Fallingwater

Fallingwater was built as a vacation home for the Kaufmann family from 1936-1939 in southwest Pennsylvania. The family owned the infamous department store, Kaufmann's (today part of the Macy's chain), in Pittsburgh, PA. Their employees enjoyed a summer camp they set up outside the city along a mountain stream called Bear Run -- the eventual location for Fallingwater. When employees were no longer able to go to the camp due to the Great Depression, The Kaufmann's decided to use the location for their vacation home. Wisely, they asked perhaps the greatest American architect of all time, #FrankLloydWright, to design the home, knowing he shared their love for nature. Wright knew the Kaufmann's loved the waterfall, and decided to use #cantilevers to stretch the home across it (the fall was 30 feet wide). He explained it would be better to live homogeneously with the waterfall, making the sound of it a part of their everyday lives, rather than have views of it occasionally. Now a National Historic Landmark, the home was an instant sensation, captivating America's imagination when it was featured on a Time magazine cover in 1938.