For Immediate Release
Contact: Julie Lalo, 412-288-2773

March 13, 2003 - Fallingwater, the Frank Lloyd Wright masterwork nestled in Mill Run, Pa., will celebrate its 40th year of public access with newly repaired cantilevers and new tour options. This year's visitors will once again experience the serenity and romance of Wright's original design for this house over a waterfall, designated a "Place of a Lifetime" by National Geographic Traveler Magazine.

Daily tours begin March 18. A new Fallingwater Sunset Tour will be available beginning in early June.

Earlier this year, when crews removed the steel shoring that had supported the house's main cantilever since 1997, it was the final major step in the house's structural repair. Wright's design - a series of concrete trays soaring over the waters of Bear Run - has captivated both the architectural world and the general public for decades. With the temporary shoring removed from beneath the house, the stairs to stream restored, and a minor repair to a cantilevered terrace completed, Fallingwater has regained the characteristic structural daring and intimacy with nature that have made it so famous.

"We are thrilled with the outcome of the restoration," said Lynda Waggoner, Director of Fallingwater. "Wright's vision of a house in communion with the forest and stream has been restored and visitors from the world over can once again be inspired by Fallingwater's magic."

Edgar Kaufmann, jr. (sic), son of department store magnate Edgar J. Kaufmann, for whom Wright built the summer home, entrusted Fallingwater to WPC in 1963. At the dedication ceremony, he explained why he chose WPC to care for his home: "Why are these acres and this house given as conservation, in the care of Western Pennsylvania Conservancy? Because conservation is not preservation: Preservation is stopping life to serve a future contingency; conservation is keeping life going."

Thanks to more than 10,000 donors, Fallingwater is returned to its glory," said Larry Schweiger, president and CEO of Western Pennsylvania Conservancy (WPC), the non-profit organization that cares for the international architectural icon. "This spring will once again allow visitors to enjoy the majesty of the rushing waters of Bear Run without the distraction of the shoring that was needed until the major restoration projects were completed."

Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright's world-famous house on the Bear Run waterfall in southwestern Pennsylvania, was designed as a weekend retreat for the Edgar Kaufmann family in 1935 and is meant to be a symbol of man living in harmony with nature. It is also the only Frank Lloyd Wright house in which the original artwork and furnishings are displayed.

For more information on touring Fallingwater, click here.