Paul and Marion Rand’s quintessential mid-century modern home, designed by Paul Rand and Ann Binkley Rand and built in 1953, is on the market. The landmark home, set in the wooded Connecticut town of Weston, is the epitome of modern aesthetics with a touch of Japanese simplicity, exactly the kind of structure you’d picture Rand living in until his death in 1996.
All vintage photos by Hans Namuth
“The Rand House avoids the cliches of the “modernistic”, strives for a warm and companionable use of building materials. The wood used in the frame is a black-stained cypress, the white paneling is of Marlite, and the flags for the court and entrance are blue-stones. The house is congenial to all types of New England weather,” notes the Weston Historical Society in the sales prospectus.
Paul and Ann Rand. (Courtesy William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty)
Ann Binkley, the former Mrs. Rand (above), who wrote children’s books with Mr. Rand, studied at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) with architect Mies van der Rohe, receiving her B.S. in 1945. She married Paul Rand in 1949 and immediately began work on the house at 87 Goodhill Road in Weston.
The house offering (for more information click here) in conjunction with the Paul Rand Estate auction (click here) on September 13, 2018, of furniture, housewares, personal artifacts, paintings, graphics and printed design pieces, is garnering great interest among designers and Rand admirers. It is indeed becoming something of a phenomenon for those who not simply collect Rand design but want some intimate connection to the man whose life was design and for whom design was everywhere..
(Thanks to Bob Burns, Rand’s friend and colleague.)
All contemporary photos by Bob Gregson. (Courtesy William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty)
