Eschewing the showy brand of modernism he became known for with the MoMa, Radio City Music Hall, and his own townhouse, Edward Durell Stone took a different tack with the A-frame home he built for IBM executive Walter Johnson in 1953, and while it's definitely one of his more obscure works, it came at pivotal time for the architect. As detailed by the Architect's Newspaper, which spoke with one of Durell's sons when word got out that a potential buyer wanted to demolish the place to make room for a new development, it was the end of his austere 'hair-shirt' phase—which, speaking of obscurity, borrows its name from the monastic practice of donning horsehair shirts in an act of penance—and the last of his works to openly emulate Frank Lloyd Wright's aesthetic. Durell also went sober that same year, so in the midst of all this, it's understandable that this Darien, Conn. home is a bit odd, a modern dog trot house incorporating Japanese elements like rice paper shoji screens and a sunken koi pond. (Speaking to the Darien Times, the child of the current owner called it "the Taj Majal of fish ponds.") So how does $1.6M sound for an influential modernist's trip into rural pastiche?
· 3 Dogwood Lane [Halstead Property]