Here, serenity under glass

New Canaan, Conn. — THERE'S a story about Philip Johnson that his friends like to tell. The celebrated architect was entertaining at his Glass House estate in this bucolic suburban town. At one point, a female guest, obviously impressed with her surroundings, said, "Mr. Johnson, I would live here if you'd ask me to." The architect turned to her and coolly replied, "Madam, I didn't ask you."

For Johnson, this 47-acre residence was more than just his home; it was a pastoral retreat filled with buildings he designed, including the transparent house that gives the property its name. And Johnson had another, more personal reason to keep guests at arm's length: The estate was where he lived with David Whitney, whom he met in 1960.

Often relegated to a supporting role in accounts of Johnson's career, Whitney remains an enigmatic figure to this day. Intensely private, he shunned the media. Friends say the house was the couple's Eden, a place where they could live away from judgment and scrutiny. Most of the estate is concealed from the main road; you could drive by and miss it completely.

Beginning June 23, the Glass House will open its grounds to the public for the first time. Guided tours will take visitors to the 11 structures designed by Johnson that stand sentinel amid the thick grass and rolling hills. (The tours are mostly booked through October.) Together, these buildings form a hitherto unseen portrait of Johnson, and of Whitney. In many ways, the Glass House campus was their shared labor of love.

"Most of what was done there they did together. David would talk to Philip about architecture and they would debate the placement of things," says Hilary Lewis, an architecture historian and the coauthor of two books on Johnson. "Philip often said David had a terrific eye. It was his highest compliment."

Their life together is a subject of fascination among academics, some of whom argue Johnson's architecture became more "gay" as a result of this relationship. Of all his work, they say, the Glass House estate epitomizes Johnson's gay sensibility.

(Johnson died in 2005 at age 98, leaving the entire property to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Whitney died of cancer five months later, at 66.)

The highlight of the tour is the actual Glass House (1949), a 1,728-square-foot, see-through modernist masterpiece constructed of glass and steel framing. Inspired by Mies van der Rohe, it served as Johnson's living quarters for most of his adult life.