For Sale: Vintage Philip Johnson-Designed Lakefront Retreat in Willsboro NY
Now here’s a sweet little MCM charmer, which is not only captivatingly stunning, but also comes with quite the pedigree. The 1949 modernist dwelling was designed by the famous Phillip Johnson (1906–2005), who was not only the founding director of the Museum of Modern Art’s Architecture Department, he is responsible for an impressive portfolio of international post-modern architectural commissions (Manhattan’s iconic “AT&T Building” and nearby “Lipstick Building”, and Pittsburgh’s PPG Place to name but a few). Johnson is best known however for his own New Canaan, CT weekend home, simply known as “The Glass House” which was completed at the same time as this little lakefront marvel known as the “Paine House”, named for the original owners. This is one of only twelve privately owned homes designed by Johnson which remain in existence.
Listed for $3.5 million and located on a spectacular twenty-acre parcel of wooded table land with 850 feet of Lake Champlain’s prime western shoreline, this pristine early modernist home still remains in its purest original state (thank the architecture Gods for sparing this one!). Johnson, working closely with the Paines ensured the design was perfected and properly positioned on the land to capture the expansive eastern lake views as well as the western open fields through large expanses of ten foot tall glass walls with minimal interior partitions, ensuring bright, open sight lines. Johnson designed the house using huge steel support beams which allowed for the creation of big open spaces – a novelty for residential construction, but commonly used in office buildings at the time. The cypress sided house brilliantly embraces the true essence of Modernism – that being minimal separation between interior and exterior spaces allowing traffic to flow effortlessly outside and in.
In my very simplistic view, the house is laid out like an early 1950’s roadside motel (Johnson will roll over in his grave when he reads this! (and I do know for a fact he does read all of my posts!)) Let me explain – I’ve always loved the “Motel” concept as a vacation house. I know this sounds trashy but think about it – a motel has the main lobby (living room) with small owner’s suite attached (bedroom, bath, kitchen) in it’s own self contained structure. The guest’s quarters (bed/ bath) are in a separate structure, lined up with exterior entrances, connected to the “lobby” structure by way of a covered walkway. As a host, this layout is perfect – you have your space and common entertainment area, and the guests can get out of your face when necessary and retreat to theirs. The Paine House essentially follows this basic layout.
The center of the main building (the “lobby” if you will) contains a large open living area with a fireplace surrounded by walls of glass, a large chef’s kitchen and 2 bedrooms with 2 full bathrooms. The “motel wing” is attached by an open-air walkway and contains an additional 6 bedrooms (motel rooms?) sharing 4 full bathrooms. See, Motel, right?
Collectively, the two buildings contain a total of 3,812-square-feet of vintage post modern interior space.
Johnson’s clients, the Paine’s, for whom the house was designed, were a young couple of means who specified the design needed to accommodate weekend groups of family and friends visiting mostly during the summer months, hence the “Motel” concept (again, sorry Philip) is ideal. Unfortunately (or fortunately for the next owners – depends on your perspective), the Paines divorced before the house was finished in 1949, so the newly completed structure was passed on to a family who enjoyed it until 2006, when the current owners acquired the still vintage property for $999k (kind of a steal if you think about it). As a testament to the original design and quality of construction, and the due diligence of the home’s owners, the house has required no renovations, alterations, or updates throughout it’s first 55 years of existence.
The new (2006) owners re-sided home with cypress, new roof and stone retaining walls, all matching Johnson’s original concept. For the Interiors, they incorporated some (very fortunately) respectful updates to the kitchen, retaining the original soapstone and steel sinks. The most substantial alteration they made to the property was the addition of a new architecturally sensitive boathouse structure which includes a large game room and floating dock system. The owners sensitively located this new, albeit comparable building, apart from the main house so as to not compromise its integrity.
By car, Lake Champlain is centrally located 4hrs from Boston, 6hrs from NYC and 90 miles from Montreal, Canada. The nearest international airport is in Burlington VT, an hour drive from the property.
