For the Tribune-Review by Mary Pickels
Lynda Waggoner was 17 when she first saw the stunning house in the woods, a dream destination for aficionados of architecture in general and Frank Lloyd Wright in particular.
And she knew, she says, her life had just changed.
“I grew up in Fayette County. I know how important Fallingwater was to me in my life,” she says. “I still remember walking down and seeing the house for the first time. ... You come around the bend and you begin to see it. I looked at it and I just thought, ‘My life has changed.' I remember that from being a kid. Suddenly, my little closed world — I'd never been anywhere west of the Mississippi. ... It was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. I was smitten.”
The house had opened to the public just one year earlier, in 1964, and she soon accepted a job as tour guide.
Waggoner, 69, of Farmington, plans to retire in February from her current position as Fallingwater director and Western Pennsylvania Conservancy vice president.
For close to 40 years, the house in Mill Run, surrounded by a forest overlooking the rushing water below, has served as a second home of sorts for Waggoner.
