Jawdropper of the Week: Build Your Own Jawdropper in Bear Creek

Neurosurgeon David Nazarian was inspired by Buttermilk Falls, shown here — so inspired he hired a Bear Creek architect to design a one-of-a-kind house around the falls. You will get the preliminary plans below if you are similarly inspired by this five-acre lot through which Buttermilk Creek flows. It’s located on White Haven Rd. Bear Creek Township, PA 18702. / Photograph from Luzerne County Association of Realtors MLS image via Century 21 Smith Horrigan Group; architectural drawings courtesy of James Rogers Architects

Do you remember seeing this waterfall?

The last time we ran this photo of Buttermilk Falls was a little more than four years ago, in December of 2020.

Philadelphia neurosurgeon David Nazarian saw it back then, read my story on the property, and liked it so much that he bought it.

And — no doubt to the delight of the seller, whose family had owned this land for 80 years — after reading the story, he and his wife decided they would one-up Frank Lloyd Wright.

“We’re both real estate investors,” he says. “And so my wife would send me interesting pieces of real estate. My wife got it from a feed on her Facebook page from, I think it was the Philadelphia Business Journal” —

Oops, Dave! That’s the wrong Sandy Smith you’re talking about there. (For the record, we’re acquainted. A little later in our conversation, we got his momentary confusion straightened out.)

—“thinking I would be interested in just looking at it, but she never thought I’d be interested enough to buy it.

“So I read through the article, and I was enamored with the property based on the article. I’ve always been a big fan of Fallingwater and Frank Lloyd Wright. I think Fallingwater is one of the most iconic, if not the most iconic, properties in the country.”

So Nazarian called listing agent Ben Piccillo of Century 21 Smith Horrigan Group and arranged to come up to Bear Creek to see the lot for himself and make a bid on it.

He faced a formidable competitor: Natural Lands, which owns a preserve next to this lot, wanted to add it to its acreage. He had an advantage, however: He could make a bid with no contingencies on the spot. Which he did. And when seller Victor Giuliano accepted his bid, he went to work on making his vision for the lot a reality.

View of Bridge House at Bear Creek from the southwest

In contrast to what Wright did on Bear Run, however, Nazarian decided to build a house from which you could see the falls, contracting with local firm James Rogers Architects to design it.

This unbuilt Bear Creek waterfall house for sale is Rogers’ design. It’s a modernist house with a rustic feel, and as you can see, it bridges the stream. Nazarian obtained a zoning variance from Bear Creek Township in order to build this house.

Bridge House viewed from four perspectives

Its most notable feature: the large expanses of windows on its north side. The house is designed so that every one of the principal rooms — living room, dining room, kitchen, primary bedroom, balcony den — faces the falls and has an outstanding view of it.

And not only does the house itself bridge the stream, one enters it by crossing a bridge from the driveway and garage.

The only thing Nazarian wanted but didn’t get was a log cabin aesthetic. Rogers explains there was a practical reason why a log house spanning Buttermilk Creek wouldn’t work.

“A house that’s sitting over water presents challenges dealing with wood and that high level of moisture,” he says. “I did research and found these cast concrete logs that look like wood that are used out West when you’re building in fire-prone areas.

“I was trying to pick up on his idea of a more rustic look for a Pocono Northland setting,” he continues. And as you can see, the design did work in some of that more rustic look and feel.

The floor plans in the context of the house’s setting. As designed, the house has four bedrooms: a primary bedroom suite and guest bedroom on the main floor and two upstairs bedrooms that share a bathroom. The main entrance is on the second floor, with stairs leading down to the main living area

But the design is modern at heart, especially its open main living area, two-story-high living room and walls of windows facing north. The scallops next to the main living area offer bow-window views of Buttermilk Falls from every bedroom in the house.

Nazarian wanted those views from every room. “If you Google ‘Fallingwater,’ almost none of the pictures are from the inside of the house,” says Nazarian. “So I wanted this property to be splendid and spectacular from the inside of the house, so that if you’re sitting there for hours on end, you have your own spectacular view of nature from the inside of the house.

Examples of the house’s front entrance and interior spaces

“Every single day, the falls change, just like the seasons change and the weather changes. And I think it makes it more architecturally appealing to have [an interior space] where you’re seeing something that changes on a daily basis. Viewing [the falls] from the inside of the house, you can really fully appreciate that.”

It would certainly be more fascinating than most of what you watch on TV.

So, having gotten a design that respected the falls and took advantage of its downstream setting, why is Nazarian selling this lot rather than building on it?

Because reality interrupted the reverie, that’s why.

The interruption came as Nazarian and Rogers were working on producing a set of buildable plans.

“We never got to a set of buildable plans,” Nazarian says. “And the reason for that is because my wife, who is very commonsensical — more commonsensical than myself, who’s more of a dreamer — said to me, ‘We have three young children.’” (Currently, they are just entering adolescence at ages 13, 11 and 10.)

“And so they’re active, sports-minded children who, because of the electronic age, have a short attention span. My wife thought the kids would get bored having a vacation home at the falls.” And so, recalling how much fun the family had vacationing on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire, the Nazarians decided they needed to find something similar closer to home.

Instead of chasing waterfalls, the Nazarians stuck to the rivers and lakes they were used to and found their ideal vacation house on Lake Wallenpaupack. “And it was an already built property that I put my own architectural and interior design stamp on it and turned it into what looks like a Northwestern hunting lodge — what you might find in the mountains of Montana,” he says.

Aerial view of site

So not only do the Nazarians have a vacation home where the kids can play, but David also got his log cabin, so to speak.

And since neither David nor his wife have the time and energy to devote to maintaining and improving two vacation homes, they decided to sell the site of the first one.

The plans you see here come with it. You could pick up where Nazarian left off and have Rogers finish the design for you. Or you could find your own architect to build a falls-side house that fulfills your dreams.

But Rogers is willing to reshape this stunner of a house to suit your vision. Personally, were it up to him, this house would have been even more modern: Think Mies van der Rohe or Philip Johnson, with maybe some midcentury modern woodwork and stone thrown in if you want a touch of Pocono rusticity. But “I always take the approach with my clients that I listen to what they envision, and then we try to work towards something that they like,” he says.

Fallingwater is indeed stunning, but it upstages the falls. With the design you see here, the falls take center stage. Both Nazarian and Rogers agree that’s how it should be, and I agree with them. But whatever you do, I implore you not to subdivide the five-acre lot upon which this unbuilt Bear Creek waterfall house for sale ought to stand and put up tract houses on it, even though the zoning allows it. That would disrespect Buttermilk Falls majorly. And neither Guiliani nor Nazarian would appreciate it.

THE FINE PRINT

LOT SIZE: 5.05 acres

ZONING: Residential, with a variance that allows for a house spanning Buttermilk Creek to be built on the lot

SALE PRICE: $995,000

OTHER STUFF: Rogers and Nazarian hired an engineer who works on numerous projects for PennDOT to determine where this house could be built and what kind of supports would be needed, and they conducted the necessary hydrological studies to determine where to put both the septic tank and the well for potable water. An electric line on White Haven Road will supply electric power to this house.

(842) White Haven Rd., Bear Creek Township, PA 18702 [Lorraine Collins | Davis R. Chant Realtors — Hawley]