The Cracker Barrel: A Poem in Stone – Pine and Lakes Echo Journal

Last week, while looking through a stack of notes from 30 years ago, I came across the following. I wrote it after my wife and I visited Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright's world-famous home.

Fallingwater towers over a waterfall in western Pennsylvania and is a dream. The American Institute of Architects voted it the most beautiful house of the last 100 years. Around 170,000 visitors come here every year.

Located in a wooded mountain valley east of Pittsburgh, several miles from the nearest city, this incredible building has a global appeal.

Fallingwater was built in the midst of the Depression, at a time when Wright's career was thought by many to be over. The man was nearly 70 and had not received a major commission for several years.

Then a young man named Edgar Kaufmann Jr. showed up at Wright's home in Wisconsin, eager to enroll in the fledgling architecture school that Wright and his wife had founded a few years earlier.

As it turned out, Kaufmann's father owned a thriving business in Pittsburgh and wanted someone to build him a vacation home on the banks of Bear Run, a stream that ran through several hundred acres of land he owned in Laurel Valley.

Wright visited the site, asked for a topographical map and came up with the outrageous – and brilliant – idea of ​​building the house directly over a waterfall.

He called for the construction of four pillars on the banks of the stream and had cantilevered reinforced concrete decks on these pillars projecting over the water.

Photo illustration / Shutterstock.com

The decks are stacked like trays from one floor to the next, held in place by tons of natural stone used to build the walls and fireplaces, which act as counterweights, and are attached to a ledge behind the house by a series of concrete beams.

The result is pure magic. The house seems to float in the air above the falls, rising like an apparition to a height of three stories. Ribbons of glass invite the outside in and turn the inside out. Floors made of waxed stone slabs reflect the stone of the stream bed.

In front of the fireplace in the living room, a rocky outcrop protrudes from the ground and serves as a fire pit. Inside, the feeling of security is remarkable. You are surrounded by stone walls while at the same time you can gaze at a panorama of wild trees and shrubs through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, an arrangement of such primal satisfaction that you feel invincible.

Because of the humidity created by the falling water, the entire interior is made of black walnut, which Wright designed to reflect the shapes and angles of the house.

Photo illustration / Shutterstock.com

And wherever you go, you'll hear the murmur of running water, a sound guaranteed to wash away any tension from even the most restless resident.

Throughout his long career, Wright insisted that all buildings should draw inspiration from nature, honoring their site by carefully adapting them to existing contours and vegetation so that they appeared to grow naturally out of the earth upon completion.

In addition, he tried to make his buildings sunlit by orienting them to the south-southeast and grouping their openings into glass curtain walls.

Photo illustration / Shutterstock.com

“The good building,” said Wright, “makes the landscape more beautiful than it was before the building was built.”

Fallingwater is a testament to the truth of his statement. It is a poem written in stone and glass that celebrates the possibility of human harmony with nature.

Nestled in a remote, wooded valley above a nameless waterfall, this remarkable structure speaks directly to the deepest longings of the human spirit.

Collections of Craig Nagel's columns are available at CraigNagelBooks.com.