IN GOOD TASTE

An influx of fresh design energy has arrived in the modernist enclave of Litchfield, Connecticut

-  ARATI MENON

IT’S HARD TO IMAGINE a more archetypal New England town than Litchfield. Tucked into the northwestern corner of Connecticut, it’s the kind of place that could have inspired a George Henry Durrie landscape (and did inspire Gilmore Girls), with its village green and stately Colonial homes. But something unexpected lies beyond the pastoral charm: dozens of striking midcentury-modern buildings. Commissions in the 1950s by the legendary Marcel Breuer were the catalyst for work by other like-minded architects, including Eliot Noyes, Richard Neutra, and John M. Johansen. Not coincidentally, the city also became home to a wild, boundary-pushing party scene.