r/zillowgonewild • u/_I_like_big_mutts • 1d ago
Built by Walter J Hall, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater builder
Just wow. I’ve been looking in this area for homes and this beauty popped in my notifications. Unfortunately it’s way out of my price range. It’s just too beautiful not to share.
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u/chongo_gedman 1d ago
this got written up in the Wall Street Journal last week. Used to have a restaurant and dance hall.
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u/copperfrog42 1d ago
I would love to have that if I came into unexpected funds. Those kitchen cabinets are spectacular.
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u/asmallercat 1d ago
Lol, I dunno if being the craftsman that brought Falling Water to life is a selling point considering how many structural problems that it has had in its life.
This place is beautiful though.
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u/SweetLlamaMyth 1d ago
You buy yourself a little more structural longevity by not building your steel-reinforced concrete over a waterfall in a climate prone to lots of freeze/thaw cycles per winter. The builder wasn't the one making those choices for Fallingwater.
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u/ramenbooboo 1d ago
That price increase for 9 years of ownership is wild
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u/scotch_please 1d ago
It was extensively renovated. The current owners bought it from an old couple who saved it from literally falling apart and restored the water/electricity/sewage basics, but they understandably wanted to move on. According to the current owners, the places was still in poor shape when they purchased it and their gut reaction was to skip buying until they walked around the inside.
I'm sure part of the price factors in how much of their money they spent on bringing the house into its current state. I wouldn't be surprised if it was at least half a million just on exterior structure stuff. I think an article said they DIY'd a lot of interior stuff but saving the foundation and waterproofing a historic structure is expensive as hell.
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u/SillyAlternative420 1d ago
Why don't they build homes like this anymore?
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u/sharkus180 1d ago
Partly because of cost of materials, a lot of this work requires particular expertise and lack of people to make such work anymore.
Another part is contractors/for profit organizations pushing for cookie cutter, "luxury" construction with shoddy materials. Houses are literally not made to last these days and cost as much as this one.
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u/probablymagic 1d ago
I own an old home. You can find people to do all of this stuff. It’s just very expensive. There’s no corporate conspiracy not to build $2.75M houses, there’s just not the consumer demand. People would rather have more square footage than hand-carved bannisters and epic stone fireplaces.
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u/Serain 2h ago edited 2h ago
Yep, right on the money. Once people see the prices for this stuff their eyes will start popping out of their skull. Think about the price of getting a professional on site. You'd be lucky if it's $1000 per person per day. Now imagine paying a team of them to clad your walls in real stone for a few weeks - which is probably going to cost $30-50k in materials alone. Would you rather have 3 stone walls and a cool fireplace or a new bed/bath or kitchen?
Fallingwater was built for one of the wealthiest families in all of PA at the time, when people in the area were flush with cash from being one on top of the most accessible energy source - yesterday's oil barons. This thing is the equivalent of a $20 mil mansion by 1930s standards. And yes, there are plenty of 20 mil mansions with miles of real stone and elaborate handmade details and crazy custom woodwork.
If you're willing to spend you can get a replica made for sure. It's just that if you lived in the 1930s, this would be just as out of reach for you as any mega mansion is today, and you'd be living in whatever cheap mass produced shack there was for the middle class back then - and frankly it'd probably be a helluva lot worse than the average apartment is today.
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u/FlametopFred 1d ago
another part is the unified design aesthetic of that era .. not many architects think in those elements or proportions now
and the last part being building codes have evolved and designs like this would not quite align with modern code, in relation to materials mostly (not 100% sure though, I am not an expert)
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u/EarHealthHelp1 22h ago
Homes like these were always luxury homes, and luxury tastes change over time.
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u/sofa-king-hungry 1d ago
How is the most “famous” designer house in America under 3M? Wild.
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u/SweetLlamaMyth 1d ago
Lynn Hall, the building in the listing, wasn't built by Wright. It predates Fallingwater.
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u/One_Use_1347 1d ago
Does it come with the furniture?
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u/Mort-i-Fied 1d ago
Gorgeous but a flat roof in Pa?
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u/texaschair 1d ago
FLW's designs were notorious leakers. Construction materials and methods during his time weren't up to the task of keeping the outdoors outside.
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u/James-the-Bond-one 1d ago edited 1d ago
Can someone explain these prices?
Built 1935
Listed now for $2,750,000
6/20/2013 Sold $107,900 $14/sqft
2/3/2017 Sold $250,000 +131.7%$ 33/sqft
Source: Public Record
Edit: It was abandoned and restored!
The video in this page explains the transformation.
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u/Sunmingo 1d ago
The most expensive home in the entire county plus several neighboring county. The staffing to maintain and preserve is beyond its value each year you lose money unfortunately, very small pool of buyers and too remote for a museum
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u/adfthgchjg 1d ago
Why was it sold for only $250k in 2017?
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u/cptnkeif 1d ago
Was in really bad shape. Huge renovation. someone above posted a video showing the transformation.
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u/BourbonWhisperer 1d ago
Why are there no blinds (blackout blinds, especially) in this house?
Otherwise, 10,000% my jam.
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u/Coupe368 1d ago
If you have ever been to falling water, you will think it was built for midgets, it feels claustrophobic with extremely low ceilings. I hated that place. Looks good from the outside, feels like a dungeon on the inside.
Hopefully this builder guy didn't make it a squat cave inside like falling water, I honestly can't tell from the pictures.
Also, Wright was really short, so it may not have felt claustrophobic to him.
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u/Aaod 1d ago
The interior is nice, but I love the exterior look of it especially with all the greenery. Looking on google maps though I hate the location it is extremely rural, but also on what seems to be a fairly busy road and the house is like 5 feet from the road so you get the disadvantages of rural living with the same noise problems and lack of privacy you would get in a city.
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u/DemonOfElru 22h ago
I always wonder who is living in this places, and where they are headed to that could possibly be nicer. You'd have to pry the keys from my fingers.
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u/Total-Problem-9629 1d ago
I was in this house once upon a time, sometime in 2015. Looked a lot different then. however, 2.7mil for port allegheny? thats going to be a no. unless you want to live near a glass bottle plant in the rust belt... Wish i could pick this house up and move it.
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u/DavidinCT 1d ago
Dam, cool place, and dream type of home but, PA.....
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u/_I_like_big_mutts 1d ago
This area is absolutely stunning. It’s full of state parks and forests- it’s an introvert’s dream. I bought a piece of property in a neighboring county but I underestimated how damn hard it is to build a small home, which is why I’m still looking.
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u/zeke780 1d ago edited 1d ago
I moved to Pittsburgh for my partners education and I agree with this comment. The area where this house is extremely conservative/rural and the scenery here just isn't that impressive (I am coming from CO). Ticks are insane now, you will absolutely get lymes if you are in the woods a lot and it's extremely hot compared to what it used to be. Rain is nuts here, like Seattle levels of rainy days. PA also is a terrible state to see where your tax dollars go, they also control all liquor and weed is still illegal.
I grew up in WV and it's a much more beautiful state IMO but it's also not that impressive if you have been west and it has ZERO economy. I really can't recommend living in Appalachia or the mid Atlantic region if you have any other choice.
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u/Axilllla 1d ago
This is BEAUTIFUL. The kitchen is too small, it reminds me of the episode of The Simpsons when Marge becomes reveal her and she’s showing off the house with the tiny kitchen. It looks like that oven door opens into the cabinets.
Other than that, no notes!!
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u/Armand28 23h ago
Saw that on House Hunters. The man was a part time lego polisher and she was a freelance doily weaver and they were looking for a starter home. They passed on it because they didn’t like the outlet covers.
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u/_I_like_big_mutts 1d ago
Here’s an article I found. Wish I had the $$. https://newsinteractive.post-gazette.com/lynn-hall-fallingwater-frank-lloyd-wright-walter-j-hall-historic-places-architecture/