The owners of Frank Lloyd Wright's most famous house had a maid to peel the grapes, says Elsie Henderson, who worked there. ROSITA BOLANDis enthralled by her cookbook on a visit

LAST WEEK, stranded in Texas by the ash over Europe, I decided to make the best of my unscheduled stay and flew to Cleveland, in Ohio, to see friends. One of the mugs in their house carries an image of the architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s most famous house, Fallingwater. I was drinking coffee out of it, muttering about volcanoes, when it occurred to me that the real, three-dimensional Fallingwater was not so far from Cleveland. Not by American standards, anyway: three hours or so on the freeways and turnpikes.

Fallingwater is one of the most famous modern houses in the world. In 2000 the American Institute of Architects voted it best American building of the 20th century. It is unique, cantilevered out in balconies over a waterfall, partially resting on boulders, deep in the mountainous Pennsylvania countryside. It is constructed of concrete, glass and steel – and a bravado combination of physics and creative vision. Wright designed it in 1935 as a weekend retreat for Edgar and Liliane Kaufmann, wealthy philanthropists who owned Kaufmann’s, a department store later sold to Macy’s. The original budget of $35,000 ended up being $155,000.

It made the cover of Timemagazine when it was completed, and reinvigorated Wright's career. In 1963, approaching a decade after the Kaufmanns' deaths, their son, Edgar jnr, gave the house, contents and grounds to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, and it has been open to the public ever since. I stopped fretting about volcanic ash and went on a road trip to Fallingwater with my friend Andrea, a features writer at Ohio's Plain Dealernewspaper.

Once you get off the frenetic turnpike beyond Pittsburgh you’re deep in bucolic green and forested countryside, studded with clapboard Baptist churches, each one with signs outside. “The wages of sin are death. Quit before payday.” “We are fishers of men. You catch ’em. We clean ’em.” Then towards Ohiopyle we hit a river, the Bear Run, which nearby Fallingwater is built over.

It’s always thrilling when you finally see the real place burst out of the two dimensions in which it has existed for you until then. Those gravity- defying balconies projecting over the waterfall transfixed me at first sight. No matter where you stand, Fallingwater is extraordinary.

The house was left with the instructions that it be shown with the original contents, to try to re-create the atmosphere of the family home it once was. The interior, all polished stone floors to give the illusion of reflected water, in keeping with the concept of bringing the outside in, is stunning. An original Picasso here, a Diego Rivera there, a Tiffany lamp yonder – yet none of these treasures outdid the views from the many windows through which the sound of the falls thrummed.

The one room we were not shown was the kitchen. Perhaps it was this omission that later drew my eye past the Lego version of the house in the gift shop, and to a book called The Fallingwater Cookbook: Elsie Henderson's Recipes Memories. Henderson had been the Kaufmanns' cook from 1947 to 1963. I turned the pages on recipes from a past: boiled salad dressing, flowerpot rolls, cheese straws, lemon chiffon pie, corn pudding. Between the recipes were fragments of memoir and social history.

When I took the book to the till the assistant flipped it open and showed me a sprawling signature on the title page. “You got a signed copy there,” she told me. I was flabbergasted. What age could this woman be?

Henderson is 96, still wears high heels and has long since outlived all the Kaufmanns she was employed to work for. She published the book in 2008.

Henderson’s duties were to make breakfast, lunch and side dishes; the butler cooked all fish and meat. A designated maid peeled grapes for Liliane Kaufmann’s salads. At the weekend her dachshunds brunched on bacon and scrambled eggs that Henderson prepared specially.

Liliane and Edgar snr, who were first cousins, seem to have married solely to keep the money in the family. “He was the biggest playboy in Pittsburgh. Make that the western world,” Henderson wrote. “Liliane sometimes travelled to Mexico alone, and when she was not at Fallingwater her husband would sometimes invite people she didn’t like.”

These “people” were Edgar snr’s mistresses, one of whom, Grace Stoops, once hid in Henderson’s room when Liliane returned unexpectedly.

Edgar jnr, the sole heir, left his estate, bar Fallingwater, to his partner, Paul Mayen, including any piece of his art collection that had “sentimental value”. Mayen, Henderson’s book tells us in a masterly sentence, “professed sentiment for it all and sold the collection at auction for $10 million”.

The book entertained us all the way back to Cleveland. And if you’re lucky enough to be in Fallingwater on May 29th, Elsie Henderson will be there, ready to sign a copy for you.

• fallingwater.org