“When I first encountered Wright’s work as an eight-year-old boy, it was the space and the light that got me all excited,” says Stuart Graff in the Architectural Digest video above. “I now understand why that gives us the feeling that it does, why we feel different in a Frank Lloyd Wright house. That’s because he uses space and light to create this sense of intimacy with the world around us.” As luck would have it, Graff has grown up to become president and CEO of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, and it is in that capacity that he leads us through one of the renowned American architect’s last projects, a 1955 house along the Noroton River in New Canaan, Connecticut called Tirranna.
“While Tirranna was being built, Wright was in New York City working on his largest commission, the Guggenheim Museum,” says Graff. Also known as the Rayward–Shepherd House, Tirranna is certainly less widely known than the Guggenheim, and indeed, less widely known than some of Wright’s other residential work.
But as his private houses go, Tiranna’s “setting rivals even perhaps Wright’s most famous work, Fallingwater, in the way that house engages nature.” Built along a curve that “follows the movement of the sun through the day” and textured with contrasting concrete block and Philippine mahogany — not to mention plenty of glass through which to take in the landscape outside — it stands as a rich example of late Wright.
And rich is what you’d better be if you want to live it: according to a notice published in Architectural Digest, Tirranna went on the market last year for an asking price of $8 million. Its 7,000 square feet make it one of Wright’s “largest and most expansive residential projects”; the “low-slung main home is designed in a hemicycle style — a uniquely Wright shape — and features seven bedrooms, eight bathrooms, a rooftop observatory, and a wine cellar that has been converted into a bomb shelter.” It even boasts the distinction of Wright himself having stayed there, during the time he was still working on the Guggenheim. For a deep-pocketed enthusiast of twentieth-century American architecture, there could hardly be a more intriguing prospect in New Canaan — as least since the Glass House isn’t for sale.
Related content:
What Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unusual Windows Tell Us About His Architectural Genius
130+ Photographs of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Masterpiece Fallingwater
When Frank Lloyd Wright Designed a Doghouse, His Smallest Architectural Creation (1956)
Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the Substack newsletter Books on Cities, the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles and the video series The City in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook.
I’ve never seen this house before in a video presentation. Just marvelous… thank you ever so much for sharing this. Excellent narration and explanation of FLW’s mindset and enjoyment of this setting! Wonderful presentation!
Loved the quotation “nature is the only body of god we see”. L💗VE FLW.
So much enjoyed the walk along.
Thank you!
Interesting presentation particularly enjoyed explanation of small scale details.
I’ve seen Fallingwater, which is beautiful! This surpasses it in beauty, functionality and depth of FLW’s design(s). Is it open to the public? I live in California but would travel to CT if it were open.
Iam very interested in becoming a member of the Frank Lloyd wright foundation as I am any and all things frank Loyd wright I am presently looking for a builder that I feel has the vision to do the masters vision the respect and justice in my last personal build I simply love his vision
Looking forward to seeing more and learning all there is to learn and know
Warmest Regards
Billie Levert Hill
Wonderful video on Frank Lloyd Wright’s Tirana. I lived in West Hertford for many years but was unaware of this home that gives Fallingwater a run for its money.
Wonderful video on Frank Lloyd Wright’s Tirranna. I lived in West Hertford for many years but was unaware of this home that gives Fallingwater a run for its money.
Please send me information on Joining the FLW foundation
Thank you so much for this! The way the home captures nature and becomes one within the surrounding is astounding. I truly wish more home builders would put FLW’s perspective into their building. I wonder what he would think about the mass production of homes nowadays.
So long ago I wrote the administration building, and I listed many issues I was having. Well here’s update turns out I was somewhat of a fool not to just realize that certain aspects of the book like the color threads running threw the pages and holding it horizontally and vertically like frank himself liked to look at design and details, the way the words would pop off the page and in some cases change to the eye gave me a false sense of visions or orders. When in reality I had true visions just outside of a book, but I believe and I am thankful for having it and looking at it because of how it opened up my life at that moment and I began to see things different, I am sad to say that because of unfortunate events and horrible advise it ended up burning and I lost it, along with items that were actually personalized for me,like the three blue letters describing how they seen the house I drew at the art institute of phoenix, and how he didn’t agree with some of my findings in another area,etc. I know that some of the actual pencil drawings were in fact real because when I looked threw light
you could see the change in the darkness and stroke it just showed threw in the way only a real drawing would , run off prints don’t look that way at all if they even show threw. Any way problems have gotten better in some cases and thank you for reading this.
Respectfully yours,
Kenneth Miller
The ONE
P.S. If you can track down those original sets of prints that belonged to me from that specific book as I do believe my book was different and lake county sheriffs along with judge Judy Cantrells office did something with them, and they didn’t get flooded in a tank they set bombs off in. I know this because they read my letters and even said key things about my letters in court so therefore they weren’t flooded.