Dave and Angie Knight are the owners, along with their three children; Charles (10), Sophia (13) and Kyrsa (15).
Pennsdale’s House of Many Stairs remains a historical monument and family home located in Pennsdale. It has connections to signer of the Declaration of Independence James Wilson, mementos of the long-closed Bull’s Head Tavern, eight staircases, remnants of an Elizabethan pottery house, a tunnel that sheltered escaped slaves, a secret compartment in the wall and above the master bedroom, an 18th century barn and smokehouse, and a newly renovated 1800s cabin, which is available for vacation and micro-event rentals. It is currently owned by Dave and Angie Knight as well as their three children.
Angie Knight detailed the family’s fated ownership.
“We are a blended family and have been discussing relocating to the east coast from Colorado for about six or seven years. In 2017, we made a trip here to see family and decided to look at some homes. Our intent was to find a home that would be a good rental property and rent it until we were able to relocate.
“We originally looked at the House of Many Stairs when it was for sale in 2017. As much as we loved it, it was not yet the right time for us to consider buying our forever home,” she said. “In 2021 Dave was looking for a new truck — a very particular brand, model and color, and the only one available nationwide was in Wilkes-Barre. We bought the truck, flew out to drive it back and decided to stop in Muncy and see Dave’s brother on the way. I do not really recall why we looked up the house, but we did and found it was for sale again. We stopped off to look at it, fell in love all over again and talked about it during the two-day drive back to Colorado and made an offer after we arrived home.
“The house for us has an incredible positive energy and we know it encompasses everything the Quakers stood for — it is truly a sanctuary, and now our sanctuary,” she said
The house was built around 1790 and is encapsulated by sandstone and limestone, displaying over 400-million-year-old brachiopod fossils. All doors, windows and floors are original to the house. The home was built by Quakers, a Christian denomination who were well-known supporters of abolishing slavery in the states.
The hundreds of nails in the original Quaker doors located at the back and side of the home are arranged in patterns said to ward off any evil that tries to pass through.
Many of the stone walls of the interior are still exposed, earning its nickname of “Rock Cottage.”
“Likely all of these stones used in the house were quarried from the property,” Knight said. “The original property lines were much larger than they are now…currently the home has 3.5 acres, and it is stipulated in the deed that it cannot be partitioned further.”
When asked why the family was interested in owning this historic piece of property, Knight answered, “Dave was looking for a classic farmhouse style home…it was a huge draw from a culinary aspect since he is a chef that believes in farm-to-table and eating how people used to live. The smokehouse was a big attraction for him and he plans to bring it back to life — to its true use — in the near future.”
“For me, as a real estate agent for over 30 years, I have a love for architecture and have always been attracted most to older, traditional style homes…Owning something that is so rich in history is an honor and fun,” she said. “It makes us feel like we are a part of preservation instead of destruction. We are not afraid of the upkeep — that is the reality and responsibility of homeownership in any home — even new ones.”
In the old Bull’s Head Tavern (now a craft room and office) there is a false wall with a door cut into the wood panels. Creaking it open reveals a small hatch on the ground, which leads to a ladder that descends into a cramped dirt cellar, and undated scrape marks from someone trying to shove it open from the inside are still visible on the interior of the false wall.
Above the tavern in the musket room (now bedroom) is a series of wooden cabinets built into the wall. Knight said she found in her research that “this was where the men had to keep their guns if they were going to be in the tavern downstairs…it is also likely where the muskets were stored while the building was a lookout for Native Americans.”
One of the many methods slaves used to escape north was to follow rivers, and the House of Many Stairs was a safe haven for those following the Susquehanna River to Canada. Inside, there are eight staircases rumored to have confused and aggravated slave catchers along with a secret room and entrance to an underground tunnel. According to Knight, between 14 and 16 people could have hid in the secret space while disgruntled plantation owners and slave catchers searched.
A small door is nestled into the wall on “the stairs to nowhere” and leads into a cubby space with the entrance to the hidden room where slaves and outlaws would hide. Once inside the cubby, there is a square U to crawl over and into the secret room. The secret room was built above the master bedroom behind another false wall and above a dropped ceiling.
In the root cellar, under a winding staircase, is now a modern pantry — but at one time the base of this staircase was found to have “pig bones buried in the dirt with a wedding ring.” On the opposite side of the room is an exposed end from the original kitchen mantle encompassed by large stones. The prior owners, the Saunders, had it dated and claimed “this particular tree would have been a sapling at the time of Christopher Columbus.”
Just a few feet away where the refrigerator now stands was where the prior owners believed the entrance to the escape tunnel to be. Dave and Angie Knight theorize that this tunnel “likely connected the root cellar (now a modern kitchen) to the smokehouse. We believe the smokehouse is the most likely location given the work it would take to maintain a dirt tunnel and the proximity to the main house/root cellar location.” The true exit remains unknown as excavation has yet to take place. They told the Sun-Gazette, “We have to dig out the dirt that is keeping the doors from opening to begin that search.”
The above-ground portion of the smokehouse features two large windows overlooking the yard and a since-covered square hole in the wall. Angie said “that was where they would shoot from when it was an Indian lookout…they would stick their barrel through there.”
On the rear side of the property lies a gazebo, a water house, a windmill and the cabin available for rent on VRBO and AirBNB. The cabin was painstakingly dismantled near Altoona and reassembled next to the windmill and old well house. While walking the property, Angie pointed out “you can still see bullet holes on the windmill blades above the well house. When ice would build up in the winter, that was their solution to knock it off and get their water to pump.”
The cabin sleeps six and features free wifi, mountain views, a kitchenette and air conditioning. The House of Many Stairs remains a family home and is not available for rent, but may be open to tours in the future.
When asked about the difficulties of living in such a prized home, Angie said, “Honestly, the biggest challenge is balancing our privacy as our personal residence while honoring the history and supporting the community interest. We created the website and social pages as a way to share what we know and what we find out about the history with the community.
“We have only posted an estimated 30 to 40% of what we have so far and we are continuing to search forward and find more information. We do have a 3D tour posted of the home on our website, which is the next best thing to touring it in person. Right now we are searching for the ownership of the home back to its inception.”
For more information on this historic landmark, visit www.houseofmanystairs.com or find it on Facebook and Instagram.
