Welcome to Polymath Park, where you can spend the night in a Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece

The seasoned tourist knows the terror of actually using anything in a historic house. Merely sitting down might be your ticket right out of the place. Once in a while, though, the rules are suspended. One such place is Polymath Park in Acme, Pennsylvania, where you can sleep, eat and bathe in not one but two Frank Lloyd Wright houses (and two by his apprentice Peter Berndtson) without facing criminal charges.

Polymath Park spans 130 forested acres, a little over half an hour from Wright's residential masterpiece Fallingwater, and only slightly farther from Kentuck Knob, making it an ideal stop for anyone tracing Wright’s work, or simply seeking a quiet escape about an hour from Pittsburgh.

Polymath Park’s connection to Frank Lloyd Wright began indirectly – through his apprentice, Peter Berndtson. A Guggenheim museum collaborator turned independent architect, Berndtson eventually established his practice in Western Pennsylvania, designing around 30 homes, some in partnership with his then-wife and fellow Taliesin graduate, Cornelia Brierley. In 1964 and 1965, he created two weekend retreats on what is now Polymath Park: the Blum and Balter Houses. His vision extended to 24 more, though the plan never materialised. For decades, the pair of houses slipped quietly into obscurity.

Current owners Tom and Heather Papinchak first discovered Polymath Park in 2001, while buying a nearby house, unaware of what lay just down the road. ‘When we saw a sale sign, it felt okay to go back and look,’ Tom tells Wallpaper*. ‘I was dumbfounded when I saw those two Berndtson properties.’

Determined to save them from demolition, Tom set out to acquire the site. A lifelong Wright devotee with a background in construction, he soon widened his vision. He learned of Duncan House, an endangered Wright house built near Chicago that had been disassembled and moved to Johnstown, Pennsylvania. But when the Duncan House rescuers lost funding, Tom stepped in to buy it himself and relocate it.

The 2,200-square-foot, three-bedroom house may not be as spectacular as Fallingwater, but its identity is unmistakable. The L-shaped plan features Wright’s signature compression and release, a hipped roof and Maryland ledge-rock walls. Mahogany plywood battens align perfectly with the stone banding, creating an easy rhythm. The kitchen – bright, open, and lined with oak cabinetry and red Formica – sits unusually on a corner rather than buried in the core. Reassembly from shipping containers was a feat of architectural forensics. Tom sited the house precisely as before, aligning it with the sun. By 2007, he and Heather began renting it, alongside the two Berndtson houses, for overnight stays.

Then came another rescue: the Lindholm House from Cloquet, Minnesota, a grander Usonian designed for the family who also commissioned Wright’s only gas station. The Papinchaks acquired and reconstructed it on site, a process Tom calls ‘architectural surgery.’

This one, he says, was easier. ‘It felt like Duncan was the training wheels and then Mantyla came along.’ (The house was later renamed Mantyla, meaning ‘of the pines’).

Even so, rebuilding the 3,000-square-foot home – refitting cypress windows and 6,750 terracotta roof tiles – was no small feat. Mantyla reflects Wright’s full Usonian vision: elegant yet pragmatic, using modest materials like concrete block. Its L-shaped plan brings sunlight deep into the interior. The social spaces open onto the forest through floor-to-ceiling glass, while built-in bookcases, benches and clerestory windows rhythmically define the rest. The house’s contents came intact, from furniture to art. Even the vintage book collection – Picasso-illustrated Lysistrata among them – feels like an exhibit.

Staying in a Wright house brings surprises. The stools are intolerable; the benches, perfect. Wright’s design gently herds you from the bedroom into communal space; you grasp his intent not academically, but instinctively.

The Berndtson houses have their own, earthier charm. Built as weekend retreats, they’re rusticated, more approachable. The four-bedroom Balter House features a shallow hipped roof, redwood board-and-batten walls and a cathedral ceiling with skylight. A cantilevered great room and screened porch add a note of modernism. Meanwhile, the three-bedroom Blum House, stuccoed and redwood-trimmed, feels similarly poised between prairie and post-war. Furnishings range from Le Corbusier chaises and Lane tables to Graves Alessi teapots and Smeg appliances; a perfect blend of mid-century authenticity and modern usability.

And then there’s Treetops, the on-site restaurant offering brunch, lunch and dinner. Its glass-walled pods, suspended among the trees, recall Paul Mayén’s visitor centre at Fallingwater. Guests dine on a prix-fixe menu while looking out over the forest canopy – an apt setting for Wright’s architecture of immersion.

The venture was not without risk. ‘To make it successful in the first several years was a struggle,’ Tom admits. ‘We didn’t have any exposure out in the middle of the woods.’ But perseverance and preservation proved good business. ‘It was never about financial gain,’ he says. ‘It was always about keeping these houses alive for inspiration and education.’

And the story isn’t finished. Awaiting reconstruction in shipping containers nearby is another piece of architectural lineage: the 1965 Birdwing House by Wright’s son, Lloyd. Soon, it too will nest among the trees of Polymath Park – another chapter in this improbable forest of modernist revival.

Polymath Park is located at 187 Evergreen Ln, Acme, PA 15610, United States.