Home again at Mäntylä

It may be more than 1,000 miles away, but Cloquet native Peter McKinney said it felt like home when he stepped inside Mäntylä, the Frank Lloyd Wright home his Finnish grandparents built in Cloquet almost 65 years ago.

Instead of being hidden in a grove of pine trees along Highway 33 in Cloquet, the home is now located in Polymath Park in Acme, Penn. After being dismantled, shipped and then reconstructed in Pennsylvania over a two-year period, Mäntylä - Finnish for "under the pines" - opened to the public last month.

Peter, his wife Julene, and their son David attended the opening the last weekend in April.

"They were nice enough to let my wife and son and me visit house before the ceremony," McKinney said. "As soon as we walked in the door, it felt like we were home. It was very emotional but amazing too."

McKinney remembers visiting his grandparents at their home in the woods, where they lived for close to 30 years after it was constructed in 1955-56. Peter and Julene were married there, and raised their only son there.

"We enjoyed a wonderful 20-25 years there as a family," McKinney said. "I have nothing but fond memories - the usual family memories of things like Christmas, birthdays, proms and graduations - in a very unusual house."

Adjacent to Cloquet's wooded Pine Valley Park - with its trails and ski jumps - it was an ideal location for a long time, especially since Peter McKinney was an alpine skier, and David liked doing just about anything outdoors.

As the home started to age, it became more and more difficult to keep it up, McKinney said. That part of town - rural when his grandparents moved in - became more and more commercial. The home was on the market for years with no buyer.

Finally the in-floor heating failed. That, coupled with the commercial encroachment on the once peaceful property, prompted Peter and Julene McKinney to work with the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy to find someone to save it.

"People from all over the country came to see it, and we ended up with this couple from Pennsylvania, Tom and Heather Papinchak," he said.

The Papinchaks wanted to move the house to their architectural park in the Laurel Highlands, not far from Wright's famous Fallingwater house. They had previously moved another Wright home, the Duncan House, from Lisle, Ill. before and wanted to move Mäntylä to its own lot in the park.

The McKinneys ultimately donated the home and furnishings to Usonian Preservation, the nonprofit corporation affiliated with Polymath Park and the Papinchaks.

Over a two-month period exactly three years ago, a team of workers dismantled and carefully packed every piece of Mäntylä - except the cinder blocks - in carefully marked crates and shipped them to Polymath Park.

"I would visit the house almost every day during the deconstruction," McKinney said. "It was important. The crew just lived in the house as they were taking it apart. On air mattresses, sleeping bags, cooking on a grill ... as they were taking it apart, they lived there, although it was more like camping."

Once the pieces arrived in Pennsylvania, it took two-and-a-half years to put it back together, longer than the original construction.

"As part of the process, it had to be architecturally correct, including the east-west orientation," McKinney said, noting that his family had kept the original plans safe. "The conservancy provided an architect that oversaw the reconstruction, to make sure it was true to the original plans."

In the beginning

When his grandparents, Ray and Emmy Lindholm, first talked to Frank Lloyd Wright, it was because their daughter Joyce and her husband, Daryl McKinney, had fallen in love with Wright's work when they were students at the University of Minnesota. All four traveled to Spring Green, Wis., to meet the famed architect.

Peter, who is the McKinney's youngest of four sons, said his grandparents originally wanted to build their retirement home in a lot on Washington Avenue across from the current Zion Lutheran Church. He said he found old letters between his grandparents and Wright's Taliesin architecture school that revealed his grandparents then reconsidered and decided - at Wright's urging - to buy the wooded lot south of Cloquet.

"The house design went through two or three versions, based on feedback from my grandparents as well as to accommodate the different site from the original," McKinney said.

The Lindholms interviewed eight contractors before they found one that would take on the job. One thought it was going to slide down the slope because the foundation was not as deep as conventional homes, while another thought the cantilevered roof would cave in from the weight of snow. The Lindholms requested that Wright send an architect to oversee construction, and Wright sent Joe Fabris, who traveled back and forth from Taliesin for about a year.

McKinney said his grandparents were disappointed when the home wasn't finished by Christmas 1955. He found a letter written by Fabris in January 1956.

"In closing, he wrote (by hand) 'Hang on - it's worth it.' When I came across that I had to stop and take it in," McKinney said.

A new chapter

Mäntylä is now one of two Wright-designed homes on the 130-acre Polymath Park, along with two other homes designed by Wright apprentice Peter Berndtson. All four are Usonian, a word that Wright created to refer to the USA. They were meant for "the masses" but still featured Wright's classic naturalistic style, with carports and radiant heat embedded in the floors. People can tour or arrange to stay in one for between $185 and $399 a night.

Heather Papinchak said the sun rises on Mäntylä exactly the same way it did in Cloquet: they replicated everything. It has new cinder blocks though, and the 7,000 terracotta tiles that made up the roof were taken apart and cleaned by Japanese architectural students at the park, so the home is like new in many ways. The home is located down a private lane, in a very wooded area. They even planted more pine trees, to make it more like home.

Papinchak said she understands people in Cloquet might ask why the McKinneys would give the home away, but she thinks they should be commended.

"How gracious it was of the McKinneys - it was the last thing they could do to save the house, and have it for people to enjoy and share," she said.

Papinchak explained that Polymath Park has an educational mission, and the homes are open for tours and overnight visits. She loves being part of preserving Wright's legacy and sharing it in such a personal manner with people.

"The premise is that you're embracing Wright's designs and philosophies," she said. "Touring is one thing, staying is an immersive experience."

McKinney admitted that seeing Mäntylä was a little bittersweet.

"Once I saw it, I miss it a lot," he said. "But we are very fortunate to have spent all those years in such a unique house."

And he's happy that Mäntylä is in good hands.

"The house is going on. Our story ends here," he said. "But the next chapter is for others to experience and enjoy that wonderful home and make it available to the public."

Visit polymathpark.com or fallingwater.org for more information.