Public finally gets to tour Glass House

One of America's hottest new tourist attractions, the iconic Glass House and 47-acre estate of the late architect Philip Johnson, opens this Saturday in New Canaan. But unless you've already secured tickets, the likelihood of soon stepping foot onto this amazing site is slim to none. The National Trust for Historic Preservation, which owns and operates the landmark, has announced that tour tickets have sold out for the site's inaugural public season. That's the bad news.

The good news is that the Trust also announced that it has begun selling tickets for 2008 tours, which will be offered May through November. "One of the most celebrated examples of modernist architecture in the world" is the way the Trust characterizes Johnson's masterpiece, which served as his home from its completion in January 1949 until his death at age 98 in January 2005.

For those aficionados of art, architecture and landscape design who can't bear the thought of holding out until next spring, there is one way to get on a tour — provided that cost is of little concern. This Saturday, the Trust will formally open its newest Historic Site with an Inaugural Gala Picnic that runs from 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Visitors will be treated to a tour, gourmet lunch and a performance by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. A few tickets, which begin at $500, remain. "Until you have experienced the Glass House first hand, it's impossible to appreciate Philip Johnson's vision," said Director of Visitor Experience

Dorothy Dunn during a recent press tour. That vision included his house of glass and 13 other structures — including two museum-like buildings devoted to paintings and sculpture — and the creation of extraordinary vistas with a man-made lake and landscaped fields and woodlands.

Dunn said tours will be an intimate experience to help visitors "disconnect" from the outside world "and truly focus on this particular place."

A maximum of six tours — each limited to 10 persons — will be given daily; cell phones are never allowed and cameras are permitted on specific tours only. "We want this to be like theater, with visitors always aware that they are in the country," Dunn said.

In this idyllic spot, it would be difficult to think otherwise.

Born in 1906 in Cleveland, Ohio, the Harvard University school of architecture graduate was already a force in American modern architecture when he made his initial five-acre New Canaan purchase in 1946. (Johnson served as the first director of architecture at the Museum of Modern Art in 1932, where he curated what is now considered a groundbreaking show on modernism, and was co-author of its accompanying book, "The International Style: Architecture Since 1922.")

When guests came to the Glass House, Johnson reportedly would tell them: "Just shut up and look around." And look around, one must. The site features 14 structures; 11 were designed by Johnson and three were original to the property (from the 18th and 19th centuries) and renovated by Johnson and his longtime companion, David Whitney, a curator and avid art collector. Johnson created the Glass House, the site's main pavilion, connected by walkways to the Brick House (1949), the guest pavilion; a circular concrete pool (1955-'56) with a rectangular platform; and the Lake Pavilion (1962), a pre-cast concrete structure on a man-made pond.

The Painting Gallery (1965) is an earth berm construction inspired by the ancient Treasury of Atreus to house his and Whitney's collection of works by Frank Stella, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and Julian Schnabel, among others. The Sculpture Gallery (1970) is a glass-roofed building, with a multi-level interior that calls to mind hillside villages in the Greek islands; it houses works by such artists as Rauschenberg, Stella, George Segal and Andrew Lord.

Johnson also designed the Entrance Gate (1977), a "monumental" piece of sculpture made of concrete and aluminum; the Library/Study (1980), a tiny building in a field, with a fireplace but no bathroom; Ghost House (1984), an "architectural folly" made of see-through chain-link material in the shape of a traditional house, which in Johnson covered in vegetation and flowers; the Lincoln Kirstein Tower (1985), a tribute to Johnson's friend and founder of the New York City Ballet; and Da Monsta, a visitor's pavilion (1995), inspired by Stella's art work.

Of course, the most photographed of the group is the 1,728-square-foot rectangular glass pavilion (which Johnson always considered as one-half of his home, with Brick House the other).

As is noted on the tour, the house — which ushered in the International Style into residential American architecture — is iconic because of "its innovative use of materials and seamless integration into the landscape."

Johnson's pavilion has four glass exterior walls with painted steel beams, no flat interior walls and freestanding closets that separate the sleeping area from open space kitchen-living-dining room. Most of the furniture was designed by his friend, Mies van der Rohe. A tiled toilet and shower is contained within a conical unit behind the house's fireplace. In summer, it was cooled naturally: each glass wall has a center door that was opened for ventilation. (The guesthouse, made of brick, has a heating/air-conditioning system.) Johnson — who designed such landmarks as New York's AT&T building and the "Lipstick Building" at 53rd and Third Avenue — donated Glass House to the National Trust in 1986, retaining the right to live at the site until his death. Whitney directed that his estate be used to support the Glass House preservation and programming; he died of cancer in 2005 at age 66.

The Glass House is one of 28 historic sites in the United States maintained by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a private nonprofit organization that promotes the conservation of American history.

Johnson once said that to be "in the presence of a great work of architecture is such a satisfaction that you can go hungry for days. To create a feeling such as mine in Chartres Cathedral [in France] when I was 13 is the aim of architecture."

Architecture, he would say, "should move you, amuse you, inspire you." Visitors here — no matter their architectural preferences — will be hard-pressed not to feel all three.

WHEN YOU GO

What & where: The Philip Johnson Glass House, in New Canaan, a new property of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, opens to the public on June 23. Tours & tickets: Tours are sold out for 2007. Tickets, which are valid for guided tours at a specific date and time, are now being offered for 2008; they will be offered daily, except Tuesdays, May through November. Tours are given regardless of weather. And once tickets are purchased, they cannot be returned, refunded or exchanged for an alternate date. All tours begin at the Trust's Visitors Center, at 199 Elm St. in downtown New Canaan, directly across the street from the train station; books and a limited number of Johnson-inspired jewelry, pottery and home furnishings are available for purchase.

Shuttle vans take visitors to the Glass House property on Ponus Ridge Road. Since the estate is traversed on foot, comfortable walking shoes are suggested. Cost is $25 for a 90-minute tour (cameras not permitted); $40 for a two-hour tour, during which photography and sketching are allowed. A visitors' guide ( a set of 12 postcards) is included in the tour price.

For tickets to this Saturday's opening-day picnic, contact Meri Erickson at 801-8446.

More info: To purchase 2008 tour tickets, visit www.philipjohnsonglasshouse.org or call 1-866-811-4111. For additional information, visit www.nationaltrust.org.

Jaunts, which runs once a month, highlights destinations of interest for day-trippers.