believe the Conservancy will give nature, the source, full due, and art, the human response to nature, full respect. For this confidence I am most grateful to Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and to the community that supports it so well.

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THE GIFT OF

BEAR RUN NATURE and wood—made the term “organic architecture” synonymous with Fallingwater and Wright.

In 1963, when Edgar jr. entrusted Fallingwater to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, he also included the gift of 469 acres surrounding the house. These acres started what we know today as Bear Run Nature Reserve, a now 5,118-acre forested natural area.

The Early Years of Bear Run Nature Reserve One of the first people to care for and share the importance of this natural area around Fallingwater was Frank "Lee" Lowden, who the Conservancy hired as a naturalist in 1965 to care for Bear Run Nature Reserve. Lee had previously served as an environmental educator at Ferncliff, a property that was purchased with the help of the Edgar J. Kaufmann Charitable Trust.

With enthusiasm and keen knowledge of the landscape, he led education efforts, including hikes for nature lovers and bird watchers, and stewarded the reserve. He had a passion for youth education, too. Through many awareness programs, including wildflower hikes that highlighted the preserve’s natural history and features, he shared the benefits of nature with local students on site and at schools and youth organizations. In 1968, the Kaufmanns' dairy barn was converted into the Bear Run Nature Center (now The Barn at

Bear Run Nature Reserve in Fayette County, Pa.

The Kaufmann family’s love for the surrounding natural

environment and forested landscape inspired Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1935 daring design of Fallingwater. But more than a decade before Fallingwater, the Kaufmanns recognized the natural beauty of the Bear Run landscape and had deep reverence for the land and admiration of the people of rural Fayette County.

The rugged mountainous terrain, hardwood forest and mountain streams stirred their desire to not only appreciate the landscape—but to live in harmony within it. And they did, for 25 years, at Fallingwater. Wright designed it to sit directly over the cool waters of Bear Run, and used quarried sandstone from the site for the walls, which display shifting and jutting patterns that mimic the rocky mountainside. These concepts, along with the use of stone, concrete, steel, glass 4

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One of Bear Run Nature Reserve’s first stewards, Frank “Lee” Lowden, sits with his daughter, Amy, at Ferncliff Peninsula in 1968. Today, Amy (Lowden Humbert) is a member of the Fallingwater staff. Photo courtesy of the Lowden Family

RESERVE

Abundant nature awaits Fallingwater visitors. At more than 5,100 acres, Bear Run Nature Reserve surrounds the historic house, and provides habitat for a diversity of forest-dwelling wildlife and a variety of recreation options.

Fallingwater) where he held many of his nature programs and gathered numerous outdoor enthusiasts for hikes.

A few years later, sadly, Lee passed away unexpectedly, leaving behind a wife and two-year-old daughter. But, Lee’s Fallingwater legacy lives on. His daughter, Amy Lowden Humbert, currently serves as Fallingwater’s manager of school programs and outreach. She has worked in a variety of roles with the Conservancy at Fallingwater for 38 years.

One of the primary responsibilities in her current role is working with local school groups to provide education opportunities that share the importance of Fallingwater to young learners in grades three through 12. She is also one of the staff experts on the Kaufmann family and Fallingwater’s local history.

“It’s amazing to me that people still remember my dad, and it’s so touching to hear them share such fond memories of how knowledgeable and passionate he was about this natural landscape and the Kaufmanns,” Amy shares. “In a special way, I get to walk in his shoes—literally and figuratively—each day I’m on the grounds of Fallingwater. I’m passionate about what I do here too, so I’m constantly reminded of him and his impact on our community and me.”

(And another steward of the reserve was naturalist

Charles Bier, who is now the Conservancy’s senior director of conservation science. He started his career there in the 1970s. Read his Bear Run story in Field Notes on Page 19.)

Expanding and Caring for Bear Run Nature Reserve Since receiving the initial donated acreage from the Kaufmann family, the Conservancy has continued to acquire surrounding land as it becomes available, bringing Bear Run Nature Reserve to its current size of 5,118 acres. The reserve now safeguards the scenic views and forested areas along the Fallingwater stretch of the Laurel Highlands Scenic Byway.

The rolling hills, evergreen forests and picturesque farmlands also help reserve the scenic and historic character of this important landscape.

The reserve is still an ideal nature escape for families with young children, offering limitless opportunities for nature exploration and discovery. The reserve provides habitat for a diversity of forest-dwelling wildlife, including black bear, fisher, bobcat, and more than 53 bird species.

Plus, more than 500 plant species, including many that are rare, are thriving within the reserve. Dominant tree species include tulip, red maple, chestnut oak, American beech, Continued on Page 6

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Continued from Page 5

sugar maple and black cherry. The reserve protects several mountain streams within the Bear Run watershed, which is part of the headwaters to the Youghiogheny River.

species has bred successfully in Pennsylvania, and proof that a healthy Bear Run forest is inviting for many species.

Visitors can enjoy nature watching, hunting, fishing, backcountry camping and approximately 20 miles of hiking trails. Backcountry camping, a great way for birders, hunters and naturalists to have more intimate encounters with wildlife, is permitted at primitive campsites that can be booked on our website. The main trailhead to access camping sites and trails is located behind The Barn at Fallingwater at the upper parking lot.

Saving Land Within the Laurel Highlands

Some of the ongoing tasks of our stewardship staff include managing the trail system, assessing two hemlock tree insectaries to control hemlock woolly adelgid, monitoring other invasive species, controlling trees along the trails and undertaking reforestation.

Conservancy Director of Land Stewardship Andy Zadnik leads the team that cares for all Conservancy-owned preserves. Andy’s philosophy is to “create a welcoming and inviting atmosphere where people can experience and access nature.” He added that, if that’s achieved, people will be more likely to come back to enjoy nature and get involved with the Conservancy.

Recently, a family of Swainson’s warblers, which included a male, female and juvenile, were discovered at the reserve.

This species was first recorded at the reserve in 1975.

Western Pennsylvania is the northern edge of its range.

However, the sighting this spring is the first proof that the

Years after Fallingwater’s construction was completed, Edgar Sr. was still personally invested in efforts to purchase and conserve natural areas near his family’s summer retreat. In 1951, through the support of the Edgar J. Kaufmann Charitable Trust, the Conservancy was able to purchase Ferncliff Peninsula—a wild and natural area in the Youghiogheny River that hosts many rare plant species.

(Ferncliff Peninsula was part of the land that the Conservancy eventually gave to the state to establish Ohiopyle State Park in the 1970s.)

Since the 1950s, the Conservancy has focused significant land and water conservation efforts throughout the Laurel Highlands, protecting more than 83,000 acres of rivers, forestland, wild areas and scenic ridges to date. Many of these Conservancy-protected acres are now state-owned public land, including 11,890 for Ohiopyle State Park, 696 for State Game Land 51, and 11,230 along Laurel Ridge to establish Laurel Ridge State Park and the 70-mile Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail.

Our protection of the rolling hills, evergreen forests and picturesque farmlands along the stretch of the Laurel Highlands Scenic Byway near Fallingwater also helps safeguard the scenic and historic character of this important landscape.

The Kaufmann family helped the Conservancy protect this forested land in the Youghiogheny River known as Ferncliff Peninsula. Now a National Natural Landmark, WPC donated this property to the state to establish Ohiopyle State Park in Fayette County. Photo by Greg Funka

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The Evolution to a Transformative Visitor Experience At the 1963 dedication speech of Fallingwater to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, a Conservancy board member suggested that “Perhaps someday as many as 25,000 would find their way” to the house in rural Mill Run, Pa. The first year, visitation neared 30,000. For nearly 60 years, it climbed ever upward, peaking at 180,000 in 2018.

Within the first four seasons, people from 50 states and 94 countries had navigated narrow country roads leading to the Bear Run Nature Reserve, waited to enter a gravel parking lot, paid a $1.25 admission and traversed steep paths to visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterwork built over a waterfall in the woods.

Although Fallingwater itself has changed little in the last six decades, the visitor experience has evolved dramatically.

A Visitor Center that blends into the wooded landscape welcomes people to immerse themselves in nature as they prepare to experience the house. A café, museum store and exhibition gallery elevate visitors’ understanding of the site, and small tour groups allow for contemplation and discussion (see article on Page 12).

In the early years, visitors phoned a friendly but likely harried receptionist in the Conservancy’s Pittsburgh office to reserve tours. Today, reservations are made online for a variety of experiences ranging from landscape tours to in-depth architectural tours.

Lynda Waggoner (now Director Emerita) was 17 when she was hired as a Fallingwater tour guide in 1965. She recalls, “People just wandered down the path and found their way to the gardener’s cottage,” which was the original use for the tiny, prefabricated house that was soon converted to the Hospitality House. It offered restrooms, a small shop for postcards, books and local crafts, and a public telephone.

By the late 1970s, visitors to Mill Run were approaching 70,000 annually, overwhelming the quaint Hospitality House.

To better accommodate them, artist Paul Mayén, Edgar Kaufmann jr.’s life partner, designed a cedar, concrete and glass pavilion, with architectural supervision by the firm Curry, Martin & Highberger of Pittsburgh.

Paul conceived the Visitor Center to meet three criteria: conservation, simplicity and hospitality. His sunburst design included open-sided boardwalks where people could enjoy an immersive sensory experience in nature, and satellite “pods” that could be walled for privacy or fitted with floor-toceiling glass.

Finished in 1979 but destroyed by fire only one day after opening, the Visitor Center reopened in 1981. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote “something special was ahead” for the visitor that “emphasize[d] the kinship between man and nature, the point of organic architecture, and a prime factor in the Conservancy’s work of saving the land.”

Continued on Page 8

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Perspective drawing of the Fallingwater Visitor Center by Paul Mayén Fallingwater Archive, FWA2020.145

The Visitor Center is integrated into the site and introduces visitors to the forest. Edgar Kaufmann jr. envisioned, “house and site together form the very image of man’s desire to be at one with nature, equal and wedded to nature.”

Continued from Page 7

Over time, the Visitor Center evolved to accommodate the growing visitor population and needs. The Speyer Gallery, which replaced a child care center, hosts exhibitions about Fallingwater, Wright and the Kaufmann family.

Today, visitors enjoy snacks and lunch at the Fallingwater Café, which serves locally sourced fare and is Green Restaurant Certified. Those seeking meaningful gifts, classic mementos of their visit or books or other materials to enhance their understanding and appreciation of the site can shop online or in person at the Fallingwater Museum Store, which offers carefully curated items inspired by the Kaufmann family and their collection.

Lynda returned in 1985 as a part-time curatorial assistant, and from 1996 to 2018, she was Fallingwater’s director. “We were growing and growing,” she recalls. “You could see major visitation jumps after Edgar jr.’s book, ‘Fallingwater: A Country House’ and films by Ken Burns and Ken Love came out, and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s visit photo went viral.” The cantilever restoration in the early 2000s received international attention, also driving visitation.

In 2003, flush toilets replaced compostable toilets at the Visitor Center, made possible by the site’s addition of a closed loop, zero-discharge wastewater treatment facility.

Restrooms have been remodeled as architect-designed spaces featuring backlit glass etched with images of twigs emulating the surrounding forest outside.

In 2004, the entry to Fallingwater from State Route 381 was widened for easier vehicle access, and the Café was 8

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renovated. The next year the Gatehouse was redesigned to enable two lanes of traffic. Subtle and elegant signage replaced old markers and signs. Accessibility has drastically improved across the site, including a 2009 addition of an entry ramp from the parking lot sidewalk to the Visitor Center.

(Please see the article on Page 9 for more about accessibility at Fallingwater.)

Umbrellas are offered when it rains, restrooms are accessible and family friendly, and the parking lot, redesigned in 2010, creates a welcoming area with local, native plants and extensive bioswales that mitigate stormwater runoff into Bear Run. A nature trail leading to the bird's-eye view of the house was modified for easier access, and stone steps and benches create an easier ascent on the return path to the Visitor Center.

Ultimately, each change is to improve the visitor experience.

When Visitor Services Representative Stacy Yauger was hired in 1997 as a reservation secretary, she answered phones, booked reservations and created tour schedules, all on paper.

“The phones did not stop all day long,” she recalls. “Today, most sales are online.”

In the early 2000s, with surging visitation, a formal Visitor Services department was created. Now, Stacy helps plan tour capacities and trains new hires in her department, which has grown significantly since she started 25 years ago.

“For a lot of people, this is a dream or a bucket list item,” Stacy says. “Everyone enjoys visiting Fallingwater. It’s a place they can get away from the daily stresses of life.”

Improvements to Accessibility Create Enjoyable Experiences for All Due to Fallingwater’s historic nature, some things can’t

change. Doorways will always be narrow and the tour still includes 100 steps. However, Fallingwater has become more accessible to people with disabilities.

“We want to be inclusive, and we try to explain the challenges of navigating the house but not dissuade anyone,” says Fallingwater Public Tours Manager Max Adzema. Still, accessibility is a challenge in a house like Fallingwater.

The house is not air conditioned, there are many steps and there’s at least one mile of outside walking on gravel paths that include uphill and downhill terrain. “We encourage people to tell us ahead of time what their limitations are, so we can best prepare to make it an enjoyable and meaningful visit,” Max adds. Fallingwater provides the following accommodations for visitors with mobility, hearing or visual limitations: • Visitors using non-motorized wheelchairs less than 27 inches wide may visit the first floor of the house.

Fallingwater has become more accessible to people with physical limitations. Photo by 2023 Fallingwater Fawcett Digital Multimedia Intern Daniel Rothermel

visually impaired visitors, at no charge.

• Visitors who have difficulty walking to and from the house may use our complimentary shuttle.

• Trained, certified service animals are always welcome.

• Visitors who are unable to access Fallingwater’s upper floors and the Guest House may enjoy a supplemental 3-D video tour.

• Due to the narrow hallways and other factors, portable oxygen concentrators or small oxygen tanks carried with a shoulder strap are preferred.

• With advance notice, Fallingwater can provide a sign language or language interpreter, or assisted tours for

For more information about accessibility at Fallingwater, please visit Fallingwater.org/Visit/Accessibility.

An all-terrain wheelchair for outside use is available on a first-come basis at no charge.

All visitors are provided an assisted listening device, an earpiece that amplifies the guide’s voice.

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Fallingwater Institute Continues Kaufmanns' Legacy

Interior design students from Chatham University participating in a Fallingwater Institute College Residency course discuss their design process at Fallingwater’s Cheteyan Studio.

On a warm Thursday afternoon in July, the Cheteyan Studio

at High Meadow was buzzing with harmonious synergy and anxious excitement. Soren R., a high school junior from Ohio, was one of 15 students taking part in the High School Residency: Portfolio Studio, a program within the Fallingwater Institute where participants imagine, create and design various projects inspired by Fallingwater.

For a week, students participating in this residency work in groups and individually to learn how to assemble and present college-ready portfolios that communicate their unique individuality, skills, perspectives and, of course, creativity.

The courses are taught by professional designers and/or architects.

“This was definitely more challenging than I thought it would be,” Soren shares while preparing for the final project demonstrations. “It’s been a learning experience, but if I want a job in the creative arts, explaining my design and thought process is one of the most important things I have to learn to do.”

Soren is one of the hundreds of creative individuals of all ages and from all walks of life who have participated in a variety of onsite Fallingwater Institute programs that explore ideas that informed Fallingwater’s design as well as today’s innovative thinking regarding design, education, preservation and conservation.

From its inception, Fallingwater has always been a setting for advancing new ideas, inspired thinking and creative 10

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An adult learner enhances skills and air painting workshop.

discourse. In the late 1930s, the Kaufmanns convened a group of Jewish leaders, including physicist Albert Einstein, in the living room to discuss how to help Jewish artists and scholars living in Nazi Germany.

Nearly 30 years later, when Edgar Kaufmann jr. entrusted Fallingwater, its contents and grounds to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, he wrote of his parents: “…their wish, in which I join, was that the great natural beauty and architectural excellence of the property which they developed might be more fully available to interested scholars and lovers of nature and the arts.”

A year later in 1964, Fallingwater welcomed its first artist-in-residence, Roger Tory Peterson, a naturalist and ornithologist, who illustrated his book “Field Guide to Mexican Birds” while in residency. This was the beginning of Fallingwater’s comprehensive programming for forwardthinking and creative individuals, which since 2015 has been known as the Fallingwater Institute. Fallingwater hosted painter Felix de la Concha in 2005 and has regularly welcomed artists since 2016 including Ivan Chow, Ron Donoughe and Stephen Towns, and scholars including Dr. Barry Kerzin and Jaime Inostroza.

Fallingwater Senior Director and Curator of Education Ashley Andrykovitch manages the Fallingwater Institute and says the sessions, such as various residencies and workshops, offer rich opportunities for creative collaboration, academic enrichment and immersive educational experiences. Through

of Inspired Thinking

FALLINGWATER INSTITUTE COURSES

These courses provide immersive, onsite experiences that explore Wright's organic design philosophy.

ARTIST/SCHOLAR-IN-RESIDENCE Enhanced creativity is the result when visiting resident artists and scholars of exceptional talent are inspired by living, studying and working at Fallingwater while finishing works-in-progress or beginning a new body of work.

INSIGHT/ONSITE We combine unfettered access to Fallingwater with discovery and observation, group exercises, technical explorations and in-depth discussions for this dynamic course. Example courses include Insight/Onsite for Design Professionals and Insight/Onsite for Educators

WORKSHOPS

engages creativity at a Fallingwater Institute plein

Fallingwater provides endless inspiration during hands-on workshops. Participants learn new skills, get creative and enjoy exceptional access to Wright’s masterpiece. Example programs include plein air painting classes with Ron Donoughe.

HIGH SCHOOL RESIDENCIES eight distinct courses, more than 20 different robust programs and sessions are held annually.

“All of our programs focus on discovery and understanding of Frank Lloyd Wright’s principles of organic architecture,” she adds. “Additionally, through discussion, collaboration, observation, group exercises and exploration, participants obtain in-depth learning related to their discipline or focus.

Our programs are ideal for current and future architects, designers, scholars and artists.”

Participants stay at High Meadow, the award-winning educational complex located approximately one-half mile from Fallingwater. To facilitate workshops, collaborations and hands-on learning, High Meadow’s original two-car garage was converted into the Cheteyan Studio, a functional space that includes drafting and modeling workspaces, a workroom, natural light and restrooms.

At the studio, Soren explains it was their first time drawing and explaining a creative process to a group of cohorts, sharing that the design was inspired by the stone walls of Fallingwater and towering trees within the landscape. “Those elements really spoke to me, but everything about Fallingwater inspired me.”

Ashley says, “The Fallingwater Institute is exactly what the Kaufmanns wanted us to continue doing, so we’re honored to continue advancing educational experiences that truly promote harmony between people and nature.”

Designed for budding designers or architects in grades 11 or 12, week-long programs are focused on architecture and design in the context of Wright’s philosophy to create Fallingwater. Available course programs focus on design discovery, portfolio preparation, collaborative projects, drawing and model-making exercises.

VIRTUAL SUMMER CAMPS For high school students of all skill levels, this weeklong educational program allows participants to engage in group discussions, present challenging independent projects and provide individualized feedback to help build design skills through an online learning platform.

COLLEGE RESIDENCY This weeklong opportunity is perfect for groups of graduate or undergraduate students seeking an intensive study in architecture, design, architectural history, landscape architecture, museum studies or conservation.

IMMERSIVE DESIGN RESIDENCY We invite technology professionals who design immersive, virtual environments to this studio-based residency program to explore and discuss the best practices in immersive design.

CONVENINGS We invite proposals from groups and organizations seeking a natural setting for sessions in advanced thinking to spark critical discourse and develop strategies for success.

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NEW TOUR EXPERIENCE GIVES CONTEXT FOR DISCOVERY When Denise Miner became a Fallingwater tour guide in

1971, large groups filled the Living Room, then divided into clusters of 20 to move through the house listening to a lecture.

It was often crowded, sometimes hot and rarely conducive to discussion.

The tour program evolved over the decades. From the 1990s until recently, every six minutes a group of 14 to 16 people left the Visitor Center to meet their guide at the bridge over Bear Run. Several groups still moved through the house at once and spent time together in the Living Room.

Then, the pandemic in 2020 necessitated a pause in tours, allowing staff time to rethink the tour program. They realized smaller group sizes and 10-minute spacing between groups provides a more intimate experience. “Each group has the house to themselves without interruption,” says Fallingwater Director and Conservancy Vice President Justin Gunther.

“Smaller groups mean less wear and tear on the house and grounds, and is better for preservation of the site.” To realize this shift, a new revenue model and operating and staffing plateau was established.

If you’ve toured Fallingwater since 2021, you might have noticed less lecture and more discussion. The education staff is taking a cognitive learning approach, says Fallingwater Senior Director and Curator of Education Ashley Andrykovitch.

“Guides are not just spouting facts or listing details of the Kaufmanns’ lives. They encourage visitors to experience the house and make meaning of Frank Lloyd Wright’s design.”

Tour guides establish rapport with a group of 12 at the Visitor Center and stay with the group throughout the tour. “Before the visitors even glimpse the house, I stop near the stream and have people close their eyes and listen to the water,” Denise says. “I describe what a cascade is, and explain that Wright

Fallingwater’s educators encourage visitors to experience the house and make meaning of Frank Lloyd Wright’s design.

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drew inspiration from nature. I ask them to look for cascades within the architecture.”

Edgar Kaufmann jr., who donated Fallingwater to the Conservancy in 1963, envisioned Fallingwater as an educational institution, and as a sort of an anti-museum, Ashley says. “He knew that the educational value of a Fallingwater tour was more than learning about the biographies of the family or architect,” she continues. “He thought a tour should focus on the house’s innovative design and its harmonious union with the landscape. As a museum professional, his ideas for Fallingwater as a house museum were visionary.”

Today, tours are visitor-focused, participatory experiences.

“This is based on what we know about cognitive science and how we learn,” Ashley says. “We give each visitor the motive and context for discovery.” Since 2021, tour groups are smaller and have more time alone in the house for observation.

Fallingwater guides employ strategies used in art museums.

“In a lot of ways,” Ashley says, “we interpret the house like a giant sculpture in the woods. Because it’s a house, it’s a work of art that everyone understands, yet this is likely different from anything they’ve ever seen.”

Recent Fallingwater visitor Jason Knapp noted that tour guide Karen Oleksak shared details in conversation with her group. “She gives enough information to start on a journey of discovery and then adds just what we need to amplify it over time and as we move through the space,” Jason says via email.

“She listens to our questions. She watches where we spend more time. And she builds on our reactions, feeding us the details and information that enhance each person’s experience.

“I expected to enjoy the house. But I wasn’t prepared for the emotions it triggered. It may sound weird when I tell you that touring the home of some rich department store magnate was deeply moving. But it was. Karen helped each of us to find that connection on our own terms.”

Visitors are challenged to think in ways that are difficult to articulate. Guides pause to give quiet moments and time for visitors to explore and discuss things. They curate the tour around the interests of each group, which often consist of people from all over the world.

Overwhelmingly, visitors have responded positively to the discussions, says Fallingwater Public Programs Manager Max Adzema. Rather than ask for questions, guides encourage people to make observations, similar to what people do in art museums. Observations are a springboard for discussion.

Family-friendly experiences continue to evolve so that every generation is engaged, says Fallingwater Public Programs Manager Max Adzema. “It can be amazing to have a child on a tour,” he notes. “Children share opinions and observations openly.

We want people to say what they think, even if they don’t like something.” (For families with children younger than six, special outside tours are available.)

“Usually when people ask a question, underneath there’s an observation,” Max explains. “If someone asks ‘Were the Kaufmanns short?’ we can say, ‘What do you see that makes you ask that?’ and it turns out they’re observing that the beds are short, or the ceilings are low.”

To transition to this style of educating, Fallingwater’s more than 40 guides, also known as educators, constantly experiment, discuss and read about conversational education, such as “Teaching in the Art Museum: Interpretation as Experience,” a book by Rika Burnham and Elliott Kai-Kee. Staff has moved away from using guessing games as an engagement tactic, says Max. “A question such as ‘Anyone want to guess how deep the pool is?’ sets people up for failure. They might not answer for fear of being wrong.” But, if someone says the furniture looks cozy, a guide could ask, “What about Wright’s design choices makes you think that?,” which creates dialogue.

“In everyday life, we often volunteer our opinion, but are not asked to back it up,” Max reflects. “At Fallingwater, we encourage critical thinking.”

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The Friend House today with an inset photo showing it in 1949 Inset photo courtesy of Denise Miner

Buildings With Rich History Get Second Life Imagine Fallingwater surrounded by

shopping plazas and high-rise hotels, the constant hum of cars zipping by on freeways competing with Bear Run’s gurgling waters.

Of course you can’t. The magic of visiting Fallingwater isn’t just about the house. Frank Lloyd Wright intended the landscape and the house to work in harmony; indeed, he intentionally blurred the lines between them.

Fallingwater’s secondary structures subtly contribute to the overall experience of visiting this World Heritage location off a wooded lane in rural southwestern Pennsylvania. Instead of hotels, visitors approaching Fallingwater gaze at barns and wood frame houses dotting the rural countryside.

Fallingwater Director Emerita Lynda Waggoner says, “Part of the Fallingwater experience is the prelude to the 14

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house and knowing that you’re in the Fallingwater zone…signals such as the tall Norway spruce, the barn, the farmstead, the valley with the Hickman Chapel.”

Over the years a collection of at least 20 ancillary buildings has been referred to as the Kaufmann estate or the Fallingwater campus, all an integral part of the daily workings of the site. The barn where Liliane and Edgar Kaufmann once raised dairy cows now houses offices and hosts events. Some buildings are kept private.

And others, including the Kaufmanns' cabin, The Hangover, no longer stand.

Thanks to the Conservancy’s commitment to conserve, repurpose and reuse, “Many historical structures with rich history have been given a second or even third life,” says Justin Gunther, Fallingwater director and Conservancy vice president. “Certainly the buildings serve valuable functions because we’ve

been able to adaptively reuse them.”

Three such structures are the Kitchen, Bear Run School and Friend House.

Caretaker’s House-turned-Kitchen Kerwin Miner was seven when his father Ralph, then caretaker to Fallingwater, moved the family to the Fallingwater grounds in 1956. They lived in what had been the Syria Clubhouse until Edgar Kaufmann jr. had local builders construct the bungalow-style Caretaker’s House in 1963, near where the Gatehouse stands today.

The house provided a better aesthetic experience for visitors than the dilapidated clubhouse, says Kerwin, a lifelong resident of Mill Run, Pa. “It was very modern for the time, clean looking but monochromatic,” he recalls. “It had an oil furnace, appliances, three bedrooms, a screened-in porch and a crawlspace, but

no basement.”

With permission from the Kaufmanns, the Miner children fished, rode their bicycles and swam in the Kaufmann camp pool.

In 1981, Charles Bier was hired as the Bear Run Nature Reserve naturalist, doubling as Fallingwater security. His wife, Terry, was hired as Fallingwater housekeeper. “When we negotiated taking the job, they agreed to install a wood stove,” Charles recalls. The nearby foundation of the demolished Syria Clubhouse served as their garden.

The newlyweds used part of a nearby barn for chickens; another barn, currently the Barn at Fallingwater that is a renovated space for events and offices, housed the Biers' sheep. “We enjoyed the remoteness of living at Bear Run,” Charles recalls. “We ensured the furnaces were running in the house and barn so the

Bear Run School Built by local carpenters around 1904, the one-room Bear Run School on what is now State Route 381 welcomed local school children from neighboring farms.

It was part of the vanished, but oncethriving community of Bear Run, known for mining and logging, and a destination for vacationers from Pittsburgh. As many as 56 students at one time attended Bear Run. Along with three other Stewart Township schools, they were combined with the Uniontown School District and closed in 1951.

Edgar Kaufmann purchased the school in 1952, and in 1957 Edgar jr. converted it to a home for the Wolfe family. It was donated to the Conservancy in 1963.

Various families inhabited the tiny space until it became offices and storage for the Fallingwater Museum Store.

In 2009, with funds from the Double

The Bear Run School, restored to its original one-room schoolhouse format in 2009, includes an accessible entrance ramp, parking, a restroom, kitchen and updated educational equipment.

pipes wouldn’t freeze.”

Now hidden by hemlock trees and rhododendron, the Caretaker’s House was converted in 1997 to the Kitchen, where locally sourced meat and produce become fare for the Fallingwater Café.

Its brown siding blends neatly with the landscape. Gone is the Biers’ wood stove, replaced by stainless steel appliances.

Instead of the sounds of children laughing, the clanging of pots and the sizzle of oil hitting hot saucepans fill the air.

Eagle Foundation, the Conservancy restored the school to its original format and is used for Fallingwater education programs and intern offices.

The original bell that summoned local children to study reading, writing and arithmetic had disappeared for several years, only to be recovered during the restoration by community residents and donated to the school, where it hangs in the belfry today.

Friend House Pam Friend Morgan’s father, Earl Friend Sr., was also a Fallingwater caretaker. The house now known as Friend House, a low, modern structure built in 1946 by A. E. Vitaro, came with the job.

Pam lived there for 18 years until she married, amassing fond memories, including taking long walks on the wooded trails, and picking cherries for pies. “It was nothing to see a black snake stretched across the hallway leading to the bedrooms. There was no footer under the house, just a slab with tar paper,” she continues. “The floors were heated with pipes, so it was always toasty in the winter.”

She recalls the Kaufmanns’ dairy cattle would wander to the fence when Pam’s mother played the radio. And Elsie Henderson, the Fallingwater cook, always had shortbread cookies in a bread box by Fallingwater’s kitchen door. “When I was at Fallingwater with my father, she’d always give me a couple!” Pam later worked at Fallingwater, “so I could be close to my roots,” she says.

The Conservancy's watershed program occupied Friend House for a while during the early 2000s, after which updates made Friend House into comfortable lodging for instructors of Fallingwater Institute programs and various other guests and contractors.

(Left) The Log Cabin, built ca. 1850 on Maple Summit Road and moved in 1994 to its current location on Mill Run Road, is the oldest structure on the property. It is used as housing for special guests.

(Right) The Caretaker’s House in the 1960s Photo courtesy of Denise Miner 15

Fallingwater Enhances Education, Interpretation for Young Learners

High school students listen to music in the Fallingwater Living Room before taking a tour in 1966 during Gateway to Music at Fallingwater, one of our first formal education programs.

These days Sarah Cleary enjoys reading a good book, doting

on her granddaughter, volunteering and occasionally playing her ukulele for nursing home patients. “Yeah, retirement is treating me well,” she shares with slight glee in her voice.

“While I don’t miss the long hours, I do miss the sense of purpose that comes with working closely with young people and teachers. Sharing Fallingwater’s importance will always be so meaningful to me.”

As Fallingwater’s first curator of education from 1990 until her retirement in 2006, Sarah created opportunities for learners of all ages to experience Fallingwater through a variety of school tours, hands-on education activities and residency programs for high school students and educators.

Offering high-quality educational experiences came with its challenges, she recalls, especially with limited staff, a lack of onsite facilities and inconsistent funding. Despite the challenges, there was always optimism among staff due to the desire from teachers and parents to experience Fallingwater. “It became clear to us that we had to be creative and resourceful to accommodate more and more students.

We just didn’t want to turn any students away.”

Amy Humbert, Fallingwater’s current manager of school programs and outreach, says the high level of interest in education remains today. “We do our best to engage as many young learners as possible through Fallingwater’s school programs by working with teachers and parents. Fallingwater is an educational organization, too.”

Teachers can use Fallingwater’s architectural themes to teach lessons in science, engineering, social studies, math, design and language arts that fit curriculum standards for students in grades three through 12.

Fallingwater’s educators enhance classroom lessons with in-person experiences through school field trips to 16

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Local students engage in observation, sketching, demonstration, problem solving and reflection at Fallingwater.

Fallingwater that include guided architectural tours designed to enhance student learning. Thanks to the generosity of local lodging facilities, foundations and other donors, our Wright In Our Backyard program provides free tours for local schools in Fayette, Washington and Greene counties.

During the COVID-19 pandemic when schools had to switch to remote instruction, we began offering virtual and family field trips, Amy recalls. Fallingwater’s educators also continued facilitating an annual Gnome House Design Challenge that teaches creativity, planning and design skills in either a classroom or homeschool setting. Since its first season in 2015-2016, more than 4,150 students, some as far away as Australia and Japan, have participated in the challenge to inspire the next generation of architects and designers.

“No matter the program or opportunity, Fallingwater motivates and engages students from across the world and helps foster creativity, hands-on learning, in-depth exploration and problem-solving skills. No matter a student’s interests, educational journey or where they live, those are valuable skills for a number of professions,” Amy adds.

Sarah agrees, and believes it’s important to understand that students have different learning styles, and an introduction to amazing architecture can open a world of possibilities.

“I’ll never forget one student who seemed completely disinterested in everything I said during a tour, but when he walked out onto one of the terraces and saw the natural landscape from that vantage point, I could tell he connected with Fallingwater and it all began to matter.”

Former Johnstown Schoolteacher Spearheads Fallingwater Field Trips for Local Students Most people don’t forget their first visit to Fallingwater and John Varmecky, 81, of Johnstown is no exception. In 1964, John

Fallingwater School Programs and Outreach Manager Amy Humbert shares a smile and feedback with a budding creator participating in our Gnome House Design Challenge.

was in his senior year at Indiana University of Pennsylvania or that they learned something new,” he shared. when one of his professors, Orville Kipp, suggested a road Knowing the Conservancy is preserving Fallingwater, John trip to Fallingwater. “There was a lot a buzz in the press says, is why he became a member in 2000. about the house in the mountains over a waterfall,” John said, “Fallingwater is a gem. It’s in our backyard and every kid remembering the news reports that Fallingwater was opening should see it. I just feel so lucky and honored I got to see to the public. it and that I can share that experience with so many of my Once at Fallingwater, the education major crossed the car students.” bridge with his classmates and professor and recalled that the entrance felt small and narrow. “But, then, I gasped. I was speechless. The living room was my ‘wow’ moment. Its open expanse, the natural light, the level of detail, and the feeling of being outside, yet inside—I saw Wright’s genius in that moment.”

John believes he was among the first visitors to Fallingwater and said seeing the house and landscape was one of his most meaningful college experiences.

For more than 30 years, John taught art at Johnstown Area High School, and every other year from 1970-2002 he organized school field trips to Fallingwater for his graduating seniors.

“I knew what an immense impression seeing Fallingwater had on my life, so I wanted to share that with my students, too.”

Retired since 2002, John still remembers some of the reactions from his students. “They would Learners of all ages have creative leisure and time in nature to explore Fallingwater, a often thank me, say that it was site on the UNESCO World Heritage List. more than what they had imagined, 17

Two exhibitions will feature the unbuilt designs Frank Lloyd Wright proposed for Fallingwater, including this private family Rhododendron Chapel designed in 1952. Photo courtesy of Skyline Ink Animators + Illustrators

Fallingwater, The Westmoreland Collaborate on New Exhibitions

About Wright’s Unrealized Designs for Southwestern PA By the mid-1940s, Pittsburgh was undergoing a major

renaissance. Some revitalization efforts in downtown Pittsburgh called for a museum, fountain, civic center and improved green space. A 28-member Point Park committee was created to direct the redevelopment of the intersection of the three rivers. And the chair of this committee, Edgar Kaufmann Sr., invited Frank Lloyd Wright back to the region to consider some of the proposals and designs—for Pittsburgh and across the region and a few more buildings at Fallingwater. This led to Wright proposing ideas for downtown Pittsburgh.

Wright’s unrealized designs are the subject of a new exhibition that Fallingwater co-organized with The Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg. "Frank Lloyd Wright’s Southwestern Pennsylvania" is an innovative exhibition that presents video animations and 3D models of neverbuilt residential, commercial and civic projects that Wright designed in the 1940s and 1950s. The exhibition opened at The Westmoreland in Greensburg, Pa., on October 15, 2023, and will remain on view through January 14, 2024.

Realistic animated films, created by Skyline Ink Animators + Illustrators, provide, for the first time, a virtual exploration of five unrealized Wright projects for the region. These include 18

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a monumental reimagining of the Point (1947), a self-service garage for Kaufmann’s Department Store (1949), the Point View Residences designed for the Edgar J. Kaufmann Charitable Trust (1952), and the Rhododendron Chapel (1952) and a gate lodge for the Fallingwater grounds (1941), among several designs.

Using three-dimensional rendering technology to choreograph camera paths and to shape lighting to produce the same type of visual effects used in the film industry, Skyline Ink’s resulting animations will be presented throughout the exhibition to provide a multimedia experience.

“This exhibition celebrates the genius of Frank Lloyd Wright’s design in a new and approachable way, but it also asks visitors to question how these projects might have changed the Pittsburgh region as we know it, for better or for worse,” says Fallingwater Director and Conservancy Vice President Justin Gunther.

A separate exhibition focusing on the unbuilt works Wright designed specifically for the Fallingwater grounds is currently on view in Fallingwater’s Speyer Gallery. This exhibition will also include the Rhododendron Chapel and a gate lodge for the Fallingwater grounds, plus other proposed buildings.

Fallingwater visitors with tour tickets can experience this exhibition as a complement to their tour.

“It is wonderful to see this collaboration—more than four years in the making—between The Westmoreland and Fallingwater come to fruition with these exhibitions at both of our sites, which truly surpass our original expectations,” explains Scott Perkins, Fallingwater's senior director of preservation and collections.

The collaboration between institutions also extends to loaned materials from the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, and Lord Peter and Lady Hayat Palumbo, owners of Kentuck Knob.

EXPERIENCE THE EXHIBITIONS

A Year (with Sheep & Chickens) at Fallingwater (Originally published in 2011)

Two weeks after we married in late January, thirty years ago, my wife Terry and I moved to Fallingwater to take up new jobs with the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. We were caretakers, part of the house maintenance crew, Bear Run Nature Reserve managers and interpretive naturalists for the visitors who came to tour the house.

Those were different times. Fallingwater was generally a quieter place. It is still certainly peaceful today, but there is a much larger staff now and ts of more programs and activities. We lived in a small residen n, once e ll E ry r nd Ma bungalow adjacent to the ticket house (now the Frieda a at Fallingwate the Barn Kitchen for the Café), and part of our job was to see that people did not enter the grounds during closed hours.

The security for Fallingwater was an alarm in our house that would erupt in the middle of the night whenever the Fallingwater residents (white-footed mice) would trip it. Well, come to think of it, that part was not so quiet.

The Fallingwater Projects will feature the unbuilt designs Wright proposed for the Fallingwater estate and other locations across Southwestern Pennsylvania.

When I married Terry, she came with sheep and chickens, and somehow the Conservancy’s administration was flexible enough to understand. The sheep lived in the barn (now remodeled for staff offices) and they pastured along State Route 381.

Our small flock of chickens occupied a corner of the small red maintenance barn near our bungalow. Every so often they would venture away from the barn in their bug-hunting forays and visitors leaving the grounds would have to slow down or stop their cars until they scampered off.

To learn more and experience The Westmoreland Museum of American Art Exhibition, scan this QR code below or go to: Thewestmoreland. org/exhibitions/frank-lloydwrights-southwesternpennsylvania.

The Visitor Center was just new. Each weekend, I led several nature walks on a small path in the forest nearby. I have always enjoyed interpreting any given spot, and this one had a wealth of plants, animals and ecology to share.

Sometimes I had to play a few tricks on people whose attention would drift away from my message. So, I would stand alongside a large shrub saying “And this is ‘Nordnedodohr’,” and the visitors were puzzled. Only after I had imparted all of my details about this species would I inform them that it took me a long time to perfect saying rhododendron backward. On one summer nature walk I spied a northern copperhead right at the edge of the trail. It was a great opportunity to have the visitors experience just how timid this venomous snake really is, and then I had to capture it for release later in a remote area.

To learn more and experience the Fallingwater Exhibition, scan the QR code below or go to: Fallingwater.org/ Exhibitions.

Another memorable experience happened as I had just checked on Fallingwater one evening after everyone had left and the grounds were quiet again. I was walking upstream along the path there when a bobcat suddenly appeared in front of me from the rhododendron thicket. It was walking the same direction that I was and must not have detected me due to the sound of Bear Run’s rushing waters. I stalked it for a few minutes as it was weaving in and out of the thicket on the stream bank before disappearing.

Bitter and sweet for me was the offer of a new position as conservation biologist with the emerging Pennsylvania Natural Heritage Program in the Pittsburgh office.

So we left Fallingwater and the mountains after just one year. But I took with me memories of many cherished “firsts” during my first year with the Conservancy.

-Charles Bier is the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy's senior director of conservation science.

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