All products featured on Architectural Digest are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
A home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright—one that the architect himself briefly lived in—has listed for $8 million. Tirranna, also known as the Rayward-Sheperd House, is currently on the market and listed through Marsha Charles and Albert Safdie of Coldwell Banker Realty. Located in New Cannaan, Connecticut, the 7,000-square-foot home is one of the American icon’s largest and most expansive residential projects.
Built in 1955, the property gets its name from the Australian aboriginal word meaning “running waters,” a reference to the Noroton River which trails right by the home. Set on 15 acres of forested land, the grounds of the home were designed by Frank Okamura and Charles Middeleer and make up one of the most extensive Wright properties, featuring a greenhouse, tennis court, barn, play house, circular pool, and one-room guest house. 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.
Inside the home the material pallet is classic Wright. Philippine mahogany decks the walls and complements the Cherokee red concrete floors. Built-in bookshelves and furniture stage the living quarters while large windows bring nature inside. The lighting, cabinetry, and furniture is all original.
The home was first commissioned by John L. Rayward, though it was Herman R. Shepherd who completed Wright’s vision after purchasing the property in 1964. In The Frank Lloyd Companion, Wright researcher and lecturer William Allin Storrer writes that Rayward was in “constant pursuit of the lowest bid,” while the home was under construction, and it was Shepherd who salvaged the home after most of these economic choices.
According to the press release, Wright himself briefly stayed in the home while working on one of his most notable projects, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. The greenhouse was built using some of the leftover scalloped glass windows from the Guggenheim project.
About 40 miles north of the Big Apple, New Canaan is no stranger to modernist masterpieces. Nearby is Phillip Johnson’s Glass House, and the city also houses work by Marcel Breuer and Eliot Noyes. Tirranna by Frank Lloyd Wright most recently listed in 2017 and was reported to sell for $4.8 million in 2018. It’s one of a handful of Wright properties that have hit the market this year, which also includes Tulsa’s Westhope and the George W. Smith House in Illinois.
