House Tour | written by: MARIAN CASTELL, Darien Town Historian | photos by: BAMBI RIEGEL | riegelpictureworks.com
Brought up in late 19th century New York City, Frazier Peters—the son of a noted Episcopal minister and graduate of Columbia University where he earned degrees in chemical engineering—found himself in the trenches and mud of World War I. It was sleeping next to the stone cottages among the War’s wet trenches in the fields of France that he discovered his deep love of these dwellings. This emotion developed into a driving desire to bring stone cottages to America, and transformed him into one of America’s first self-taught “green architects” incorporating energy-efficiency and the environment. He believed homes should be integrated with the whole landscape of hills, brooks, fields and trees. Houses should not be boxes that stood apart on a flat lawn, he believed, but, rather, spread out and part of the surprises found in the ups and downs of the landscapes’ natural flow.
During the Depression, Frazier felt the urgency to build modest homes, so he created a new, cost-efficient and easier method of stone construction. The walls were of poured wet concrete into which natural fieldstones were carefully placed so that interiors were cooler in summer and warmer in winter with the added benefit of being fireproof. He described this procedure in four books including Houses of Stone and Pour Yourself a House to show the ordinary person how to build them. From 1920 to 1940, he built more than 200 homes from Maine to Virginia, with about 60 in Connecticut, including the Arrowhead Way home featured here. His granddaughter, Laura Blau, co-authored a book about Frazier Peters’ work and legacy.
This stunning home on Arrowhead Way is a showcase example of Frazier Peters architecture—from how the house is integrated into its surroundings to its concrete/fieldstone walls and variety of wings and angles.
It was the beautiful and numerous fieldstones of Connecticut that brought him to our state to build so many of his houses, particularly in Fairfield County. He had a very distinctive style with a lot of loyal enthusiasts. In addition to the poured concrete walls, his homes feature leaded casement windows and slate roofs. Nature was brought inside to rooms positioned in separate wings that follow the existing natural elevations of the land, the use of many windows, patios, exposure of old wooden beams, as well as views from the variety of angles achieved via the placement of the wings. The mix of these elements created a rhythm of graceful beauty, with a bit of whimsey, that became a solid, temperature-modulated, fireproof, termite-proof home.
Peters’ homes also reflected the culture of that time when it was a luxury for each room to have a separate use of its own. This was a new privacy from prior centuries when people gathered in one large fireplace area to keep warm. In Frazier homes, kitchens were hidden as many families had servants, libraries were for reading and dining rooms were for entertainment, eating and conversation. As we have returned to sharing large family room/kitchen areas, many of these special homes have been adapted to include striking great rooms, making them modern while continuing to showcase the unique architectural heritage that makes them so beautiful.
Addendum: Frazier, a man ahead of his time, would be amazed at how his vision for cost-efficient, modestly-priced concrete homes and their many benefits has blasted into the future through 3D printing. Using a cutting-edge process in which a computer directs concrete through hoses that place round “beads” on top of each other to become walls with openings for electrical and plumbing, companies today are building hundreds of cost-efficient, environmentally friendly cement homes and structures. It is technology that may soon be used by NASA to build a landing site on the moon. Some of the best ideas for the future are indeed rooted in the past.
