As regular readers know, I tend to flip and change with houses on the main island home. Those who have poked at this blog over the years will also know I have an affinity for the Kaufmann House (aka Fallingwater) in southwest Pennsylvania’s Laurel Highlands, as designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and now managed by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy; so much so that over the years I’ve reproduced it to varying degrees for personal use, as well as building a reproduction of the entire property from main house and Bear River through to the garages and staff quarters.
The latter is far too big to use practically in SL, but over the years I’ve pulled out the main house from time-to-time and fiddled around with it to produce something distinctive by way of living space – and, well, these two aspects of my SL have once again converged.
For the last few days I’ve been skipping on the blogging in order to play housey with the version of Fallingwater I last used in 2018, when I tweaked it somewhat to offer home more in keeping with the old island space.
For this iteration, I’ve been pretty harsh with the house, in terms of changes. Not so much to reduce the LI, but simply because much of the previous designs didn’t get much use. So with this version, I’ve lopped off a couple of the terraces completely, and dropped a third (which I’d previously converted to a swimming pool(!) to garden level, where the pool makes more sense.
I’ve made some internal changes as well, whilst keeping the overall look of the Great Room with its unique hatch down to the water (or in this case, the boat moorings). However, I’m not sure it is deserving of the name “Fallingwater” any more given the changes; maybe something like “Dripping Faucet” might be more appropriate 😀 .
Along with the re-working on the island and the house, one of my other favourites, the TLG Chapel Ruins by Marcus Inkpen has made a return, this time to form an enclosed garden within the wildling garden that makes up most of the island. I also couldn’t resist the ~BAZAR~ Geo Dome after encountering it during a couple of recent region visits, so that now forms a little hideaway in the garden as well.
The main challenge with the house is that really, it is supposed to occupy an elevated position over water, but while Second Norway offers various rocky island and waterfronts, I didn’t want to build the home island up that much; so the result has been a compromise in that I’ve had to install a little rocky table (doubling as a place topped by garden lawns) and lose a little in the way of waterfront moorings. But it least the helipad got to stay 😀 .
So anyway, I’m not going to rabbit on; while I have another project that’s in progress (swapping from Maitreya + Lelutka to Slink HG + Catwa), I’ll not bore you with that, and well be getting back to more usual blogging fare instead 🙂 .
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 
I absolutely love this story, Inara. I think you have done an amazing job on Falling Water over the years, giving it life and exposure to generations that may not ever have known about it. I love the idea (and bravery? LOL ) of experimenting with the layout to fit the current surroundings too. When you think about it, isn’t that what Frank LLoyd Wright was all about? He obsessed with designing a building to accommodate the natural surroundings. You are doing just that. And doing so very well, keeping the spirit of Falling Water and FLW. Thank you so much for sharing your… world. 🙂
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Thank you! I admit, I’m still *tempted* to re-work the island to try to work in a stream that runs in front of the house (there is one with falls, but it currently more naturally runs at the back of the property), as I really like FLW’s original idea of the the house sitting over falls 🙂 . Time will tell on that, I guess 🙂 .
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“maybe something like ‘Dripping Faucet’ might be more appropriate”
And it is with that bit of self-effacing cleverness that you dodge the pitfall of Designers Who Take Themselves Too Fucking Seriously (Especially When They’re Talking About Their Own Work) and make this article even more enjoyable than it already was. 🙂
And good on you for modding Fallingwater (or anything else) as you see fit, whether due to environmental constraints or possibilities – or even because of your own creative whimsy. The original Fallingwater remains unbesmirched by later iterations, of course, though it may well be *honored* (as I’d suggest is the case here, Inara) by what others have thoughtfully wrought from its potential.
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Thanks 🙂 . As it turned out… I blogged a little prematurely. Turns out that in bringing the house back even in this form, I missed having the stream and the waterfalls, so I’ve actually ripped up the entire island space so I can get something a little more relevant to the original’s name, even if estate constraint do mean my falles are considerably less impressive than Bear River 🙂 .
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