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The nearly 7,000-square-foot home known as Tirranna and designed by Frank Lloyd Wright has landed a buyer.
Closing earlier this week for $6 million, the house in New Canaan, CT, was listed May with an $8 million asking price. The seven-bedroom, 8.5-bath home was built in 1956 and sits on 14 bucolic acres.
When the remarkable dwelling hit the market last year, co-listing agent Albert Safdie called it “the quintessential Usonian home.”
And that pedigree is what attracted the buyers.
Living room
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Greenhouse
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Kitchen
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Dining area
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Pool
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“The buyers are fans of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture,” Safdie says. “You could tell that from how well informed they were about the property on their first visit. They researched the history and gathered information from archived documents. They knew everything about it—they pointed out some of the original room setups and referred to original floor plans.”
Wright’s signature Usonian-style homes are mostly ranch-level and crafted from Philippine mahogany, as this one is. These houses also follow nearly the same layout, with a bedroom wing, wall of windows, and a fireplace in the open-concept living and dining areas, plus heated flooring and built-ins throughout.
Included with this property is a guest studio, large barn, tennis court, and pool. Other unique features include a rooftop observatory and a wine cellar born out of a bomb shelter.
“They loved the trails around the house and mentioned they would like to expand a trail on the back of the property, which extends uphill to a giant boulder,” says Safdie of the buyers’ plans for the lot.
Landscape architect Frank Okamura designed the grounds, which include a waterfall. The Japanese gardens at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden is among the late Okamura’s projects.
“We had great interest in the house and several offers,” Safdie says, noting that some were eying the place as a primary residence and others were considering it as a country home. “Buyers came from varied locations but primarily from the New York-metropolitan area. The current owners elected Tirranna to be their primary residence.”
The sale is significant for a few reasons. First, it’s among the higher-priced Wright properties to be sold in the last few years. While the Ennis House in Los Angeles sold for $18 million in 2019, most Wright-designed homes sell for far less.
Also, this ranks as one of the most expensive properties sold in New Canaan in the last year, according to Coldwell Banker Global Luxury, with which Safdie and Marsha Charles co-listed the property. Chau Ngo, of the Jennifer Leahy Team at Douglas Elliman, secured the buyer in the deal.
Wright was at a high point in his career when he designed this project, simultaneously working on the Guggenheim Museum in New York City and even living in this house during that period. In fact, some of the famed museum’s scalloped glass windows were used to build this property’s greenhouse.
The post Frank Lloyd Wright’s Connecticut Masterpiece ‘Tirranna’ Mesmerizes a Buyer for $6M appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.
