Cloquet's Wright house featured

The Frank Lloyd Wright house known as Mäntylä, Finnish for “under the pines,” that formerly made its home in Cloquet, was featured on the CBS “Sunday Morning” program June 27.

Mäntylä was commissioned by the same family that built Cloquet’s Wright-designed gas station: Ray and Emmy Lindholm. 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.

In 2016, Peter and Julene McKinney donated the Cloquet home and much of the Wright-designed furnishings to the nonprofit group Usonian Preservation, so it could be relocated to Polymath Park in Acme, Pennsylvania. The park is home to one other Wright home, along with two 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.

When Mäntylä was in Cloquet, it was a family home, although occasionally the public was invited there for events. Peter McKinney was part of the third generation of the Lindholm family to own the Cloquet home. The new Members Cooperative Credit Union building was built on the site where the home used to stand east of Pine Valley Park.

McKinney told the Pine Knot in May 2019 that seeing Mäntylä in its new location was a little bittersweet. But he was happy that Mäntylä was 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.”

If you missed the program Sunday, it’s not too late. Find it online at http://www.cbsnews.com/news/relocating-a-frank-lloyd-wright-house-polymath-park. Read the Pine Knot story at http://www.pineknotnews.com/story/2019/05/10/news/home-again-at-mntyl/1058.html.