It would be easy to write off New Canaan as just another affluent Connecticut suburb, where Ralph Lauren Americana, Ivy League nostalgia, and weekend golf are par for the course. And, depending on where you’re visiting from, maybe that’s part of the draw—to see how the one-percent lives, to saunter down Elm Street as though you, too, own real estate in the 06840. But there’s something unexpectedly enticing about New Canaan’s picture-perfect topography—a creative energy that drew forward thinkers like the Silvermine Art Colony, who gathered in a barn to challenge portrayals of the pastoral, or the Harvard Five, who would turn America’s conception of architecture on its head.
For design enthusiasts, New Canaan is the place to be in the fall, when the New Canaan Museum & Historical Society puts on October4Design, a month-long initiative to celebrate architecture, art, and design. The jewel in the crown is the biennial Modern House Day Tour, falling this year on October 18th, during which private, midcentury modern homes open their doors to well-paying visitors. Grace Farms, the sprawling, SANAA-designed cultural center, will also be getting in on the action, celebrating its ten year anniversary with live music events. Beyond the man-made beauty, there’s always Waveny Park, dotted with red maples and white oaks that put on a color show at the turn of the season.
How to get there
To get to New Canaan from New York City, take the Metro North New Haven Line from Grand Central Station. You can get a direct train to and from New Canaan during peak hours (between 6-9am and 4-7pm), otherwise you’ll have to connect via Stamford. It’s a journey that takes roughly an hour and a half, and it’s a pleasant one, with plush red seats, woodsy scenery, and echoes of Mad Men, what with the commuters drinking out of brown paper bags. To get around, Uber might be your best bet, but most pins on the map are within close proximity.
Around for over 100 years, The Playhouse was restored in 2024 under Cinema Lab, and boasts an on-site restaurant called The Pub.
Courtesy The Playhouse
The movie theater will be screening Modernism, Inc., a documentary about architect Eliot Noyes, this October.
Courtesy The Playhouse
What to do in New Canaan
One could easily spend a half day exploring the 49 acres that make up Philip Johnson’s Glass House, one of two modernist structures available for public viewing in New Canaan. Johnson—along with Marcel Breuer, Landis Gores, John Johansen, and Eliot Noyes—was a member of the “Harvard Five,” a group of architects from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design who flocked to New Canaan in the 1940s and introduced the International Style to the United States. The Glass House stands as a prime example of modernist design tenets—flat planes, open floor plans, large windows, etc.—that redefined New Canaan’s built landscape. Take the Glass House + Galleries Tour, which includes Johnson’s repoussoir, the Brick House, as well as the surrounding galleries, each veritable attractions in their own right. It’s a surreal walk-through, imagining figures like Andy Warhol staying as a guest, or the Velvet Underground performing in the field where Johnson liked to put on “happenings”—to the neighbors’ dismay.
Over 100 modern homes were built in New Canaan between the years of 1949 and 1973, but only 80 or so remain due to demolition. The goal of the Modern House Day Tour is to preserve these vestiges of American glamour amidst a rising tide of McMansions and renovations, attracting visitors from Canada to Australia. This year’s tour will feature five houses instead of the usual four, including a more recent build, with designs by John Johansen, Philip Johnson, and William Bimel Kehm. “This tour was started in 1949 to promote these houses, fell off in the 70s, and then was resurrected by a woman named Laura Pla and brought to the Historical Society because she was noticing that the houses were being slated for demolition,” says Nancy Geary, executive director of the New Canaan Museum & Historical Society. “We know of at least two houses that have been saved because people that were on the tours then bought them. Right now, I think modern houses are like shrines.”