A. Lawrence Kocher and Gerhard Ziegler

Fairfield County, Connecticut 

The July 1933 issue featured the house of Rex Stout, designed by former RECORD editor A. Lawrence Kocher with Gerhard Ziegler. View the original pages here.

The rooms of the house for Rex Stout are grouped around a garden court and relate in floor levels to the hillside slope. The house, built in 1930, is one story in height, except that one wing for guest rooms, studio and service is two stories high. The living room faces toward a broad and rural Connecticut valley. The terrace at the northwest commands a view of this valley and of the swimming pool, fifty feet below the terrace. The court terrace is used for sitting and dining.

The exterior walls are of concrete cast in place with Van Guilder steel molds. There are, in fact, two walls each four inches thick with a continuous air space intervening. These two separate walls are tied together with light steel rods at intervals of two feet.

Color is used to emphasize the third dimension. Walls that serve as a background to terraces are in light gray. Terminating wall faces are painted black. All steel casement windows are painted an orange-red color. Window sills and projecting window heads are of aluminum. Doors facing the exterior are orange-red in color.