Peter Berndtson

Who was Peter Berndtson?

Peter Berndtson was an American architect.

Born in Massachusetts, he studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology for two years, but dropped out after his father died. In 1938 he began studies at Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin Fellowship, where he met and soon married another student, Cornelia Brierly, who had also studied at Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The couple settled in Western Pennsylvania and together applied Wrightian theories to home design. In 1946 Peter became a registered Pennsylvania architect.

Berndtson's best known work is Polymath Park, located 60 miles southwest of Pittsburgh in the Laurel Highlands and sited near Wright's Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob. The park features two Berndtson houses as well as the Duncan House of Frank Lloyd Wright. Though he designed more than 80 houses throughout his career, only 30 were constructed. He died in 1972.

Carnegie Mellon University's Hunt Library houses the Peter Berndtson Collection, which comprises documents on nearly 100 Berndtson architectural projects.