from Sandy Needham

Thursday, August 28, 2014

Fallingwater Dispatch

As Jake and Larissa took off for Amsterdam for their 12-day honeymoon cruise in the North Sea and Newton took off for Shanghai for business, Elise and I embarked on our road trip across Pennsylvania. We were finally going to see one of Frank Lloyd Wright's most famous architectural feats, Fallingwater - a home he designed in 1935 that sits atop a waterfall.

The drive was across scenic farmland, but longer and slower than Google maps predicted. Frequent construction and, after dark, sluicing rain that even the highest windshield wiper speed could not handle thwarted our anticipated six-hours. There is nothing quite like driving in blinding rain through a dark construction stretch with a huge truck at your side and a huge truck behind you...HONKING. That cheap motel I had booked - considering this de rigueur for an American road trip - was a welcome relief, despite it's decidedly Nabakovian dampness.


The next day was the pay-off: Fallingwater. The Kaufman family owned the largest department store in Pittsburgh. They also owned a tract of wilderness in the Laurel Highlands area of the Allegheny Mountains, which they used as a rural retreat. When they approached Wright to design a house for them there in 1935, Mr. Kaufman requested that the house look out on their waterfall on the Bear Run River. In his (sometimes demanding and difficult) wisdom, Wright refused to build where the waterfall could be viewed. He believed that the beauty would become routine and then eventually ignored. If he built the house over the waterfall with one of its large terraces overlooking it, then one could intentionally go to the edge of the terrace and behold the waterfall below. Of course, the sound of the falls, most lively in spring, is a constant in the house, apart from the two occasions when the falls froze in winter. This past horrendous winter was one of them.


The Kaufman's son donated the house to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy in 1964.

Incorporating his devotion to Japanese architectural principles, which demand a conscious regard for the landscape a structure occupies and the interplay of the surrounding natural beauty and the structure's interior, Wright followed the lead of the existing boulders, expanded the living space with his signature cantilevered planes, and created one of the most elemental, human-friendly spaces I have ever occupied. At one point I just exclaimed, "This is the very incarnation of integrity." It's no wonder that the Smithsonian Institute includes Fallingwater on its Life List of places "to visit before you die."


Wright approached the integration of exterior/interior in several ingenious ways besides the ever-present views afforded by glass and terraces:


A staircase in the living room leads down to the stream below with a viewing platform. It has a glass covering that retracts to provide the house with cool ventilation off the water in the summer. 



Two boulders from the house's perch actually protrude through the living room's polished stone floor in front of the hearth. 


Each of the bedrooms has a glass wall opening to a terrace significantly larger than the room itself; the ceilings are lowered to meet the top of the glass, forcing one to behold the lush forest bearing in.


These uniquely designed corner windows open out from floor-to-ceiling along each floor, beginning with the kitchen. The built-in bedroom desk accommodates the opening of this glass panel with an arc cut-out.





Standing inside the house was a virtual baptism of beauty for me, as the aesthetics to which I am most drawn were seamlessly combined there. The Japanese sensibility goes without saying; my favorite. But this aesthetic is combined here with elements I have always found compatible with it: indigenous; Scandinavian and Southwest. Frank Lloyd Wright preferred to design and build-in most of the furnishings. The cushions along these built-in sofas and other featured indigenous textiles are from the Kaufmans' own distinctive collection. My restraint to not touch them - according to the strict rules for preservation of the site - required fortitude! The clean lines of Japanese and Scandinavian design have always been compatible, but I love the way these repeating curves and the soft ochre-colored walls combined with Wright's famous Cherokee Red trim add a Southwest sensibility - along with some of the textiles, of course. 





The overall effect was interrupted by a jolt from the dining room chairs. It was clear that these were not a Wright choice, especially since he has designed so many chairs to suit his individual projects. Sadly, the taste of the mistress of the house decidedly lapsed with both this "rustic" preference, as the guide explained, and the alarmingly ordinary choice at the kitchen table - something I could not even bring myself to replicate here. Otherwise, the objects collected around the world by these owners of a prestigious department store fit beautifully in the house.




The separate guest house, added two years later up the hill, continued the integration of all the design elements, even appearing as an additional attached story from below. Its spring-fed swimming pool is another testament to the aesthetic of the whole.


When a garage was requested, Wright refused, saying that enclosed spaces result in hoarded, unused goods - clutter. He agreed to a carport, which the Kaufman's son - who studied architecture at Wright's Taliesin school - adapted as a space at the end of the house tours where the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy gives a presentation about its stewardship of the landmark.


One crosses a bridge over the stream upon approaching the house. A short path through the woods offers the famous waterfall view. The setting is ideal, but the profound feeling of experiencing timeless beauty came to me while standing in the living room. I have had similar sensations in other Frank Lloyd Wright interiors in Chicago, Bartlesville, OK, and the installation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but this is by far my favorite. 


Anticlimactic, but compelling if one is already in the area is another home by FLW, designed late in his career in 1953 at age 86. Kentuck Knob received very little of his personal oversight while he concentrated on the Guggenheim Museum in New York. This Usonian house was built for the Hagan family, owners of a large dairy company in Pittsburgh. It was sold to Lord Palumbo of London in 1986, who uses the house for entertaining on occasion while allowing daily tours. He added a sculpture park and filled the house with furnishings by twentieth century paragons of design - Wright, Eames, Saarinen, Aalto, etc. 



The defining design principle for this structure is the hexagon, and the house is built around it's hexagonal kitchen. The glass cut-outs in the front wood frieze are geometric sections lifted from the kitchen ceiling's grid. There are no right angles in the house. 





Local woodworkers managed, with time, to execute these fine design details and to fit built-in furnishings along the uneven stone walls.


The original owners sneaked in a forbidden storage area in a bedroom ceiling's crawl space well after Frank Lloyd Wright was able to prohibit such a clutter-hoarding possibility!


The Kentuck Knob setting with the sculpture park offers this spectacular view of the rolling green hills of Pennsylvania - the same lush farmland we passed traversing the state.  


Elise - my fellow-art junky and I then drove off to discover the city of Pittsburgh!

Love,
Sandy 








Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Wedding Dispatch

There was a bus to take wedding guests from the hotel in Tarrytown, New York to the Sleepy Hollow Country Club for Jake and Larissa's wedding. The first thing I saw when Newton and I boarded the bus was two of my closest friends smiling and chatting enthusiastically...except, Lucia Gratch and Nancy Taylor had never met! They sat down next to each other, immediately perceived the fabulousness of the other, then discovered that they went to the same school in Michigan! My joy at these two human gems becoming friends could not be separated from the joy of the evening that ensued: buoyant conviviality on a luminous Hudson River summer night, with Jake and Larissa becoming husband and wife! The wedding was perfect.

The Vanderbilt family estate that became the Sleepy Hollow Country Club offers a magnificent setting on the river. Larissa's good taste was evident everywhere, from the elegant flower arrangements to the exquisite colors that came together with the bridesmaids, to her stunning wedding gown and classic, chic chignon. She was a dazzling bride.























Here are Elise and Zak, my friend Lucia's son, about to lead the wedding party down the aisle.



















The two front rows feature my precious relatives
              



































Alan Rosenberg, a "blood brother" from Camp Unirondack - where Jake and Larissa met - officiated the ceremony with encouraging words and an English literature teacher's aplomb.






















Jake is the very incarnation of grace and coolness. I just love the way he was so calm, so engaged, and so happy with the day and with his bewitching bride. He is such a composed, confident, fun-loving and utterly cool guy. I am very proud.





Here they are with Larissa's grandfather, Sylvan, and mother, Danya.
Here they are with Larissa's dad, Bruce, and stepmother, Vicky.

This group was SO darling and fun.
Cocktails and hors d'oeuvres were served on the lawn. There were spectacular friends and relatives all around, yet frustration at such fleeting time to really engage with them. I wanted so much to hold on to the evening and to them!


L to R: Our fabulous grandniece Emily Tarpley from San Diego; Elise's close friend, the creative Stephanie Janecek from NYC; Ken McPherson, the adorable husband of my first cousin, the incomparable Cynthia Needham - seated next to him, from Stowe, VT; and my one-in-a-billion sister, Donna Needham Wilder of Lawrenceville, NJ.
Our ingenious brother-in-law, Larry Wilder, of Lawrenceville, NJ; our nieces: beloved HS German teacher, Sara Wilder of Freehold, NJ, and the most promising face government will ever have, Amy Wilder Sweeney of Gaithersburg, Maryland.
Beautiful Elise with our grandnieces, the astute Allison and the big reader Paige Sweeney of Gaithersburg, Maryland.

   




















My inspiring sister Janet Needham Kohler of Denver with her granddaughter, teenager extraordinaire Lauren Hall of Phoenix.
Our grandnephew, another teenager extraordinaire Samuel Tarpley and our brilliant nephew, Todd Tarpley (the children's author!) of Manhattan.
Our longtime partners-in-crime: Guadalupe and Joe Warren of Cleveland, Ohio and Buenos Aires.
More longtime partners-in-crime: textile designer par excellence - David Barrow of Easton, Connecticut, and world citizen par excellence - Nancy Taylor of Manhattan.
When we gathered inside for dinner, Jake and Larissa landed this big dance surprise (like I said, the very picture of grace and coolness!). Watch till the end, where there are a couple of ambitious flourishes:


See if you can name who is singin' this swingin' version of "Wonderwall" with these obviously consummate musicians (answer below*).

We were surprised, amazed, and have very high expectations for Larissa and Jake's dancing future. (Something to fall back on.) Five lessons or no five lessons, not everyone can dance like that!

The Best Man, Charlie Wettlaufer, brought his special brand of wit: during the ceremony he initially pulled a banana shaker (from the rehearsal dinner) out of his pocket in lieu of the wedding rings. During this toast, he characterized the first evening the wedding party got together in Manhattan at a raucous Broadway show, then closed a bar at 4:00am with choral singing - as "a quiet evening at the theater."


A sumptuous dinner was served.
My big sisters Donna and Janet.
Grandniece Emily Tarpley with her second cousins (or something like that) Sara Wilder, Allison Sweeney and Elise.
Our  very fun nephew-in-law, Sean Sweeney of Gaithersburg, Maryland; our lovely niece, SW Airlines' best: Amanda Hall of Phoenix with her daughter Lauren; our multi-talented, intrepid niece-in-law, Jennifer Tarpley of Manhattan. 
With my phenomenal friend Lucia Gratch of Nyack, NY.
Our grandnephews, the singular Ethan and Samuel Tarpley of Manhattan, with our niece Amy Sweeney and her daughters Allison and Paige. 
Joe and Guadalupe Warren with my longtime friend Helen Webb, designer par excellence and wife of David Barrow, of Easton, Connecticut.
To add to Larissa and Jake's duck collection!
Samurai Groom
After dinner, we all had turns on the dance floor and turns at the funny photo booth:


Dancing to Bruce Springstein (Larissa's Dad's doppelgänger!).


            Ugg, shoes. (With Anthony Strube of NYC and Thomas Schulzee of Germany). 

                                                               















                                                                                                         Sis and Bro, Larry and Donna Wilder.           
Amelia Barrow, yet another teenager extraordinaire, with her parents Helen Webb and David Barrow.
Helen Webb, Nancy Taylor and Amelia Barrow.
The band was great!
Shenanigans with Bruce and Vicky Plotsky and friend.
Cutting the rug in turquoise behind Larissa and Jake: Lena, Larissa's Scottish grandmother from Sarasota, FL. 
Pirated version of Elise and Stephanie Janecek
Wild men
Here's the gang who all met at Camp Unirondack, camping it up in the fun photo booth.
In character (I mean it!), David Barrow, Joe & Guadalupe Warren, Helen Webb
Another banana shaker opportunity.

The darling groomsmen never missed a chance to reveal how they are totally at the top of their game! (Can you tell they were recently in Vegas?) (Oh, banana shaker siting.)

Well, if six hours of merrymaking had to be compressed into two hours - which is precisely the way I perceived the whole event - I must say that the wedding was pure mirth - intensified. If only it could have lasted 24 hours! Otherwise, like I said: perfect.

Here's my toast to Larissa and Jake: 

What is better than a kindred couple? You two are superb together, and I congratulate you both and all of us on our good fortune. 


I cannot wait till our next chance for fun together!

Love,
Sandy

*Paul Anka
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