In retrospect, steps should have been taken long ago, by Wright's heirs and by city officials, to avoid all this.


Damn straight. What a crime it would be to lose this home. It's not the same as the Taleban blowing up the Bamiyan Buddha statutes, but it's just as infuriating and heartbreaking to those who love great art/architecture.

Who gives a shiat? It's an old house that some guy who invented flying once lived in. Big whoop

Dow Jones and the Temple of Doom: Who gives a shiat? It's an old house that some guy who invented flying once lived in. Big whoop

A dude named Orville Wright,
Told his bro lets invent flight,
So Wilbur said "a'ight",
Write it down muthafarkas

Farking skin jobs.

BFD. Ugly house. If you own the property, do what you want. No one even knew about this thing but now it must be "saved"???

Judging by the slide show, the thing is hideous. Almost an eyesore.

FriarReb98: Farking developers.

Yep. I can't decide if we should have them guillotined on the National Mall or just use a more-efficient firing squad.

But the family should take some of the blame. There's a wonderful example of a mid-modern house in Raleigh that will probably be torn down eventually. The parents left it to the kids who are apparently content to live off the trust fund. So when the house needed repairs, those repairs were never done. At one point, the in-floor heating system was refilled with water instead of glycol so the pipes and boiler have all rusted past the point of repair. Repairing that alone would mean tearing up the entire concrete and stone floor system, which would probably cost more than the value of the house.

I've seen this happen to significant houses (historically or architecturally) in a number of cases, in towns like Raleigh, Chapel Hill, and Wilmington. Some times the house can be saved, some times it's just a loss.

KatjaMouse: Dow Jones and the Temple of Doom: Who gives a shiat? It's an old house that some guy who invented flying once lived in. Big whoop

Srsly?

Come on, you're better than that

Honest Bender: I just wanted to say that his falling water house is so beautiful inside and out that it causes me physical pain to be unable to own/live in it.

Heh - I know one of the WPC board members for the house. He has two things to say to people who want to live there:

1. No closets
2. Rising damp

I have the lego falling water model. I display it in my apartment as art and not a single person hasn't taken it seriously.

How is a Frank Lloyd Wright house NOT worth $2.2 million? How the heck is the property value going to be improved by tearing it down?

I mean, here's the lot. Cut it in half with the house in one half, sell the unimproved half for $900,000 (about what an unimproved lot in that area goes for). The other lot would be worth $900,000 unimproved. If you don't think the Frank Lloyd house is worth an additional $400K, well, I have nothing to add.

Developers are greedy, useless dicks. Whadyano? Around here, they'd throw up six McMansions in the same space the house occupied and they'd have the project completed in three months. Then they'd give it some absurd name like "Windermere Chase" and price them "from the high $600s".

Johnson and Johnson hired Wright to come to Racine, WI (where their world HQ is/was) and had him design a bunch of buildings, including a planetarium, office buildings and several houses on the north end of town. I knew a girl whose folks had bought one and got to attend a party there; you think the outsides look neat, get inside of one if you ever get a chance.

/yep, that's all about Racine has left
//that and Cocaine

I think this this concrete behemoth has been off the radar because its sofa king ugly, but it would still be a shame to have it demolished.

Bulldozing a Frank Lloyd Wright house is to architecture as a Darwin award recipient dying is to the gene pool.

I've been in a few homes and buildings designed by Wright and have always thought he was an artist as well as a genius.

There's one of these stories every year. Apparently his homes, while architecturally significant, were built out of spit and toothpicks. They require colossal amounts of maintenance every year and most will continue to deteriorate no matter what is done to preserve them. I mean, look at this thing...it's built out of exposed cinder block.

Millions of people are homeless, yet they want someone to spend probably millions on a house in the middle of the desert, the people haven't paid attention to for years, that most people won't see, much less go into??

Where the hell are the priorities??

If they like it so much, they can rebuild it in a more accessible place, cheaper.

They're lucky it hasn't fallen down on its own. FLW: beautiful architecture, faith-based engineering.

pappy1398: Bulldozing a Frank Lloyd Wright house is to architecture as a Darwin award recipient dying is to the gene pool.

Yay bulldozer!

Falling Water is an awesome vacation stop.

As an architect, all I can say is this:

Developers can be uncaring, petty beings.

It's from 1952. Who cares.

If you love it so much than raise some cash and buy it.

It's a house. Nobody cared about preserving it before the developer bought it. The heirs who sold it obviously didn't care enough, because they sold it, and assumed that a "promise" would keep it from being torn down.

Whatever.

JackieRabbit

Developers are greedy, useless dicks. Whadyano? Around here, they'd throw up six McMansions in the same space the house occupied and they'd have the project completed in three months. Then they'd give it some absurd name like "Windermere Chase" and price them "from the high $600s".

Fark you, diaf.

If you want to save it so farking bad you buy it. Till then stfu.

// more moon-bat private property is 'evil' bullsh-t

born_yesterday: JackieRabbit: Developers are greedy, useless dicks. Whadyano? Around here, they'd throw up six McMansions in the same space the house occupied and they'd have the project completed in three months. Then they'd give it some absurd name like "Windermere Chase" and price them "from the high $600s".

And the houses are constructed like absolute shiat. A coworker bought a beautiful house, decent plot of land, good neighborhood. The house was about 5 years old when he bought it, and within two years of ownership, there wasn't an appliance that wasn't replaced, they had multiple infestations due to shoddy insulation and sealing, and multiple areas of flooding.

Thank you Ryan homes.

"Particleboard Palaces"

I'm familiar with NVR, the company that owns Ryan. They built a bunch of shiat homes on the Outer Banks of NC and got sued after they started falling down. The contractor I worked for at the time had a side business where we measured the moisture content of the wood frames. In some cases, the moisture measurements we took were so high they went off the dial. Crap wood had been used to start with (instead of the kiln-dried as specified) and then the siding wasn't applied properly so the ambient moisture was absorbed by the wood.

The cynicism on this site can be incredibly tiresome at times. Smarter than the room, no matter the subject.

/"that is who we are, dude"
//"welcome to Fark, dude"

Honest Bender: I just wanted to say that his falling water house is so beautiful inside and out that it causes me physical pain to be unable to own/live in it.

The house I live in was built by a student of Wright's. While not identical, it was heavily influenced by Falling Water. You can see lots of little elements from Wright's works in the place, really kind of cool.

/moving in november, house'll be on the market! :D

This is America. Not only can we learn nothing from history, it's no longer even taught.

BuckTurgidson: They're lucky it hasn't fallen down on its own. FLW: beautiful architecture, faith-based engineering.

Yup...FLW was one of those architects who wasn't going to let some Goddard engineer tell him how his designs should be constructed.

The only reason Falling Water is still standing is because of the extra rebar the engineers snuck in during construction, which Wright told them his design didn't need.

I_Love_Cheesecake: In retrospect, steps should have been taken long ago, by Wright's heirs and by city officials, to avoid all this.


Damn straight. What a crime it would be to lose this home. It's not the same as the Taleban blowing up the Bamiyan Buddha statutes, but it's just as infuriating and heartbreaking to those who love great art/architecture.

Fark, you had to bring up the Buddhas. I wanted to vomit when I saw that. I still feel a bit sick when hearing about this; it reminds me of living in Orlando, where they're only too happy to demolish historical or significant architecture if it means developers can squeeze in a few more Seven-11's and strip malls. It's abhorrent.

Mr_H: Honest Bender: I just wanted to say that his falling water house is so beautiful inside and out that it causes me physical pain to be unable to own/live in it.

The house I live in was built by a student of Wright's. While not identical, it was heavily influenced by Falling Water. You can see lots of little elements from Wright's works in the place, really kind of cool.


Correcting myself: It was built by a student of Albert Dow, who in turn studied/worked with Wright.

/stupid work confusing my facts
//Dow House in Midland, MI is cool too

buckler: I_Love_Cheesecake: In retrospect, steps should have been taken long ago, by Wright's heirs and by city officials, to avoid all this.


Damn straight. What a crime it would be to lose this home. It's not the same as the Taleban blowing up the Bamiyan Buddha statutes, but it's just as infuriating and heartbreaking to those who love great art/architecture.

Fark, you had to bring up the Buddhas. I wanted to vomit when I saw that. I still feel a bit sick when hearing about this; it reminds me of living in Orlando, where they're only too happy to demolish historical or significant architecture if it means developers can squeeze in a few more Seven-11's and strip malls. It's abhorrent.

You had me right up until the end.

I_Love_Cheesecake: Damn straight. What a crime it would be to lose this home. It's not the same as the Taleban blowing up the Bamiyan Buddha statutes, but it's just as infuriating and heartbreaking to those who love great art/architecture.

Wait, I thought they were bulldozing a Frank Lloyd Wright house? What does that have to do with great architecture?