The Former Residence of Harvard Five Architect Landis Gores Lists for the First Time Ever
The celebrated modernist designed the $3 million home for himself in 1948, and it has remained in the family ever since—until now
For the first time, the former residence of Harvard Five architect Landis Gores is on the market, with an asking price of $3 million. The New Canaan, Connecticut, residence boasts three bedrooms and three full baths across 3,096 square feet, on a 4.15-acre property. Gores was part of a group of Harvard-trained and educated modernist architects, including Philip Johnson, Marcel Breuer, Eliot Noyes, and John M. Johansen, who settled in New Canaan in the 1940s and 1950s and became known as the Harvard Five. The group used the quiet Connecticut suburb as a canvas to scale down European Modernist ideas into progressive homes for themselves and daring clients
“As far as I know, he’s the only Harvard Five architect who tried to combine Bauhaus principles with [Frank Lloyd] Wright,” Inger Stringfellow of William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty, who is handling the listing along with Becky Walsh, tells Galerie. Stringfellow adds, “Wright for his concept of compression and release, and Mies van der Rohe for the floating walls. It would be a perfect ‘case study’ house because it is pure and has not been altered since it was built 80 years ago.”
Gores designed this home for himself and his family in 1948, and it has remained in the Gores family ever since. His notable creations include New Canaan’s Gores Pavilion, and he also worked on Philip Johnson’s Glass House in town. Outside of Connecticut, Gores is credited with the MoMA garden and the Booth House in Bedford, New York.
His widow, Pamela, lived in the New Canaan home until her passing at age 102 in December 2025. Her daughters, Ainslie Gilligan and Valerie Gores, made the decision to list the single-story property. The home still has many original features, including lighting by famed designer Richard Kelly and other postwar modernist details. Additionally, the home boasts a rear terrace—complete with an oval-shaped swimming pool and circular gathering spaces—designed by Gores in the 1980s.
Components of the International Style, like clean lines and expansive glass walls, are blended with natural materials such as stone and grey-stained cypress siding, resulting in a look similar to the organic designs of Wright. The home was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2002 and is currently protected through the National Trust for Historic Preservation.