1959 - inside the Miller House #1 : a masterpiece by Eero Saarinen.

9/06/2025 11:54:00 AM

Commissioned by industrialist and philanthropist J. Irwin Miller and his wife Xenia Simons Miller, the home was completed in 1957 and is renowned for its open layout, flat roof, and integration of architecture, landscape, and interior design. The interiors were crafted by Alexander Girard, and the landscape was designed by Dan Kiley, making it a true collaboration among design legends.

Designed by architects Eero Saarinen and Alexander Girard with Kevin Roche as associate, the diverse arrangements of space give the house wonderful variety inside the 100' long and 80' wide rectangle. Entering the great central living area, which spreads to glass walls and loggias at north, south and west, you feel exuberant and ten feet tall. Then, moving on to the smaller rooms at each corner of the house you gain a pleasant sense of seclusion and privacy. Another element which adds enormously to the family's pleasure is the way the lighting is woven through the structure. Bands of intersecting skylights pierce the roof and also border the outside walls. The result is a house alive with light. There is overhead illumination by day and night in all but the bedrooms; and in every room except the bathrooms, light pours in horizontally as well from a wide window wall.

The outside walls (see them above) are concrete block covered with richly grained black slate panels which form a dark band around the house and add solidity to its appearance. Both the slate and sliding glass panels between them are a uniform 8' high. Above the slate the massive, white drum-like roof seems to float. The 10' wide terrazzo terrace surrounding the house links all parts of it, enlarges the living, dining and sitting loggias and forms a sort of Arabian Nights platform on which the house rests. To create the effect of a broader base for the building, a planting of ivy ground cover extends 15' beyond the terraces. The framework of the house is steel and all sixteen of the elegantly proportioned steel posts which support the roof are left unconcealed and finished in white enamel. Aluminum trims the door openings, sliding glass windows and indoor wall panels.

The organization of the plan in five parts follows the family living pattern ideally. The great center area is a big, handsome, festive meeting room for activities and entertain- ment. Inspired by old Mid-West farmhouses where all rooms opened on a common room, it has the same magnetic effect, expresses the common unity of the family. Its great scale and magnificent materials are exalting as well. The shape of the area (like a highly irregular cross) is continuously interesting because it looks outdoors on four sides; and at each corner, doors lead to the four other parts of the house.

These are private worlds, almost like separate houses. In the children's world, bedrooms, bathrooms, storage are wrapped around the playroom. Parents have a sitting room- bedroom and a well isolated study. Each of them has a large walk-in dressing room where any disorder can be concealed by a closed door. The guest room occupies its own corner just a few steps from the south terrace. The service quarter, with a kitchen large enough to include a family dining area, also contains a laundry, refrigerator room and capacious, walk-in storage rooms in lieu of numerous little cabinets. There is a basement for storage and for mechanical equipment which produces an ideal indoor climate the year round.

Formality and informality meet happily in this house. The grandeur of the materials and reticence of design may have a formal connotation. But nothing was chosen for show. Everything was designed to make living as pleasant as possible. The house lives' informally and practically with an excellent division of shared space and separate space. Each of the four individual houses' looks after its occupants well-parents, children, servant, guest. And the family have discovered that such great order brings great freedom. Throughout the house and particularly in the splendidly organized and lighted center room there is a new beauty free of clutter and confusion. It unlocks the imagination, refreshes the spirit. and brings serenity.