Around Town
‘We Are Part of the Community’: Glass House Spotlights, Bolsters Tour Offerings for Locals
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Christa Carr recalls the tremendous anticipation that surrounded the opening to the public of the Glass House in 2006. Handed over to the National Trust for Historic Preservation 20 years prior, it opened to tourists following the passing of its world-renowned architect and occupant, Philip Johnson, in 1985, and those tours essentially “sold out for the first two years,” said Carr, communications director for the Glass House. “Everybody knew Philip Johnson,” she recalled on a recent afternoon in downtown New Canaan, at a coffee shop around the corner from the Visitor Center and Design Store downtown, where buses depart 12 times per day on weekdays for the 47-acre Ponus Ridge property. “It was a real treat to be invited to Philip Johnson’s house when he was alive.”
And it’s a treat to go now, though to this point, the overwhelming majority of visitors are out-of-towners. In 2014, statistics from the Glass House shows, during the site’s May 1 to Nov.