Fallingwater is Frank Lloyd Wright’s famed masterpiece in southwest Pennsylvania. But a mere six miles away is Kentuck Knob, a less well-known house also designed by Wright. And, while it has his signature horizontal orientation, a blending of inside and out and an emphasis on craftsmanship, it is also very different.
Where Fallingwater is grand, Kentuck Knob is intimate. Fallingwater dramatically bridges a mountain stream while Kentuck Knob, situated just below the crest of a hill, stands 2,050 feet above sea level. Designed on a hexagonal module, Kentuck Knob is an example of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian houses, meant to be affordable for the average American.
I.N. and Bernardine Hagan, who owned a dairy, were friends of the Kaufmanns, the owners of Fallingwater. They admired their friends’ famous house and approached Frank Lloyd Wright to ask whether he would design a home for them. He was 86 years old and hard at work on the Guggenheim Museum in New York, among other projects. Wright said he could "Shake it (the house) out of his sleeve at will," never setting foot on the site, except for a short visit during construction. This was one of the last houses Wright designed. The Hagans moved into Kentuck Knob on 29, July 1956, their 26th wedding anniversary, and spent the next thirty years there.
After I. N. fell ill, the Hagans could no longer live perched on a mountain; they sold the house in 1986 to Lord Peter Palumbo of England. He and his wife, Hayat, have maintained the house as a museum open to the public. Kentuck Knob opened for tours in 1996.
While they have proudly preserved Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture, the Palumbos have put their own stamp on the grounds with a collection of about 30 pieces of contemporary sculpture. Works by such artists as Andy Goldsworthy, Claes Oldenburg, Sir Anthony Caro, Wendy Taylor and Phillip King are placed in the landscape around the house and along a woodland walking trail. Found object art pieces include a French pissoir, red British telephone boxes and a large, vertically upright concrete slab from the Berlin Wall.
Now, Frank Lloyd Wright’s building is surrounded by a sculpture park, a fitting landscape for a great house. The combination is beguiling, and you can’t help but think that the Hagans would have approved.
