National Trust for Historic Preservation Highlights Philip Johnson's Endangered Ball House

[Read 'Modern,' our new Modern House blog, here.]

I never got around to linking to two stories in local New Canaan papers about the public hearing on the application to tear down the Alice Ball House, which Philip Johnson designed. No big deal though because the National Trust for Historic Preservation web journal, Preservation Online, has an article up today that's better than what I would have done on this blog.



There's more than one issue here but this is one of the key ones:

Although the Connecticut Trust's Web site promotes selling the Ball House, no takers have emerged. Christopher Wigren, Higgins' deputy director and an architectural historian, characterizes this as a case where the home's inherent simplicity may actually work against it.

"People in a position to pay $3 million for a house want more than a galley kitchen," Wigren says. But, he adds, the home is a treasure for the right buyer.

"These houses were not designed to be flashy. It was a conscious simplification of life," he says.

And here's some background:

Earlier this year, the National Trust, in partnership with the New Canaan Historical Society and supported by the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation and the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, launched a town-wide survey of new Canaan's modern residences, outbuildings and landscapes. Why New Canaan?

"The decision to focus our efforts and resource sin New Canaan was based on the belief that New Canaan has one of the most important collections of modern residences in the United States," wrote National Trust President Richard Moe in a Nov. 14 letter to the chair of the town's historical review commission. "Our work will ensure the placement of those resources based in New Canaan in their proper national and international context and elevate the public's awareness of the importance of them to prevent senseless demolitions."

Another of Johnson's champions, architect Richard Bergman, says the trend toward knocking down older, architecturally significant homes not protected by historic designations is increasing.

"A building lot in New Canaan is worth $2 million from the get-go," Bergman says. He believes the Ball House should be preserved, but that the current owner has priced it so high it will be difficult to find a buyer. "I like the house; I could live in it myself," Bergman says.

Bergman, by the way, lives in a beautiful Greek Revival House near the train station that was the home of Maxwell Perkins, the Scribner's editor who edited Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe and others.

Here's the Preservation Online story.

Public Hearing on the Application to Demolish the Alice Ball House

[Read 'Modern,' our new Modern House blog, here.]

New Canaan will hold a public hearing tomorrow evening -- that is, Thursday, November 15 -- on Cristina Ross's application to demolish Philip Johnson's Alice Ball House. It's at 7:30 p.m. in the Douglas Room at the Lapham Community Center at Waveny. The National Trust for Historic Preservation folks at the Glass House have been trying to rally the anti-demolition troops, and I guess in this case they're entitled to throw stones, figuratively at least.

There's background, here and here.

The "Demolition" Sign in Front of Philip Johnson's Alice Ball House in New Canaan

[Read 'Modern,' our new modern house blog, here.]

As I said yesterday, presumably this is a public notice announcing that the owner has applied for a demolition permit. Generally the local government requires such notices to be posted and also requires the owner/applicant to do so. In this case it was erected just days after a couple of hundred modern house enthusiasts drove past it numerous times during the New Canaan Historical Society's Modern House Day tour.

Philip Johnson's Alice Ball House May Soon Be Demolished in Fight Between Its Owner and Town of New Canaan

[Read more about the Alice Ball House and other modern houses on 'Modern,' our new blog, here.]

For those who care about such things, New Canaan is as renowned for its large number of mid-century modern houses as it is for allowing a large number of mid-century modern houses to be destroyed and replaced by mcmansions. At least three of the Harvard Five architects -- Marcel Breuer, Eliot Noyes and John Johansen -- have had houses they designed razed. And I'm not sure anyone knows for sure how many modern houses in all have been demolished in New Canaan. Estimates of the number of modern houses that remain range from roughly 70 to 90.

If work by Breuer, Noyes and Johansen have all been destroyed, that leaves only two of the Harvard Five left -- Landis Gores and Philip Johnson.

And Johnson may soon join them. Cristina Ross, the owner of the Alice Ball House, which Johnson designed, has applied to the Town of New Canaan for a demolition permit. This comes after an extensive renovation, completed earlier this year (see here). (11 a.m. update: I drove past the Alice Ball house this morning and saw a big sign in front with the word "Demolition" printed on it, presumably a public notice that the owner has applied for a demolition permit. Generally the local government requires such notices to be posted and requires the owner/applicant to do so. Interesting that whoever erected it waited until after the Modern House Day tour.)

In other words, if Cristina Ross, an architect and developer, gets her demolition permit and if she proceeds, she would become the first person to demolish a house designed by Philip Johnson. Likewise, the Town of New Canaan would for the first time authorize such a destruction.

New Canaan would then be doubly famous -- for being the home of Johnson's landmark Glass House and for being the home of the oversized monstrosity that will no doubt replace the Alice Ball House.



The Connecticut Post had a good story about the issue last month, here. You'll see that there's lots of baloney from Ross and the Town about the other being unreasonable. This includes the Town's wetlands commission, by the way, which refuses to give Ross a permit to extend a driveway on the property across a wetland. I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest the perhaps the wetlands commission is being a tad too intransigent. I've spent the last seven years of my life working on land preservation issues that usually involve wetlands protection. I know a lot about which wetlands are valuable and why, about how some wetlands are so valuable that nothing should be allowed to be built anywhere near them, and about how some wetlands don't have much value at all and can be encroached upon. I also know the Alice Ball House a bit (I've been in it once) and its property (I've been on it a couple of times and I drive past it regularly). If there's a wetland on that property worth saving to the extent that the Alice Ball House gets torn down, then I'm a modern architect.

The Alice Ball House has been on the market since early spring for about $3 million. Nine months does not seem like a lot of time for an expensive house to remain unsold. And you can easily see it -- its right on Oenoeke Ridge Road, near the intersection of Hemlock Hill Road (the Celanese House is two doors away).

If you're interested in buying it, give the William Raveis agency in New Canaan a buzz. In the meantime, Cristina Ross ought to back off and wait for a buyer. And the New Canaan wetlands comission out to think a bit more carefully about its mission.

The Alice Ball House ...

... Philip Johnson, architect. You can see it on Oenoeke Ridge Road, in New Canaan. [Read 'Modern,' our new Modern House blog, here.]

Philip Johnson's Alice Ball House: Renovated and on the Market for $3 Million

[Read 'Modern,' our new Modern House blog, here.]

Of the four houses Philip Johnson designed in New Canaan, I’ve been in two, both during the New Canaan Historical Society’s Modern House Day in 2004 – the Boissonas House, which isn’t visible from the road, and the Alice Ball House, which is. It’s small – a cottage really – and a sort of off-white, muted yellowish color. You can find it on Oenoeke Ridge Road, which has become almost a monoculture of gargantuan houses that, like invasive species, have replaced older and more modest (though still large) houses. The Alice Ball House is opposite Hemlock Hill Road and a couple of houses down from Edward Durrell Stone’s Celanese House, which is being renovated.

I had been told (and I wrote on this blog a couple of times; you can find my Modern house posts on the lower right) that the Alice Ball House was owned by an architect who was converting it into a pool house that would be part of a larger property (with a larger house behind it) and that she was planning to build a wall for privacy between the road and the house Johnson designed. [Noon update: These minutes from the New Canaan zoning board indicate that as recently as a year ago the idea was still to turn it into a pool house.]

If that was ever the plan, it has changed. The owner-architect, Cristina Ross, has renovated and updated the house and has put it on the market. If you have $3 million and want a Modern trophy, it can be yours.

Christina sent me an e-mail yesterday saying that it was for sale and directing me to Pruddy Parris, the agent who is selling it (the listing, here, includes some good pictures). Here’s what Pruddy Parris told me:

The Alice Ball House by Philip Johnson is one of his favorites. He built his Glass House a couple of years prior and brought ideas from it to the Alice Ball House. This is his "little jewel.” … There are stone terraces, stone walls, a walled courtyard with its 'secret garden' on 2+ acres.

It has been completely restored leaving the original intact, and completely renovated where owners added on. There are new roofs, new electric wiring, new plumbing, new heating-humidifying system, new master bath, new guestroom and bath, new landscaping and driveway, interior all painted, newly finished lower level, and the exterior will be painted when weather improves.

New Canaan, of course, has become as well known as a place that tolerates the destruction of Modern houses as it is as a center of Modern houses. I don’t think any Johnson houses have been destroyed in New Canaan but houses by Breuer, Noyes, Johansen and others have fallen to make way for neo-colonial McMansions. But maybe times are changing. Cristina Ross wrote to me:

I am very proud to have saved and restored this house. We are looking for one great person who will treasure it.