Sitting in her favorite spot at the iconic Frank Lloyd Wright House in Ebsworth Park, Kathryn Feldt, MHS ’95, can’t help but smile thinking of the career path that led her to this sun-bathed studio, with its unique hexagonal artist’s table directly below a parallelogram-shaped sun light.
Looking out at a grove of persimmon trees, through the frameless window panes joined at an angle under a signature Wright cantilever roof, Feldt works at the confluence of natural elegance and architectural brilliance.
“Here I am, once again, in a role trying to bring beauty and joy into people’s lives,” says Feldt, who has been executive director of the nonprofit museum since 2018. “As much as it seems like I’ve held unrelated roles in my career, there’s connective tissue with all of it.”
Wright, considered the greatest American architect of the 20th century, designed the house in 1951 for artist Russell W. Kraus (who studied art at WashU) and his wife, Ruth Goetz Kraus, LLB ’31, after Russell sent him a letter requesting his highly in-demand services.
The 1900-square-foot house, located on the outskirts of Kirkwood, Missouri, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997 and sold in 2001. For Feldt and the house’s board, their mission is two-fold: preservation and education. Both tenets reflect a foundational aspect of Feldt’s career path: relationship development, a skill she traces back to her time earning a master’s degree in health sciences at WashU.
“I felt so enriched and empowered by what I was learning and who I was learning with,” she says. “I remember feeling such a sense of responsibility, in the spirit of ‘much has been granted, much is expected.’”
“I remember as a student being in this cocoon of just enormous physical beauty, and that’s what I have now.”
Kathryn Feldt, executive director of the Frank Lloyd Wright House in Ebswork Park.
Inspired by her mother’s 18-month struggle with cancer, Feldt started the Joy Foundation in 2003, with the goal of providing a broad spectrum of programs designed to bring art and beauty into patients’ lives at a time when those elements were difficult to find. “Her spirit of bravery, her spirit of life and adventure and joy was really a life force that sort of kept me going,” Feldt says of her mother. “I thought it was important to share.”
Prior to joining the Ebsworth Park nonprofit, Feldt worked with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Marygrove, a residential treatment facility for children, teens and young adults. Though they were very different jobs, both required relationship-building and introducing beauty to others, through music and the arts. Just beyond the studio’s terrace, a brightly colored eastern bluebird flits past the windows. The Krauses once let their horses roam on the gentle hills of the 10.2-acre property. Here, Feldt feels at home. It’s a feeling she also associates with her time in graduate school.
“WashU has such a beautiful learning environment, such a beautiful campus,” Feldt says. “I remember as a student being in this cocoon of just enormous physical beauty, and that’s what I have now.”
