Famous architect designs Knox County dream house

The famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed a house for a wooded hillside in Knox County overlooking the Kokosing River. The house was a dream house for a young couple about to move to Knox County — Joe and Virginia Munroe. In April of 1945, Joe Munroe wrote a letter to Mr. Wright asking him to design their next home: “Virginia and I would like very much for the next to be a “Wright” – the reasons, I hope, require no explanation.” Then he writes: “Possible – or am I dreaming?” Within a week, Mr. Wright replies in a short note: “Dear Joe: Why not? We’ll be seeing you when you want to see us – good luck--”

Joe and Virginia Munroe with their three children moved from Detroit to Mount Vernon in 1947 so that Joe could be closer to the rich farmlands of Central Ohio. After being discharged from the Air Force, he was starting a new career as an agricultural photographer on assignment for The Farm Quarterly. His first assignment was to photograph a famous sheep farm on the edge of Gambier run by the Walker family, who quickly became good friends. With the help and advice of the Walkers the Munroe’s purchased a parcel of land on State Route 229 near Gambier for their new home.

It took almost two years for Wright to deliver his plans. He created a house in the style of his Usonian houses, a design concept he pursued since The Great Depression intended to create affordable, well-designed homes for middle-class clients. When the plans arrived the Munoe’s were delighted.

The house had many of the signature features of a Frank Lloyd Wright design: an emphasis on horizontality in harmony with the land; placement at the brow of a hill not the hilltop; a covered carport instead of a garage; a flat roof with cantilevered overhangs to shade the summer sun; radiant heating coils in the floor; passive solar heating from ample windows; and built-in furnishings. There was also something Wright rarely designed into one of his houses – a photographer’s darkroom and studio.

While the Munroe’s waited to raise the funds to build their dream house they bought another small house in Mount Vernon on Sanitorium Road. Joe opened a photography studio at 205 S. Main Street and his reputation grew as one of the nation’s premier agricultural photographers. He began to take assignments for Life, Look, National Geographic and other national publications. But the house of their dreams remained too expensive. In 1955 they moved to Orinda, California, still hoping somehow they would have the opportunity to build their Wright house there. Their family expanded, Joe’s career blossomed to include filmmaking, and Virginia became a noted painter and printmaker.

Today the 24 drawings for their unbuilt house reside in the Frank Lloyd Wright Archives at the Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library at Columbia University in New York City. While Joe Munroe’s archives can be found at the Ohio History Center in Columbus – a gift from the Munroes to the state of Ohio.

Joe and Virginia Munroe were married for 79 years. They went to high school together in Detroit and married one year after they graduated in 1934. Joe died in 2014 in Orinda, California at the age of 97. Virginia died five years later in 2019 in Orinda at the age of 102.

The Gund at Kenyon College will present "To Dream a House: Frank Lloyd Wright in Knox County," an exhibition that presents a little-known piece of Knox County history.

The exhibition is curated by Gregory Spaid, Emeritus Professor of Art at Kenyon College. It is in the Meier/Draudt curatorial classroom of The Gund, 101 1/2 College Drive, Gambier, through July 27.