Maryland, Pennsylvania & Virginia
21 May 2024
Having escaped the Washington rush hour, the traffic dissolves as I get into the soaring hills of Maryland on Route 40 and I-68, navigating the narrow corridor between Pennsylvania to the north and West Virginia to the south.
The reason for heading north again is I’m booked on a tour of ‘Fallingwater’ at 15:30, the famous Frank Lloyd-Wright (FLW) house near Uniontown, southeast of Pittsburgh.
Unlike FLW’s ‘Taliesin I saw a few weeks ago, Fallingwater is much more curated and managed, like the major visitor destination it is. Reservations are essential as they are booked two weeks ahead currently and solidly over the summer months.
With four tours an hour and twelve people on each, that’s some throughput. The groups are guided firmly through a pre-ordained route on a strict timetable, with instructions not to touch anything and informed where and when they can and can’t take photographs.
While it might lack the remote, lost-masterpiece drama and horror-movie history of Taliesin, it more than makes up with the sheer genius of the design.
Acknowledged as the finest example of FLWs ‘organic’ style, our young but nervous tour guide does a good job of communicating the myriad influences that made their way into the final design, how it blends seamlessly with the surrounding landscape and thes role of the Edgar and Lillian Kaufmann, wealthy department store chain owners, and later, their son Edgar Jnr., in the overall vision.
This, despite the constant sotto-voce complaints of a snooty couple about the speed of her delivery and local accent, impenetrable to their refined ears. I later learn they are from 'Baastun', wherever that is.
We learn that a section of cantilevered rock, for example, is credited as the inspiration for the horizontal, self-supporting structure that is the leitmotif of Fallingwater. Various rocks and springs form part of the house, providing structural support and cooling respectively. The plunge pool, accessible by steps from the living room, is fed from the river that runs under it. The roofline features various cut-outs that allowed existing trees to grow.
Inevitably for something so perfectly preserved, it does feel old but that is the intention. Edgar Jnr, who was gay and died childless, donated it to the state of Pennsylvania with the instructions it must remain open to the public, so future generations could see it exactly as originally planned and executed.
I comment, expecting a ticking off, that some of the house, seem a bit poky. The response is that this too is part of the bespoke nature of Fallingwater.
The tallest Kaufmann was just 5’ 6” so FLW reasoned only the ceilings where he wanted to create a sense of dramatic relief from ‘compression’ - such as the large living and dining rooms - needed to be higher than 6’ 6”. Otherwise, the structure would impose more on the natural surroundings than warranted.
Someone else asks why the bedrooms and bathrooms are so small. The answer is FLW believed neither needed to be big as available space should be focussed on socialising and entertaining.
All private rooms are needed for is sleep, study and to perform ablutions. So each suite is tiny, with a shower but no bath, as FLW deemed these unnecessary also. All rooms have a built-in desk and bookshelves to encourage study and reading.
There’s not much hanging space either, but as upper-class couples (whom he mainly worked for) rarely slept in the same bedroom and then only for 'functional' reasons, this potential point of dissonance was defused at source.
I considered asking what Lillian or Edgar would do if either fancied a crafty, early morning shag, but thought that might lower the tone. Maybe nobody wants to shag you if you are called Lillian or Edgar? That would explain it.
The net-net is the bedrooms feel a bit like a budget-constrained, new-build in planning-obsessed Britain, but I keep this observation to myself also.
Our guide also confirms that Fallingwater could not be built today. The land had previously been owned by the Kaufmanns and used as a weekend camping retreat for themselves and their employees. The absence of any planning regulations at that time meant they, and FLW, could do pretty much what they wanted with it.
Despite enormous improvements in construction technology in the ninety-years since Fallingwater was built, our guide rattles off a series of modern planning and building restrictions Fallingwater contravenes.
Similar to Thomas Gray, elegising in his country churchyard, on how many “Mute, inglorious Miltons” lay buried there and great works unrealised through lack of opportunity, I wonder how many Fallingwaters have suffered the same fate as a direct result of Planning Officers’ overreach.
22 May 2024
I’m only staying in Uniontown because of Fallingwater and only heading towards Wytheville for the three days of renowned roads beyond it, starting with the Blue Ridge Parkway and ending with the Cherohala Skyway near Sweetwater, Tennessee.
So joining the dots between the two points on the map is the limit of my ambition. The calculated route is freeway for 292 out of 294 miles, so just a fast but forgettable day is on the cards.
Instead, it’s a continuation of the lush Maryland landscape and fast-sweeping roads, right down to the Pennsylvania border near Morgantown and then through West and the rest of Virginia.
Combined, Interstates 64, 79 and Route 19, cut a swathe across an almost continuous, iridescent green forest.
Early spring is here and teams of workers are busy mowing the central reservations and edges such that the sweet smell of freshly cut grass is everywhere. There’s something else rather odd that I can’t quite put my finger on though…
I stop for lunch at a cafe and eavesdrop a conversation between three regulars. I sense it’s an extremely well-rehearsed discussion, and has played out a thousand times or more.
It’s like discovering a lost, final verse to the Randy Newman song, ’Political Science’. The one where the characters lament the view they perceive the rest of the world has of the USA and how they’d fix it:
“We give them money; but are they grateful
No, they're spiteful; and they're hateful
They don't respect us; so let's surprise them
We'll drop the big one; and pulverize them”
“Asia's crowded. And Europe's too old.
Africa's far too hot. And Canada's too cold.
And South America stole our name,
Let's drop the big one. There'll be no one left to blame us.
We'll save Australia; don't want to hurt no kangaroo
We'll build an all American amusement park there. They've got surfing, too”
The subject under discussion today is ‘Gun Control: For or Against’, although I didn’t pick up on anybody advancing the argument in favour. The consensus seemed to be that “they” (by which I understand to be a Democratic government) want to take “our” guns away so “we” can’t overthrow “them”…
The most vociferous advocate of this point of view had a beard left untrimmed since the Civil War and seems to have spent most of the time since trying to drum up support for another one.
I doubt whether he could overthrow the waitress, let alone play his part in an armed coup, so quite why he needs a gun is anyone’s guess.
I was on the edge of the conversation as they asked me, with elaborate courtesy, about my bike and journey. But I was not going to intrude on this, the thorniest of subjects, with my European liberal inclinations.
Back on the route and entering Virginia, I realise what else makes this road so special.
There is a sign by the side of the road warning that littering attracts a maximum fine of $25,000.
Yes siree, twenty-five thousand bucks for a discarded Coke can. Potentially…
And do you know what? There is no litter. After seeing the sign, I played a form of I-SPY until I got bored and there just isn’t any.
Oh, how I wish we could have this regime in the UK. It would only take one of the Terry Fuckwit class, who I regularly see lob Red Bull cans or McDonalds cartons out of their pimped-up Renault Clio’s around where I live, to be saddled with a generational debt of this magnitude to convince the rest of his Untermenschen pals not to do likewise. There, I told you I was a liberal.
When I get to my overnight stop, I look at the news and see the UK will have a General Election on 02 July. Perhaps the Greens or Lib-Dems might adopt this as a flagship policy to convert disillusioned Tories, keen on law & order and who despise littering. This is most of them, as far as I can work out.