Inside the $7M project to save Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic masterpiece

Home renovations can be a headache. But when your home is a UNESCO World Heritage site that receives hundreds of thousands of visitors a year and (small caveat) was built atop a waterfall, renovations are more like a migraine: protracted and high-pressure.

For the past two years, staff at Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright’s many-terraced masterpiece in the woods of Pennsylvania’s Laurel Highlands, have found themselves in the middle of a home improvement project on steroids. They are overseeing a $7 million renovation to replace and restore roofs, flashing, window and door frames, and exterior walls. And they’re doing all of it while hewing to strict historic preservation standards and managing the expectations of visitors who flock from around the world to see one of the most iconic buildings of the 20th century.