Palladian in front, modernism out back

Today's indexing included an article in Antiques about Chick Austin, art historian and longtime director of the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut. His house is sort of a folly based on Palladian houses he and his wife saw in Italy on their 1929 honeymoon, especially one by Vincenzo Scamozzi. The house is 86 feet long and 18 feet deep. It looks like a theater backdrop because it is indeed theatrical and the Austins entertained enthusiastically. I've had a book entitled Magic Façade: the Austin House for some time so I went down and looked at it when I was done indexing.

What I'd not paid attention to before is that another bedroom was added on the second floor, providing also a covering for part of the rear terrace. It is designed in a boxy Italian modern style, of which I am enamored, especially since visiting northern Italy in 2018. If you delight in geometric shapes and glorious fenestration, the rear side of the house is an exquisite Venturian decorated shed.

Thinking of the house and the Wadsworth Atheneum reminds me of a Thanksgiving visit in the early 1980s to Hartford. I was visiting a Cornell piano grad student and silent film accompanist who lived in West Hartford. We visited the Wadsworth and there was a Sol LeWitt exhibition on view. My friend was very spiritual and the LeWitt works freaked him out and we had to leave the museum. Somehow I've never been back to the museum or Hartford. Maybe I should move Hartford up the list for post-covid travels.