It’s as if an unidentified flying object touched down in bucolic Redding, CT, just 60 miles from midtown Manhattan
But the curious 3,100-square-foot abode is actually a rare geodesic dome home with two bedrooms and two baths, central air conditioning, and an observation cupola that provides 360-degree views—perfect for stargazing.
is home on the market now For the first time in nearly half a century, for $950,000.
modeled on futuristic buckminster fuller The “off the grid earthship home” of the 1970s, Connecticut Place was built in 1978 by Raymond Noreen, an eccentric multimillionaire and milling machine heir. When Noren died last year, he left the dome to a longtime friend, musician Hal Lefferts.
,[Lefferts] Was shocked by the gift, had no interest in living in the dome, and decided to sell,” real estate agent Jennifer Thomas of Houlihan Lawrence told The Post.
Lefferts, who worked on the dome years ago, told The Post that he also inherited valuable treasures Noren had collected and left inside the dome, including a 15th-century, 500-pound Buddha head .
Despite the slump in the housing market, Thomas said his phone hasn’t stopped buzzing with calls about the strange UFO-shaped dwelling.
The agent said, “There’s been a lot of interest especially from millennials, who are attached to the place, and don’t want any change.”
In the early 1970s, futurist Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller popularized the radical circular design. He once wrote that the dome-house concept was “structured after the natural system of humans and trees with a central stem, or backbone, from which all the rest hang freely, as opposed to Gravity was used instead.”
Fuller, who died in 1981, believed that the concept represented freedom, and that a house with a geodesic dome could be built anywhere. The US military also experimented with the concept.
A stairway leads to a wow-factor cupola atop the house.
There is a lounge area under the cupola.
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Stairs to lounge.
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As for Noren, he pulled together a collection of friends and craftsmen—some described by his brother as “weed-smoking, talented hippies”—to help build the unique structure.
“My brother had a fascination with Buckminster Fuller, and thought the design of the geodesic dome was beautiful,” recalled lawyer Ronald Noren, who was four years younger than his brother. “And over time, most of my brother’s life, he was working on the dome. It was a very long process.
A college dropout who oversaw design and construction without an architect or engineer, Ray Noren was a perfectionist obsessed with getting every detail right.
“There was always work going on, with incredible woodwork and carvings that took years,” said his brother. “Almost everything in the house is bespoke. The woodwork in the house is absolutely amazing. And there’s a big Asian influence, just the vision of what he wanted. Even things like the hinges were handmade.
“I can’t even think of anything I saw in that house that was off the shelf. It was all custom…it was an enormous amount of labor. If my brother hadn’t passed, he might still be doing that.” He would have been living in the dome. He would have been the first foot out under all circumstances.