Visitors welcome as structural work to protect iconic Fallingwater continues

Fallingwater isn’t a typical house, so renovations are anything but normal.

When architect Frank Lloyd Wright pushed the envelope in the 1930s with his revolutionary home design, wedged into a stream in Fayette County, he may not have been thinking about how the iconic house would be preserved 90 years later.

“The house is just inherently more complex than a house of the period,” said Justin Gunther, director of Fallingwater and vice president of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. “How he waterproofed things in the 1930s is a little different than what we would do today.”

Fallingwater and the conservancy are in the midst of a $7 million renovation project at the home that melds art and nature. It sits cantilevered over Bear Run, which empties into the Youghiogheny River just north of Ohiopyle.

The project is being funded by a $2.7 million state grant and private donations, which are still being sought.

Work got underway in February 2023 at the guest house on the property and continued through 2024, Gunther said. In December, attention turned to the main house. Scaffolding that is currently erected around the exterior will come down in a few weeks as tour season begins. The project is expected to be completed in March 2026.

Contractors are focusing specialized handiwork on sealing the main and guest houses from water infiltration. That has involved repointing, regrouting, preserving steel window frames, improving roofs and upgrading waterproof membranes underneath flagstone. A similar project was undertaken in the early 2000s.

“Twenty years has passed … we’re kind of just at that point,” Gunther said.

Pamela Jerome, president of Architectural Preservation Studio in New York City, is serving as preservation architect on the project. In a video posted to Fallingwater’s blog about the renovations, she said she worked on the project from the early 2000s.

“I’m very technically familiar with the house, but it continues to surprise me,” she said.

Workers tested new materials and products on the guest house before moving to the main structure, Jerome said.

“We wanted to make sure we had it all down right before we moved on to the main house,” she said.

Jerome and structural engineer John Matteo of Matteo Ferran Structural Engineers have been helping with the work. While it continues, Fallingwater is offering preservation-in-action guided tours. Gunther said the tours offer a different perspective of what it takes to maintain the landmark and views of workers in action.

Construction on Fallingwater began in 1936 in Stewart Township. It became the weekend home of the Kaufmann family, owners of the department store. In 1963, the family donated the home and surrounding land to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy for preservation purposes. It was opened to the public for visitation the following year and has become a popular tourist spot in the Laurel Highlands.

Fallingwater became a National Historic Landmark in 1976 and was named to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2019.

Normal tours are expected to resume April 7.