Philip Johnson's Glass House

On my trip to New Canaan I was able to visit a local landmark, Philip Johnson's Glass House.

The house was built in 1949 on a dozen acres and over the years Johnson expanded the property to 50 acres and added several buildings, about one a decade, until his death in 2005 at 98.

The house was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1997. Johnson passed on ownership of the Glass House to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which opened it to visitors in April 2007. The trust expanded the size of the property, buying adjacent lots which extended it to 200 acres. You can now take a two hour tour for $45.

 

The tour begins in downtown New Canaan, where they have a gift shop and an interesting video wall that gives an overview of Johnson's life and the development of the Glass House property, with some fun pictures and videos of the great parties they had over the years. Then you board a bus and drive out to the property. The first thing you see is this interesting gate.It's an aluminum bar that raises up to let you in.

As you start down the path to the Glass House, it is obscured by trees and slowly reveals itself. The house is a lot smaller than you would think. It is a glass rectangle containing a round brick space for the fireplace and the bathroom. This pattern of rectangle and circle is repeated many times on the property. There are hardly any lights, no AC, and few drapes in the house, so you can see in from almost everywhere. Luckily he owed most of the property around him, so there were not a lot of people looking in on Johnson, he was mostly looking out on a beautiful vista.

 

Below the back of the house Johnson added a lake with a Pavilion and a spectacular water feature.  Behind the lake you can see the sculpture, the ladder to nowhere.

Across from the Glass House is the Brick House. We were not able to go inside it, due to sever flood damage and mold, but the pictures were saw revealed a very interesting space. There was a living room and two bedrooms inside and it was air conditioned so Johnson often slept there in the summer.

Because the Glass House has nowhere to hang art, Johnson built an art gallery on the property to display his partner David Whitney's amazing collection. While they were alive they owned 100's of their friend Andy Warhol's pieces as well as the work of other important modern artists.

The tour ends with a trip to the sculpture gallery. Again the building is as interesting as the art. We were luck enough to come a day with great sunshine so we could see the amazing shadows cast by the slats in the ceiling.

Sadly many of the buildings on the property are badly in need of repair. The Brick House is inaccessible and will take millions to renovate (a lot for a 1700 square foot space), the sculpture gallery roof is rusting, and the Glass House itself has a lot of roof issues too. That said, it is still an amazing place that you should visit if you are in the area, make sure you book in advance, tours fill up quickly.