To Fallingwater and Beyond!

Looking upstream to Fallingwater

We enjoyed a fun week in the Berkshires at a mountain cottage we co-own with our daughter, Skyler.  What made it so nice was all of her guests coming and going.  We realized just how much we miss being in the company of young people.  We swam and paddle boarded on the lake, rode bikes, played with our ‘granddogs,’ sat around the campfire, and listened to John Williams and the Boston Pops at the Tanglewood Festival.  Above all, we ate, and ate, and ate.  Skyler, Spencer, and Feruza are such good cooks.

Cruising the lake at Sunset, July 4 with
Skyler's friends and coworkers

Sunset on Big Robin Lake

Waiting for John Williams to conduct his
greatest hits at the Tanglewood Festival

We left Monday toward Pittsburgh, to see the famous Fallingwater home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.  It is listed in the Smithsonian’s “Life List of 28 places to visit before you die.”  And just this month, UNESCO listed Fallingwater as a world heritage site.  Together, we’ve seen about 12 of his homes, and several non-residential buildings. They were all interesting and nice to look at, but we wouldn’t want to live in one.   But we could happily live in Fallingwater.  It’s stunningly beautiful and practical at the same time. 

Falling Water, looking downstream

The home was commissioned in 1932 by Edgar and Liliane Kauffman who owned a huge department store in Pittsburgh.  The budget was $35,000, but in true Frank Lloyd Wright style, it the total cost was $155,000—about $2.8 million in today’s dollars, not counting the land.  (The Conservancy’s budget for needed restorations is over $11 million.)  That included furnishings, servants’ quarters, and carport.

The Kauffman’s wanted the home to look across the river to the waterfalls.  Frank instead designed the waterfall to be a part of the home.  You can see more photos of it HERE, as well as a second FLW home we toured nearby called Kentuck Knob. (Unfortunately photos inside were prohibited). While on the Kntuck Knob tour, we were privileged to meet its owner, Lord Peter Palumbo, a British philanthropist who buys and preserves historic properties.  He showed up in his vintage 1982 Buick Roadmaster station wagon to get some wine out of the cellar.

View from the Kentuck Knob property

As luck would have it both nights out of Becket, we stayed at wineries as members of Harvest Host.  The wines weren’t so good, but the ambiance and quiet were.  Although they are free to members, we purchased a bottle of wine at each place.

Our Harvest Host campsite Tuesday night

It seems like we’ve spent more money on tolls than on gas since we left Becket,  barely getting out of 4th  gear before another booth.  One toll was over $34!  It would have been even more if our trailer had two axles.  But the roads were good, fast, stressful, loaded with trucks, and yet boring! 

A refurbished historic mile make

At a rest stop we noticed some historical markers.  The toll roads were I-70, the Dwight D. Eisenhower Highway. He got the idea for our interstate highway system in 1919, as he led a 62-day convoy from Washington DC to San Francisco.  He signed the enabling legislation in 1956.  With the Cold War anxieties in mind, it was sold as the National Defense Highway System.  (In a similar vein in 1957 when the Soviet Sputnik satellite was launched, Congress passed the National Defense Student Loan Program, of which Kathy and I, and many baby boomers used for low-cost student loans.)

But what really caught our eye was the Historic Highway 40 interpretive sign.  Commissioned by Thomas Jefferson in 1806, it originally connected the Atlantic Ocean with the Ohio River.  In 1926 it became the original coast-to-coast US highway.  It parallels I-70 and in some places I-70 is US 40. We decided to get off the three-lane I-70 and take US 40 through several quaint eastern and Midwest towns.  Some of these towns looked prosperous, others were rundown with many shuttered stores and factories.  Later on, as we approached Columbus, it was lined with strip malls. 

Tomorrow (Thursday), we’re going to spend the morning in nearby Springfield, OH.  Any guesses what we’ll be doing?  Kathy wants to tour yet another FLW home and walk the historical neighborhoods in the 90 degree heat and 85% humidity.  Over our 42 years of marriage, I have grown to enjoy her passion for architecture, as she has for my passions of symphonic music and cooking.

Then off towards another Springfield—Lincoln’s home town.

Fallingwater in background

 "WHAT WE CAN, WHILE WE CAN!"