Day 8 – Kentuck Knob
Today’s Blog Entry
Our plans for Thursday required an early start (we actually had to set an alarm!) so that we could break camp and move just about ten miles down the road to the Christian W. Klay Winery, a Harvest Host participant. Harvest Hosts are small wineries, breweries, farms, etc. that allow a limited number of RVs to camp overnight on their property for free in exchange for the purchase of some product and hopefully some social media buzz.
The early move was needed so that we could be set up our new camp, have lunch, and be ready to leave in time for our 1:15 PM guided tour at Kentuck Knob. Kentuck Knob, also known as the Hagan House, was the last of Frank Lloyd Wright’s residential projects.
The Hagans were friends with the Kaufmanns, the builders of Fallingwater, so no doubt they were warned that their architect could be a bit challenging at times! The house was completed in 1956 – some 20 years after Fallingwater – when FLW was in his late 80s.
We enjoyed a fascinating 90-minute tour of a beautiful home that, quite honestly, we both liked better than Fallingwater. Kentuck Knob is known as a deluxe Usonian home, with ‘Usonian’ being a term coined by Wright to describe a distinctly US-centric design style free of the otherwise expected influences.
The overall design is based on a hexagon and in fact there are only two right angle corners in the entire home – both well-hidden in the master and guest bathtub surrounds. We were told that Wright was particularly fascinated by the strength and structure of honeycombs after he was introduced to them as a child and thus the use of hexagons in this and many of his other designs.
Kentuck Knob is currently owned by Lord Peter Palumbo, a Londoner who purchased the property from the Hagans in 1986 for use as a vacation home. The home remains privately held (unlike Fallingwater, which is owned by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy) so there was no interior photography allowed – I had to settle for outside shots only.
We’re told that Lord Palumbo is still on property from time to time and is known to be quite a character that likes to interact with the visitors when he’s in town. Alas, we didn’t get the chance to meet him.
Following the tour we made the short drive back to the winery, parked the truck, and walked over to the tasting room. We sampled a flight of their wines and enjoyed a nice conversation with our host before picking out a couple of bottles (the Washington Tavern White and the Jumonville Glen Red) to take with us. We enjoyed the semi-dry German-style white with dinner that evening. The red is now aging quietly at Wintergreen …
Today’s Map
Today’s Photos
