Why You Should Visit the Rock House Country Inn Bed and Breakfast

A short drive 31 miles south of Indianapolis takes you to Morgantown, home of an astounding architectural masterpiece: the Rock House Country Inn Bed & Breakfast. Morgantown is part of Morgan County, whose county seat is in Martinsville, but the fact that it is so close to Nashville, Indiana and Beanblossom, Indiana makes Morgantown one of those places where people just love to go. Today, the population of Morgantown is around 1000, full of small town ideals and old fashioned homes, and just about everyone in the town knows about the Rock House Bed & Breakfast.

As a child, I would travel to Nashville, Indiana quite often with my parents, and the Rock House Bed & Breakfast was something we would always comment on along the way as we passed the building. To me, the giant Victorian looked quite a bit like a castle, ornately adorned with a gigantic rock collection that paled the one I had in a drawer back home. But the story of the Rock House Bed and Breakfast was less one of knights and kings and more a story of love. Actually a knight was involved. . . James Knight.

At the tender age of 28, with less than $10,000 in his possession and with the help of a few friends, James "Smith" Knight began building. With the name Knight, it would make a lot of sense that he would have a castle in mind as he be constructed the ten room Victorian mansion for his beloved wife Isabel and children. He made cement blocks by hand and while they were setting, he embedded them with treasures he had collected: rocks, coins, jewelry, dishes, marbles, toys, pottery, and even the head of a bisque doll.

They started building in 1894; one of the blocks has that date written into the cement. In 1896, the house was ready to move into, and Knight and his growing family was more than ready. Knight built his house with several extras to make things easier on his wife, and loving detail was the rule, not the exception.

There were three rooms in the basement of the Rock House, which had a dumb waiter that led to the dining room. The main floor had two entries, a bedroom (delivery room), parlor, living room, dining room and kitchen. Isabelle's room had a windowed tower where she kept her plants year long. Upstairs, there were five bedrooms and a parlor for entertaining. There were not any bathrooms in the original Rock House, however. Luckily there are now eight!

In 1918, James "Smith" Knight's wife Isabelle died, leaving several children including a baby to be taken care of. Knight married a second wife, Myrtle and reportedly the number of Knight Children grew to twenty, but this number is disputed. In July 2006, when Frank Knight, one of the Knight children actually born in the rock house died, his obituary stated he had twenty-four brothers and sisters and half-brothers and half-sisters that preceded him in death, and two brothers still living, for an amazing twenty seven kids! I bet second wife Myrtle was busy. James "Smith" Knight remained in his beloved Rock House, dying in 1943. The house became a Bed & Breakfast in 1988.

Currently The Rock House Bed and Breakfast has six beautiful, rentable rooms and all with private baths. Guests can marvel at the masonry work, which is now found in several places on the grounds, or contemplate about James "Smith" Knight's innovations. One block shows the initials of one of the men who helped build the house, AME. Reportedly, there is a tusk of a wild boar near a porch block and Knight's name is written in coal above the front door. Isabelle, the name of his first wife, is over a window.

One can only wonder what Isabel thought of her husband's tinkering, and then Mabel after her must have wondered what James "Smith" Knight was thinking. But as with every historical eclectic, Knight will be a historical anomaly whose work of art will be loved even after I, who loved his house as a child, am gone.

Now named The Rock House Country Inn, the Bed & Breakfast is located at 370 West Washington Street, Morgantown, IN 46160-9541 (812) 597-5100. It is around eleven miles from Nashville, Indiana. We paid $90 a night. No smoking, and kids are not recommended. Be sure to call for rates and availability.