Ieoh Ming Pei, Katonah, Westchester County, USA, 1951-1952
OfHouses presents “Pritzkers’ First Houses, part V”: I. M. Pei (Pritzker 1983) built his first house on the hills of Katonah at the begining of the 50s. The house, still used by the Pei family as a weekend retreat, is an elegant Miesian glass box, raised on stilts to provide a better view of the carefully planted Chinese pine trees outside. The oversized verandas and the wooden structure imbue an Eastern feeling to the little summerhouse. It is however the landscape that helped Pei “to cure his homesickness for his birth country”. As Pei recalls: “We created a little garden – very small but very Chinese – with some grasses and flowers which reminded us of China. Nature and man working together, that is in my blood and I brought it from China.” (Photos: © Pei Cobb Freed & Partners.)
